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3.55 AVERAGE
3.55 AVERAGE
Lawrence Hill's latest book, Blood: The Stuff of Life, is a meditation on the cultural and personal meanings of blood. An essential part of our anatomy, it is perhaps the only internal aspect of our physical beings that almost all of us, at some time or another, will see outside of its natural place. And it has come to mean so many things in addition to simply the red fluid that is so much a part of what keeps us alive.
"It’s hard to imagine a single person in a school, restaurant, theatre, hockey arena, hospital room, or bookstore who does not have a set of personal stories about blood. Maybe it was the blood of a distant ancestor, persecuted because his or her blood was deemed to be impure. Maybe it was a grandfather who fell under the blade of a farm instrument and bled to death in the fields. Maybe it was an aunt who donated plasma weekly for decades, or a sister who won international attention for designing a more effective way to kill cancerous white blood cells before they multiplied madly and killed the patient. Maybe something happened to you in the blood lab, or in the operating room, and lodged so deeply in your mind that you have passed the story along to every single family member. Blood keeps you alive, for sure. Yet, the very blood in your veins and arteries can suddenly betray you. One day you feel healthy and have just hiked up a mountain with the person you most love in the world, and the next day what you thought was a routine blood test tells you that you have prostate cancer and had better decide, pronto, if you’re going to opt for surgery or radiation, or tempt the gods by doing nothing at all. Blood is the lubricant of our bodies and the endlessly circulating river supplying oxygen and nutrients to our cells. But it is far more than a sign of your physical health, or an omen of your mortality. It has the potential to reveal your most hidden secrets: How is your cholesterol level? How much alcohol have you consumed? Have you been snorting cocaine? Are there any other residual traces that might scare off an employer, or lead a life insurance company to deny your application? What has been the average amount of sugar in your blood over the past ninety days? Did you cheat in that Olympic marathon race? Are you the father of that child? Blood won’t tell all. But it can tell enough to get you in a whole lot of trouble."
Hill's book is exhaustive in its examination of matters of blood, from traditions of blood sacrifice to the gods to blood donation policies. But while the range of topics mentioned is vast, one might wish for a fuller examination of them. In being encyclopedic, Hill has sacrificed depth of analysis. For example, in one section devoted to discussing blood as a symbol of honour and sacrifice, Hill covers Aztec religious sacrifices, Japanese seppuku, and honour killings of women in just a few pages, providing the literary equivalent of sound bytes on each, but little background or individual context.
It's an idiosyncratic book, organised as much by Hill's musings about blood and his life experiences, as it is by generally accepted themes associated with blood. I enjoyed much of it, though there were times that I wished Hill had spent more time on a topic, and other times when I thought he went into too much detail for something that seemed to me to be a relatively tangential aspect. But it's also a very personal book, and in many cases the amount of space given to an issue seems at least in part determined by the strength of its meaning in his own life.
"It’s hard to imagine a single person in a school, restaurant, theatre, hockey arena, hospital room, or bookstore who does not have a set of personal stories about blood. Maybe it was the blood of a distant ancestor, persecuted because his or her blood was deemed to be impure. Maybe it was a grandfather who fell under the blade of a farm instrument and bled to death in the fields. Maybe it was an aunt who donated plasma weekly for decades, or a sister who won international attention for designing a more effective way to kill cancerous white blood cells before they multiplied madly and killed the patient. Maybe something happened to you in the blood lab, or in the operating room, and lodged so deeply in your mind that you have passed the story along to every single family member. Blood keeps you alive, for sure. Yet, the very blood in your veins and arteries can suddenly betray you. One day you feel healthy and have just hiked up a mountain with the person you most love in the world, and the next day what you thought was a routine blood test tells you that you have prostate cancer and had better decide, pronto, if you’re going to opt for surgery or radiation, or tempt the gods by doing nothing at all. Blood is the lubricant of our bodies and the endlessly circulating river supplying oxygen and nutrients to our cells. But it is far more than a sign of your physical health, or an omen of your mortality. It has the potential to reveal your most hidden secrets: How is your cholesterol level? How much alcohol have you consumed? Have you been snorting cocaine? Are there any other residual traces that might scare off an employer, or lead a life insurance company to deny your application? What has been the average amount of sugar in your blood over the past ninety days? Did you cheat in that Olympic marathon race? Are you the father of that child? Blood won’t tell all. But it can tell enough to get you in a whole lot of trouble."
Hill's book is exhaustive in its examination of matters of blood, from traditions of blood sacrifice to the gods to blood donation policies. But while the range of topics mentioned is vast, one might wish for a fuller examination of them. In being encyclopedic, Hill has sacrificed depth of analysis. For example, in one section devoted to discussing blood as a symbol of honour and sacrifice, Hill covers Aztec religious sacrifices, Japanese seppuku, and honour killings of women in just a few pages, providing the literary equivalent of sound bytes on each, but little background or individual context.
It's an idiosyncratic book, organised as much by Hill's musings about blood and his life experiences, as it is by generally accepted themes associated with blood. I enjoyed much of it, though there were times that I wished Hill had spent more time on a topic, and other times when I thought he went into too much detail for something that seemed to me to be a relatively tangential aspect. But it's also a very personal book, and in many cases the amount of space given to an issue seems at least in part determined by the strength of its meaning in his own life.
informative
lighthearted
medium-paced
Wow - this was an amazing read! I wanted to savour every word, fact, and anecdote Hill presented but couldn't help myself and gorged on his writing. I sped through this short collection of Massey Lectures (presented by CBC etc. every year on different topics) in several short sittings. Lawrence Hill (of The Book of Negroes fame) is a Canadian author who in this series of lectures examines the role blood plays in our collective and individual memories, ideologies, histories, cultures, politics, and lives. He examines the role of blood in entertainment, persecution, race and self-identity politics, medicine and science, blood donations and the HIV-tainted scandals of the 1980s/1990s, and the absolute folly of a notion that blood is a scientific separator of humanity from each other (rather than the common sense idea of societal values imposed from one human to another). I particularly enjoyed his familial anecdotes - they really fleshed out the lectures and lent a personal and relatable feeling to the book.
