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the complete review - essays

Shedding Life

by
Miroslav Holub

general information | review summaries | our review | links | about the author

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Our Assessment:

A : an excellent, varied collection of short essays.

See our review for fuller assessment.

  Review Consensus:

  Too often too "intellectual", too technical, etc. -- though bits and pieces appealed to everyone. It is also suggested that translation may be part of the problem.


  From the Reviews:

• "Holub's style of musing quickly wears thin. While his opinions on current events could be welcome additions to intriguing scientific debates -- such as cloning or vivisection -- they often end up as overbearingly arrogant as The McLaughlin Group." - Joe Knowles, The Nation
  
  
• "(Holub) is precise, wry, skeptical, humane, witty, sad and optimistic. He is a master at discerning the links between scientific and philosophical truths. He is a cross between Lewis Thomas and Milan Kundera." - Susie Linfield, The Los Angeles Times
  
  
• "Holub can be eloquent, and occasionally likable (.....) But for the most part his irony fails, and declines into sarcasm. He tries too hard to be clever. His writing seems forced, even ostentatiously intellectual." - Richard Shweder, The New York Times Book Review.
  
  
• "While the reader is fascinated by many essays in the book, other parts are either too technical, excessively philosophical, or simply not exciting enough to carry along an average -- i.e., educated -- reader." - Karen von Kunes, World Literature Today

Please note that these ratings solely represent the complete review's biased interpretation and subjective opinion of the actual reviews and do not claim to accurately reflect or represent the views of the reviewers. Similarly the illustrative quotes chosen here are merely those the complete review subjectively believes represent the tenor and judgment of the review as a whole. We acknowledge (and remind and warn you) that they may, in fact, be entirely unrepresentative of the actual reviews by any other measure.

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The complete review's Review:

       In this varied collection of essays, reminiscent of his marvelous book, The Dimension of the Present Moment, Holub addresses many of his interests and concerns. The three dozen odd essays, few of which are more than five or six pages in length, generally use examples from Holub's own interesting life to make larger (and smaller) points. Scientist (M.D. and Ph.D.), poet, Czech, world-traveller, he has a lot to offer.
       A true humanist he is a staunch defender of Science, a believer in empirical evidence, in rational thought. He is frustrated and maddened by the un- and anti-scientific arguments of the age -- be they communist or New Age. Having lived and worked in Czechoslovakia for practically the entire time it was under Communist rule (he did work abroad in the mid-1960's) his examples of the stupidity and dangers of science that is determined by ideology (rather than a quest for truth) are particularly poignant and convincing.
       Holub's Eastern European / Czech point of view is particularly interesting, because it is not a scientific voice that is often heard. But science is international, and Holub certainly cosmopolitan, equally at ease in both Old World and New (though he affects a somewhat distanced point of view, more, we guess, for literary reasons than any other).
       Holub's arguments are forthright: disease cannot be called "bad", it does not belong in a moral category. Disease has made us who we are, and while we must combat it it is not something that can be beaten, it belongs to all life. Holub is fascinated by scientific discovery and how scientists see the world, and he wishes to communicate this (and often succeeds), so that the world can share his sense of wonder and understand the beauty (and use) of science. He suggests the filming of Archimedes' "Eureka" moment, but laments that "alas, script writers don't need science", science hardly being a subject for the big screen.
       Holub writes engagingly, whether in describing a frustrated technician reassembling an electron microscope when someone had slipped an extra screw among the parts (which naturally does not fit in the device), or a children's orchestra playing for foreign scientists in Mexico. Many of the scientific and philosophical essays are fairly technical, but we did not find the technical detail detrimental to our understanding of the text (though admittedly we also understood most of the technical detail, while in these times of scientific illiteracy many readers might not).
       Holub quotes extensively, bringing in a large number of authorities, sometimes obscure ones. There is a helpful, if somewhat amateurish Notes section appended to the text that does identify most of the names quoted. We did not mind the quotes and references, most of which seem on point. Certainly they show Holub's wide-ranging interests and knowledge: Lec, Feyerabend, Medawar, Lewis Thomas, James Thurber, Thomas Kuhn, Tagore are only a few of the modern names cited -- and then there are all the Czech and Central European authorities. Bonus points for quoting Durs Grünbein -- Holub knows his modern poetry.
       The immense variety of the essays -- lots of digs at Communist science and society, lots of discussion about science, culture, art, and progress in general (all intertwined, as they should be), some melancholy thoughts about society straying away from the proper path -- make it an entertaining and often surprising read. One might not always agree with Holub's philosophy and opinions, but he argues and presents his points well, and they are almost invariably at least thought-provoking.
       We are a bit baffled by the critical response: "excessively philosophical" -- what does that mean ? This isn't exactly Kant, these are really very casual pieces; only the technical vocabulary -- scientific, not philosophical terminology -- could possibly pose a problem. "Ostentatiously intellectual" ? "Overbearingly arrogant" ? Apparently America has become so laid back and has such low expectations and standards that any well-expresed sentiment that can't be understood by a third grader (or a fifth grader, who is naturally only going to have third grade reading skills) is unacceptably elitist. Not a good sign -- Holub's writing is straightforward and not at all condescending (except when concerned with such matters as Soviet biology under Lysenko, etc.).
       We certainly recommend this book, a strong and welcome addition to modern humanist literature. We specifically recommend it to a non-scientifically oriented audience, as Holub does an excellent job of showing how inextricably science, art, society (and, regrettably, politics) are inextricably intertwined -- and how dangerous ignorance (and in particular scientific illiteracy) is.

All of these essays were edited by David Young, in consultation with Miroslav Holub. Their first English versions, however, were produced by five different individuals (...).

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Links:

• Milkweed catalog page

• City Pages

• The complete review's Miroslav Holub page.
• Good biographical overview
• Interview in Salt Hill Journal

• Interferon, or On Theater
• The Jingle Bell Principle
• Poems: Before & After
• The Rampage
• Supposed to Fly
• Vanishing Lung Syndrome

• See Index of Poetry under review

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About the Author:

       Czech poet and scientist Miroslav Holub (1923-1998) was one of the major Eastern European poets of the post-war period. He earned both an M.D. and a Ph.D. and was a noted immunologist with more than 150 academic papers to his name. Much of his poetry has been translated into English.

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