The Beauty of the Beastly: New Views on the Nature of Life

Natalie Angier explains in the introduction to her collected that while there is a raging debate in the science community on the "propriety of anthropomorphism," she weighs in with the anthropomorphists to the point of anthropomorphizing plants and even molecules. And it is this empathy that Angier feels with the lowliest that makes this such a fascinating and ultimately educational read. The chapters are short, as they are reworked columns printed previously in the New York Times, but they are strung together to depict a fascinating portrait of life in all its complexities from nucleic acids to the sex life of hyenas. Angier's compassion and passion for life is the guiding force that links the essays. The individual essays stand alone as sturdy little dramas of life in its many forms, but between the covers of this beautiful and beastly book, they stand together as a portait of the deep connectedness of all life.

I picked up this book after Angier's WOMAN: An Intimate Geography became one of my favorites a year ago. The author's humor and vivid descriptions of biological topics from DNA transciption and protein translation to animal behavior to evolution brings the understanding of science within reach for the general reader. The book is a collection of articles published in the New York Times in the early- to mid-nineties. My favorite chapters were the one about scorpions (made my skin crawl!), all of Part II titled "Dancing" and is mainly about biochemistry, and the bio piece about geneticist Mary-Claire King. I would recommend this book to any high school student (but especially girls) and to anyone who wants to give biology a second chance.

Angier's urge to teach us all about Nature is irrepressible. Metaphor is her bow, with anthropomorphism a valuable arrow in her quiver. Enzymes become muscular bodyguards, orchids are lazy, deceptive, or magnanimous and scorpions can be "model spouses and parents." Such imagry will leave many "bench scientists" aghast at her "softening" the science, but others, and we readers, applaud her ability at stripping away the arcane aspects of dealing with Nature's wonders. She exposes life with a fresh view, making us intimate with its wonders and coming away with enhanced interest to learn more. That is precisely her aim and she scores a bullseye with every essay. She has grouped the essays into seven major topic areas ranging from adapting to slithering. The categories cover genetic mechanisms DNA uses through mating practices to the ultimate "subject that knows no species boundaries, the cloak with room to cover us all - death." Before arriving at this terminal condition, however, Angier is able to sprinkle petals of flowery prose on prolonging life. In "Why Vegetables Are Good For You," she provides new information on plant chemistry's impact on our bodies. That dread aspect of civilized life, fat, is also given attention - and its due. You will be delighted with her revelations on "adipose pucker."After a set of paeans celebrating various practicing scientists, Angier finally turns to the "great mystery" - the ending of life. "Cell death is universal to life," she begins. Demonstrating its necessity in allowing evolution to proceed, she proceeds to relate how the process of cell death provides insights in the diagnosis and treatment of various afflictions. In tracking the mechanisms leading to the demise of various cells, particularly within our immune system, reseachers have found new genetic signals that keep our bodies healthy. Otherwise, we would be likely to self-destruct. It's a fine balance kept continually on a fine tightrope. Yet, after aknowledging its necessity, Angier doesn`t accept there's such a thing as "a good way to die." The loss of a friend leads her to express the mechanism of the AIDS virus and the epidemic's effect on social thinking.Angier's imaginative essays provide a wealth of topics for further thought, even investigation. It's a pity she failed to provide any supportive reading suggestions. Many of her essays discuss the researchers while omitting to identify them. There's no reason to discount the facts she provides for our enjoyment and edification, but pursuit of a chosen topic is impeded by lack of pointers. That shortcoming is alleviated only by the fact that an index is provided. However, the range of topics and Angier's prose nearly overcome the lack of a bibliography.

Natalie Angier admits that she had a childhood phobia about roaches; for me it was spiders; I'm sure it's snakes for many others. Angier writes with this recognition; although she still doesn't love roaches, she respects them and is quite able to get us to admire, respect, and appreciate whatever it is in nature that makes our skin crawl. This book is a collection of insightful essays on nature written in her inimitable style. Pure wonder, and humor in all she sees. If nature were a three ring circus (and some of the antics she describes here makes me believe it sometimes is), then she is it's Ringmaster.

I am a noisy reader. I groan when I come across clumsy wordings or badly twisted sentences. I sigh when I am bored. I snort when I encounter assertions that are (in my view) outrageous. And occasionally, meeting up with prose that startles me with its elegance, vividness, and originality, I find myself uttering an involuntary yelp of sheer joy. Mind you, this doesn't happen very often. It doesn't happy very often at all when I'm reading pieces about science, and certainly not when the subjects of the pieces are animals such as cockroaches, scorpions, and pit vipers. Yet my passage through The Beauty of the Beastly was punctuated with innumerable such yelps. I couldn't help myself. How else can you respond to a book that describes an orchid this way: "They are the P.T. Barnums of the flower kingdom, dedicated to the premise that there is a sucker born any minute: a sucker, that is, with wings, a thorax, and an unquenchable thirst for nectar and love." Or one i! n which the author says of the lowly dung beetle: "In the vast world of beetles, they have the stamp of nobility, their heads a diadem of horny spikes, their bodies sheathed in glittering mail of bronze or emerald or cobalt blue." Yelp! Yelp! I didn't feel guilty about making such a racket because the author of The Beauty of the Beastly writes so directly and personally to the reader that I suspect she hopes the reader will respond directly and personally as well. I happen to be an animal lover, and probably have more tolerance for insects and reptiles than many people. But I'm convinced that Natalie Angier could coax even my friend with a terrible snake phobia into some fondness for the creatures. Perhaps more to the point, I emerged from the book with new thoughts and a new approach to those things that creep and crawl and jump. "...if there is any lesson I have learned in my years of following science," Angier writes, "it is that nothing is at it! seems. Instead, things are as they seem plus the details y! ou are just beginning to notice." No one, I think, is as good at noticing them as Angier herself.