Å®ÉúСÊÓƵ

As far as I know, there have been no recent reports of browsers among
paperbacks suffering from instant hair-raising, as if from electric shock.
But reading the first few pages of Great Mambo Chicken and the Transhuman
Condition by Ed Regis (Penguin, pp 308, £6.99) could easily persuade
you that it might be a good idea to don a hat while reading on, so as not
to startle others.

For the opening pages mention the idea of robots the size of molecules
that would be able to operate ‘atom by atom’ in repairing living cells,
for example, or arranging carbon atoms to form the structure of diamond.
This discussion of nanotechnology to me is like receiving the first jolt
of what in boxing parlance is called the old one-two. The second blow to
the midriff follows with the idea of downloading the contents of the human
brain into a computer, this being the first step along the way to controlling
everything in the Universe and learning all there is to know.

The book’s subsidiary title is ‘Science slightly over the edge’. Once
you get used to that vertiginous position, the enjoyment of the schemes
of eccentric and obsessive individuals – mild terms – is intoxicating. A
tribe of Arapaho living inside a space-travelling metal globe may seem an
entirely practical project, though another blow to the solar plexus may
be a scheme to place a ring of particle accelerators round the Sun to squeeze
plasma out of it like juice from an orange.

Regis writes in lapel-seizing style which adds to the book’s grip –
for me it reaches 100 on the Ancient Mariner scale.

* * *

Bookshelves, as they say, already groan under the burden of books on
threats to the environment. But, as Neil Evernden says in The Social Creation
of Nature (John Hopkins University Press, pp 179, £10.50), a rereading
of Rachel Carson’s warning about the dangers of pesticide abuse, Silent
Spring, published 30 years ago, ‘leaves one with the feeling that little
has changed but the names of the poisons’.

Most people are aware of threats to ‘nature’ from pollution. Stop pollution
and learn to live in a society without the pressures of industrialisation
say environmentalists. In practice, says the opposite camp, that would mean
near catastrophe and looming famine. Both sides are concerned about the
possibility of leading a good life. The real question, then, is what constitutes
a good life and central to this is what we consider nature to be. Is it
the natural world? Are human beings part of it? Or have they, in a sense,
invented something else and called it ‘nature’ for their own reasons? For
Evernden, ‘wildness’ is what should be defended and preserved. This is a
thoughtful and illuminating book.

* * *

According to the foreword by Jean Houston, Trialogues at the Edge of
the West (Bear and Co, pp 175, £8) is ‘a minefield of mind probes,
a singular sapient circle of gentlemen geniuses at their edgiest of edges’,
which is a lot of alliteration to live up to. Those taking part in the three-cornered
conversation are Ralph Abraham, Terence McKenna and Rupert Sheldrake.

The book is that most difficult form of reading, a transcription of
recordings, with all the asides and connecting remarks included, such as
‘I think we should ask Ralph.’ ‘Yes, let’s get Ralph in here.’ But that
is not the only difficulty in reading the record.

The trialogues are exchanges of ideas about creativity, the imagination,
theories of chaos and what the authors call the ‘resacralisation’ of the
world. They may need many a rereading to assimilate such concepts as the
world-soul and such statements as ‘There is a need to make shamanistic
journeys, to travel vertically up into logos, the world of spirit, where
information is stored and is in a process of evolution.’ Fortunately, the
book contains a glossary.

* * *

Two biographies are worth noting, the first being Stephen Hawking, A
Life in Science by Michael White and John Gribbin (Penguin, pp 304, £6.99).
Hawking is a modern Philoctetes, wheelchair-bound and unable to talk except
through a machine, yet becoming a world-famous figure as a scientist and
author of a fantastically successful book about a subject that few people
could have thought best-seller material; he needed a biography, for obvious
reasons. It could have been little more than the exploitation of Hawking’s
fame. In fact, this book is a portrayal of a scientific genius that shows
he is also a recognisable human being, with characteristics and problems
that the groundlings share.

