March 2013 archive

Margaret Atwood – Oryx and Crake (London, 2003)

When the body becomes a commodity is it really yours anymore? In Oryx and Crake, humans harness the power to create life in any form which is of most convenience. The natural is rejected for the innovative. The transgenic organisms named Chickie nobs are just one example of the rejection of the unnecessary. These creatures …

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William Golding – The Inheritors (London, 2011. Originally published 1955)

Why did Golding decide to portray his Neanderthals as largely vegetarian? The Neanderthal family group so vividly described in Golding’s 1955 novel are clearly happiest when eating a vegetarian diet. When they are at a near state of collapse through hunger, after making the long journey to their summer cave, they feast on the meat …

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Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, Newton?

Ernest Rutherford was having none of it: he was very anxious that everyone knew his results were down to him and nothing else.  On hearing ‘Lucky fellow, Rutherford, always on the crest of a wave,’ he is said to have replied, wittily, ‘Well, I made the wave, didn’t I?’[1] But Rutherford aside, many of our …

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