TOO many good books this month. I鈥檝e been shuffling paperbacks into 鈥渄iscard鈥�
or 鈥渒eep鈥� heaps for days now. So, let me begin at the beginning, then, as Martin
Gorst does in Aeons (Fourth Estate, 拢7.99). This is the story of
time鈥檚 beginning. Our reviewer liked it (14 April 2001) , but added that Gorst
left too little space to tackle 20th-century developments.
Go back just a few hundred years, rather than Gorst鈥檚 aeons, to what the
reviewer described as 鈥渁 society torn between rationality and romance, cynicism
and hero worship鈥�, the age of England鈥檚 Queen Elizabeth I.
Benjamin Woolley鈥檚 biography of her personal philosopher, John Dee, in
The Queen鈥檚 Conjuror (Flamingo, 拢7.99) suggests that 鈥淒ee was
hunting for an underlying divine language to things; many of us, for all our modern
advantages, find the idea irresistible. From cyberculture to genome theory,
there鈥檚 many a contemporary pundit chasing Dee鈥檚 butterfly.鈥�
Advertisement
Laurence Hurst gave The Variety of Life by Colin Tudge (Oxford
University Press, 拢14.99) a mixed review on 13 May 2000, but he ended
resoundingly, saying: 鈥淭o complain about flaws and lack of focus is to miss the
point. There is an inscription on the original score of Beethoven鈥檚 great mass,
the Missa Solemnis, which translates as 鈥榠t comes from the heart, may it go to
the heart鈥�. This could be the inscription on this book. This is very much a
great mass to nature. If Tudge communicates the wonder and richness of life,
even in some small part, then he has gone one step to achieving his ends.鈥�
From the general to the particular, try Joyce Tyldesley鈥檚 The Private
Lives of the Pharaohs (Channel 4 Books, 拢9.99). Instead of Tudge鈥檚
great overarching survey of all life, here you鈥檒l find the unwieldy mass of
archaeology put to use in the study of a few lives. History and science happily
combine to take us beyond the pharaonic elite to the lives and deaths of those
who worked for it.