The Medusa and the Snail

This is a great book. I wish I had known about it years ago. Lewis Thomas is just a great writer, full of personality and wonder. The first thing you should read is the essay on warts. I know. Why would anyone write about warts? It's one of the finest pieces of writing I've read, and I recommend it to anyone. Uplifting, makes you proud (and humble) to be a human being.

This is quite simply one of the best written books on biology that you'll ever read. If you are in the camp which believes that scientists use one side of their brain, and that writers use the other, be prepared for a big surprise. If you've read Bill Bryson, you may already realize that there are a gifted few who possess both talents. This is a collection of 29 very brief essays (they average only 6 pages each). Prepare to be thoroughly amazed by Dr. Lewis Thomas' descriptions of the most remarkable features of our natural world. The title story serves to illustrate his literary technique. This essay is a mere four and a half pages. The protagonists are a sea slug and a jellyfish, which Dr. Thomas re-christens with artistic license. The lead sentence is "We've never been so self-conscious as we seem to be these days." Then follows some three pages about how lower animals (coral polyps, for example) have some, yet undiscovered method of discriminating between their own species (self) and others which may be extremely close. Then, as if to prove the general rule with a startling exception, Dr. Thomas shows how a particular medusa and snail in the Sea of Naples appear to be confused about their molecular configuration and fuse into a single organism. The jellyfish (medusa) is affixed to the mouth of the slug (snail), and when the slug produces larvae, one becomes entrapped in the tentacles of the tiny jellyfish. At first it looks like the parasite is the predator. But no. The slug larvae eats away at the jellyfish from the inside and as the jellyfish shrinks, the slug grows, until a new equilibrium is reached in adulthood. Lewis finishes by saying that this cycle is so bizarre, so thoroughly unexpected, and so confusing that "I cannot get my mind to stay still and think it through." Now you have twenty-eight essays to go, and I assure you that your mind will not be able to stay still through any of them. One of my favorites isn't about science at all, but about punctuation. Yes, literally, punctuation. In writing about the uses, and misuses, of parentheses, commas, semicolons, exclamation points, quote marks, and dashes, Dr. Thomas employs them in the relevant paragraph in such a way as to draw the readers' attention. Take for instance the comma: "The commas are the most useful and usable of all the stops. It is highly important to put them in place as you go along. If you try to come back after doing a paragraph and stick them in the various spots that tempt you you will discover that they tend to swarm like minnows into all sorts of crevices whose existence you hadn't realized and before you know it the whole long sentence becomes immobilized and lashes up squirming in commas. Better to use them sparingly, and with affection, precisely when the need for each one arises, nicely, by itself." If Dr. Thomas carries a dominant theme throughout the book, it is that a liberal education is critically important, even for a very

This collection of essays or thoughts or whatever it is classified as is wonderfully honest and simple. Thomas brings a certain wit and charm to some complex and taboo subjects such as dying, disease, warts, etc that allows you to totally disconnect and look at the big picture. For college folk out there the section on 'premeds' is especially funny.

This collection of essays has held a special place on my shelf and in my heart for many years. I return to it often for both the ideas and the wonderful sense of life that Lewis Thomas injects into his writing.I have read other reviews here questioning both the scientific value of these essays and the author's scientific creditials. As for the latter - this man has been a doctor, a field researcher, a lab director, a professor, the dean of Yale medical school, President of the Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and member of the Presidential Science Advisory Board. If you have an issue with these credentials your standards are a little too high.To speak of the scientific value of this book is difficult. Lewis Thomas didn't write like Steven Jay Gould, with clear theses, dates and names and cited research. He is more like Douglas Hofstadter. (if this comparison helps) I imagine that Lewis Thomas wrote these essays late at night after a day filled with details and the reductionism of modern science. These essays are the antithesis of what his days must have entailed.What we find on paper here are both the whimsical musisngs and deepest thoughts of a brilliant man whose whole life was devoted to practicing and teaching science. He writes beautifully, with humour, zest, and a sense of wonder that I find endlessly captivating. His love of the natural world is infectious.Please read this book. Of all the science books I've read (I have two science degrees) and all the fiction I've read, this book continues to inspire, teach, and amaze me.

This may not be for the technically minded. It is however for the reader who longs for a sense of magic once felt while young. The magic lost in real life. This book made me want to look for more interesting biology and science books. It is a great leap ahead of his book "the lives of a cell".