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A review by coronaurora
An Appetite for Wonder: The Making of a Scientist by Richard Dawkins
3.0
For me the best parts of these memoirs are when Dawkins elaborates in detail those first few experiments in zoology with him, his first wife and colleagues parsing the predictability in animal behaviour. I loved the geekiness of having animal behaviour boxed, quantified and algebra-fied for interpretation.
Much of the book leading upto it is oddly laced with a monotonal formalism that somehow infects all the author's candour about growing up for first seven years in colonial Africa and then surviving the eccentricity of public schooling in England before landing in Balliol college, Oxford. For some reason, whatever lived experience he elaborates on: the clinical summaries of his family tree in that awkwardly verbose first chapter to the limericks at university to the snooze-inducing penultimate chapter on the publication journey for The Selfish Gene, they failed to conjure much enthusiasm from me as a reader as Dawkins droned about names and personages. I have a distinct memory of being galvanised by his prose once upon a time in The Selfish Gene and The God Delusion. Here, for whole chapters, his writing felt detached and plodding, until he starts talking about his first research projects. He also has this curious habit to launch into little sermons, but I could stomach these as I am aligned to his rationalism and enthusiasm about biology.
In all, an admirably cool-headed and distant memoir from a self-conscious public figure that is more on point when seen as a journey of his projected self than an illuminating examination of his "appetite for wonder". In the post-script within the book, Dawkins himself feels unsure if the format of written sequential confessional captures his journey and growth as a person and a scientist. Me too.
Much of the book leading upto it is oddly laced with a monotonal formalism that somehow infects all the author's candour about growing up for first seven years in colonial Africa and then surviving the eccentricity of public schooling in England before landing in Balliol college, Oxford. For some reason, whatever lived experience he elaborates on: the clinical summaries of his family tree in that awkwardly verbose first chapter to the limericks at university to the snooze-inducing penultimate chapter on the publication journey for The Selfish Gene, they failed to conjure much enthusiasm from me as a reader as Dawkins droned about names and personages. I have a distinct memory of being galvanised by his prose once upon a time in The Selfish Gene and The God Delusion. Here, for whole chapters, his writing felt detached and plodding, until he starts talking about his first research projects. He also has this curious habit to launch into little sermons, but I could stomach these as I am aligned to his rationalism and enthusiasm about biology.
In all, an admirably cool-headed and distant memoir from a self-conscious public figure that is more on point when seen as a journey of his projected self than an illuminating examination of his "appetite for wonder". In the post-script within the book, Dawkins himself feels unsure if the format of written sequential confessional captures his journey and growth as a person and a scientist. Me too.