Second is Darwin, by Adrian Desmond and James Moore (Penguin, pp 808,
£9.99), a bargain by any standard. Of course, readers hoping to find
romance and adventure in this work will be copiously rewarded. They will
also find the teeming background of Victorian Britain, the contradictions
of its society and the intellectual vigour and upheaval of the period described
with the enthusiasm of Dickens based on massive research and material unavailable
to the previous biographers of Darwin. Readers will be swept into and borne
along by the narrative from the first page. Result – exhilaration. The
book, on its own, is a justification of paperback publishing.

* * *

Not the most attractive title, Mind and Society Fads, but the book covers
an amusing and beneficial collection of crazes, popular fallacies and fashions
that have affected the US (and sometimes Britain, too, it must be admitted)
in this century. Compiled by Frank Hoffmann and William Bailey, the book
(Harrington Park Press*, pp 285, £11.95) lists the subjects of the
short, enlightening essays alphabetically.

The familiar and the strange appear: the Bermuda Triangle, orgonomy,
Einstein and goldfish swallowing are here. So are British coronations, death
education, UFOs and Van Gogh. All the items can be read with enjoyment and
the pleasure of despising other people’s folly or credulity. But beware,
you may be caught out by a fad that once caught you up. Have you ever thought
seriously of talking to plants to help their development, as the Prince
of Wales is alleged to do? Can you remember the mantras you used to chant?

* * *

Richard Feynman’s The Character of Physical Law (Penguin, pp 173, £5.99)
is based on a series of lectures he gave at Cornell University in the 1960s.
It has an introduction by Paul Davies. If tempted to skip this, don’t. It
is a touching tribute to Feynman’s own character, his humanity and brilliantly
intuitive mind and will increase the enjoyment of reading Feynman at his
best in explaining the development and achievements of modern physics and
the never ending quest for new laws.

Feynman’s style is conversational, calling on vivid analogy, sometimes
jolting the fascinated reader with throwaway, appealing candour: ‘. . .
one does not, by knowing all the physical laws as we know them today, immediately
obtain an understanding of anything much’. Davies says that Feynman’s vision
was exhilarating. It is impossible to come to the end of these lectures
without feeling some of that elation. (MIT Press has also published another
edition of the lectures, but it does not have the introduction by Davies.)

* * *

Mark Walker, in German National Socialism and the Quest for Nuclear
Power (Cambridge University Press, pp 290, £13.95), argues that the
German decision not to try to develop nuclear weapons during the Second
World War was a reasonable policy at the time and nothing to do with moral
or political factors.

The argument is tenable and even convincing, though it may be minimising
the effects of allied bombing and sabotage, especially on the production
of heavy water. Work on nuclear weapons for the Third Reich posed an agonising
moral dilemma for some German scientists who had come to recognise that
the regime was thoroughly evil. On the other hand, scientists worked willingly
and successfully on the development of rocket weapons. Walker’s research
leads him to the conclusion that there was no ‘failure’ of German effort
in nuclear fission research.

* * *

Henry Hobhouse’s Seeds of Change (Papermac, pp 252, £9.99) tears
down so many received ideas that it might have to be read in small doses,
three times a day. The author deals with the history of five plants that
‘transformed mankind’. They are quinine, potato, sugar, cotton and tea.
If you thought that Raleigh introduced the potato to Europe, for instance,
you will have to think again.

Hobhouse often throws a surprising light into corners, such as informing
us that methods of navigating ships were as closely guarded as state secrets
and revealing them to foreigners was to risk justifiable punishment. The
history of all five plants reveals their role in often violent social change,
witness cotton and the American Civil War. This is an unusual and enjoyable
approach to the events of the past four centuries.

* * *

The hideously titled CyberPunk by Katie Hafner and John Markoff (Corgi,
pp 480, £5.99) is prone to the American sin of prolixity. It is about
the misdemeanours and crimes of computer hackers. If you can tolerate the
constant use of first names, which is apt to be confusing and ridiculously
chummy at the same time, the book is good on the damage and worse that hackers
can do by penetrating the most security-conscious computer systems.

*Distributed in Britain by Turnaround, 25 Horsell Rd, London N5 1XL.