h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I dunno about your conclusions. 19th Century factual writing is a genre with many practioners and a huge, huge reading public. Many thousands went out every weekend to collect samples from pools, woodlands, beaches etc. Natural science writing was consumed by the bucket-load. However specialised genres, be they train spotting or text speak, are hard to break into especially after the craze that caused them has passed.

As an example of its type, Darwin's writing is really, really good. Appart from some muddled ideas two thirds of the way through the book on speciation, which are very sleep inducing, it is a smashing read. That is one of the reasons it became famous and has stayed famous. The science had its equals published in other popular books but they weren't nearly as good.



PS: I am not saying Darwin's science is ordinary (his published papers and letters are where that is measured) but there were lots of scientific books out there and Darwin's are consistently among the best.

Good point. Darwin was remarkable, and I don't want to diss his writing just because I found it tough going at 16, although in my defence, I was a bit of Conrad and George Eliot fan back then, so it wasn't just Victorians...

Darwin's contemporaries, however, shared my 16-year-old's view, at least according to the Times Literary Supplement:

http://www.the-tls.co.uk/tls/public/article1055226.ece

Marx and Engels weren't bowled over by the style, either, though they loved the content. Now, when German economic theorists start criticising your prose...

Interesting. However, I think Darwin's prose style needs to be compared to the millions of pages of natural history from the 19th Century. Comparing scientific writing to George Eliot fictional efforts is a bit hard since the audiences were so different - not least a lot of scientific readers were actually going out and physically following-up what they had read. Also Eliot could alter her plotlines in a way Darwin would have struggled to do with palaeontology.

The TLS article just seems naive although fun and anecdotally informative in its own way. On the other hand the author is deeply embedded in the right conference circuit.

She is even a member of the Dorset Natural History Society which is just round the corner where Pengally did much of his work.

I think that's true. Mostly, I'm writing for people who write for general audiences.

I do know how to read (and translate) a scientific paper. That's plot-heavy, and short on humour, usually - unless it's intended for the Journal of Irreproducible Results. Or prose designed for the Ignobel Prize.

Anyhow, this piece was intended to be light-hearted - and a glimpse into science writing for the outsider - rather than a serious critique of Darwin.

Who, as I said, was a briliant fella.

I put the TLS article in the way of a brainbox from Cambridge University and this is what came out...



Well...! What a lovely thing to read. Even better because I know the reviewer (she is a good sort).

Darwin can write like an angel, albeit a hardworking, careful, agonised angel. Without his complex, elegant metaphors, for example, we would understand far less about the complex, elegant (and brutal) systems he wants us to understand. And D knows just how to deploy that metaphor (Gillian Beer's 'Darwin's Plots (1993) is wonderfully good on this). It was also Beer who helped people to see the narrative structures at work in D's prose. It is D who borrows from the novelists toolkit - tension, relief, an uncertain arc, a strong and yet sympathy evoking narrative voice. There is wonder and immensity and sheer, splendid massiveness - and plenty of almost loving description.

Levine argues the other way, a little ('look, look, the influence of Darwin here, here and here) but his premise is simple - read the text and then argue about it rather than arguing about the idea of it (George Levine - grand sir of science and lit in the C19th - can also write like an angel).

As to fiction and natural history, there are lots of points of crossover. Sympathy, entertainment, close passionate involvement with the subject. I could go on (please don't, they cry).

And D really can write (although I think you might have to have the last word on that...)

Well, obviously your expert has the last word on that.

Thanks for the enlightenment.

Hey, PT, I have a question:

Your comments on this column, and some other discussion we've been having, have given me an idea for the 16th.

Do you think your correspondent would object to my quoting the insightful comments above in a further discussion of biology writing?

Probably not. Academics are always fond of being quoted after all.

I will give them a yell and see what they have to say.

Hmmm - it is getting late on a Firday evening and I can no longer spell. My signature is unrecognisable.

Great, thanks. Just let me know about the quote.

My excuse for all the typos I've just committed is that it's been in the triple-digits Fahrenheit for a week.

Any word from your friend?

Indeed, I do have one.

I will send you an email via the post office.