Loren C. Eiseley (1907–1977)

There were times when reading The Unexpected Universe that I thought I'd found, in Loren Eiseley, another William Bolitho. Now unconscionably obscure, Bolitho was an erudite and ornately lyrical essayist of the 1920s, whose out-of-print books like Twelve Against the Gods and Camera Obscura proved such an unexpected joy for me. Coming across The Unexpected Universe, Eiseley's collection of erudite, ornate essays, in similarly unpromising circumstances (a second-hand book store, miscatalogued in the sci-fi section next to a book proving that God was an alien), I saw plenty to excite me. But the precious metals were packed hard into the rock, and many of them proved too difficult to extract.

Discussing science, anthropology, naturalism and spirituality, Eiseley's wide-ranging essays had plenty of potential, and his learned digressions into history, mythology and personal anecdote boded well for a lush reading experience. However, I began to recognise just how slowly I was getting through the book, and how jaded I was becoming. I'm neither a quick nor a slow reader, merely a regular and persistent one, but I was surprised how long it took me to get through this slim volume.

As the initial promise wore off, I began to look more closely at why I felt jaded. At first, I began to notice that while Eiseley's topics of discussion were fascinating, his writing was often quite verbose and bloated. What I had thought to be ornate decoration was increasingly a sickly garnish, and in many paragraphs I found I would lose the thread of argument. In addition to his academic pursuits, Eiseley was also a published poet, and much of his prose – particularly in his occasional flights of fancy – read like prose-poems – but ones injudiciously wrought.

This verbosity was something I also felt with Bolitho – though to a much lesser extent there – but Bolitho was always redeemed by his fantastic, acute observations. With Eiseley, however, I increasingly found that not only was the heavy prose making me lose the thread of argument, but I was often unsure what the argument was. When the argument is clear, Eiseley's bejewelled pursuit can be enjoyable, as in the essay 'The Invisible Island', where the common understanding of Darwinian evolution is recast to pay homage to those all-important genetic and cultural misfits ("... so much has been written about the triumph of the fittest and so little about the survival of the failures who have changed... the world" (pg. 120); "Competition may simply suppress what exists only as potential" (pg. 128)). But too often I didn't know what Eiseley's dreamy, shifting sands were trying to say, and it would be a few paragraphs before I could find something to fix onto.

The Unexpected Universe is a worthwhile book, intermittently inspiring, entertaining and thought-provoking. The name Loren Eiseley is on my radar now, and I am certainly going to pursue more of his writing. But The Unexpected Universe was also intermittently indulgent, ponderous and roundabout, and for all its qualities I believe my lasting memory of the book will be this sluggishness.… (mer)

Ten thousand years ago, a species of human came into existence in southern Africa. His teeth were smaller than ours; his face smaller. His brain... one third larger. He soon became extinct. What does that say about the chances for survival of Homo sapiens. These are some of the questions Loren Eiseley addresses in exploring our origins. From oxygen breathing fish who, under necessity, used fins to pull itself over land to the next pond to monkeys who finally came down from trees to walk in the savanna, Eisley eloquently puts into words our immense journey.… (mer)

Of these four essays about Francis Bacon, I liked the last one the best. Because there is so much duplication between the essays, you might get by with reading just this one. According to Eiseley--and who would doubt him--Bacon's almost invention of the scientific method changed history, for the better and worse. Eiseley writes under the shadow of atomic annihilation, and as we are moving toward it again, his sentiments carry more weight. He paints a very good portrait of those for whom science has become as dogmatic and exclusionary as religion, while showing us his own humanity in every sentence.… (mer)