I would give Blood: The Stuff of Life a 4.5 star read (and alas with this rating system it will be demoted to a 4 star). The only criticism I really have is two-fold: one that the topics he explored were often too short in length and depth for my liking - especially in his talented hands (which in some way is understandable considering the structure of the Massey Lectures), and that sometimes he switched topics or stories too quickly without good/smooth transitions. For example, cutting as a social phenomenon among adolescents was only briefly mentioned for several short paragraphs and then summarily forgotten about for another (albeit very interesting) topic/argument.
Overall, this was a fantastic read (especially for someone who has quite the morbid fascination with blood and all its medical and societal implications) and I now adore Lawrence Hill's writing. I cannot wait to read more of his non-fiction and actually explore his fiction.
I would give Blood: The Stuff of Life a 4.5 star read (and alas with this rating system it will be demoted to a 4 star). The only criticism I really have is two-fold: one that the topics he explored were often too short in length and depth for my liking - especially in his talented hands (which in some way is understandable considering the structure of the Massey Lectures), and that sometimes he switched topics or stories too quickly without good/smooth transitions. For example, cutting as a social phenomenon among adolescents was only briefly mentioned for several short paragraphs and then summarily forgotten about for another (albeit very interesting) topic/argument.
Overall, this was a fantastic read (especially for someone who has quite the morbid fascination with blood and all its medical and societal implications) and I now adore Lawrence Hill's writing. I cannot wait to read more of his non-fiction and actually explore his fiction.
Generally very good, would liked to have seen a greater focus on virginity/menstruation and medical history, the parts on race were great, but felt disproportionate. I would also have preferred a more scientific angle.
Très intéressant mais je m'attendais à une étude un peu plus poussée de nos représentations ou usages du sang. Au final, si l'écriture est agréable, j'ai appris peu de choses que je ne connaissais déjà. Tout est resté un peu trop général à mon goût, l'auteur ayant voulu toucher à trop de domaines à la fois et donc n'a pas pris le temps d'approfondir quoi que ce soit.
The human body is weird. I mean, it’s a wonder we function at all. We’re fragile bags of mostly water that support a strange and wonderful organ that seems to give us consciousness. All this happens through a complex set of interconnected systems that work to keep us alive. I’m really not down with the ickiness of my biology: bring on the robot bodies! Until that happens, though, I’m forced to agree with Lawrence Hill: Blood really is The Stuff of Life. Furthermore, how we treat blood and how, historically, our understanding of blood has led us to treat others, is a fascinating and important topic to consider.
I’m seeing a lot of reviews of this book that express dissatisfaction with the lack of scientific information and the excess of anecdotes from Hill’s life. And, fair enough: if that’s the sort of thing you’re looking for, you will be disappointed. Although Hill gives a basic précis of how blood breaks down and when we learned all this, Blood is more about culture and history than it is about science—the science, when it’s there, is to illuminate the historical attitudes, rather than the other way around. Being disappointed with this is a totally legitimate attitude, but I think it’s a little disingenuous when the book never bills itself as popular science. My copy, at least, claims to be “a bold meditation on blood as an historical and contemporary marker of identity, belonging, gender, race, class, citizenship, athletic superiority, and nationhood” (woo, Oxford comma!). Laundry list aside, there’s no claim to scientific discourse here. Let’s not ignore the impulse of the Massey Lectures either, which is to discuss a topic as it relates to culture and philosophy. The whole point of this exercise is for Hill to remove blood from beneath the microscope and look at how it has affected our societies.
One point Hill wants to hammer home is that despite differences in blood types, all our blood is the same. That is, no one has ever managed to use blood to successfully replicate the cultural constructs of race and ethnicity. He examines the futility of trying to establish ancestry and descent through blood quanta. Your skin might be lighter or darker than other people; you might have hair that coils or curls or waves or stay straight; but as long as your blood types are compatible, you can share blood regardless of these surface-level characteristics. Hill reminds us that the idea we can neatly compartmentalize humans into categories like “race” is only that—an idea, promoted and perpetuated throughout the centuries whenever it is a convenient way for people in power to oppress others.
Obviously, Hill’s identity as a black man contributes heavily to this discussion, as does his identity as the child of Americans who immigrated. But he also talks about other ways in which blood has been used to oppress, separate, or otherwise distinguish people into less- and more-deserving groups. In particular, he mentions the ongoing struggle Aboriginal peoples of Canada have even in being recognized as being Aboriginal. Blood, blood quantum, and the idea that who one marries can affect whether your children are members of a certain group all contribute to allowing or denying access to certain privileges. This is a pattern of behaviour that has gone on for millennia and continues to this very day—but it has no basis in fact.
In this way, blood is one of the properties by which we determine what is human. Hill examines this from another angle when he discusses blood-doping and other steroid usage. As an amateur runner who gave up his athletic aspirations for literary ones, Hill knows a lot about the mechanics of running and the obstacles athletes face to run faster and longer. Blood plays an immensely important role in this. I never followed the blood-doping scandal when it was in the news—sports is of little interest to me. The transhumanist aspect of steroid use, however, is fascinating. Hill teases out the difficult ethical quandaries surrounding these issues, speculates how we will deal with more and more innovative ways of enhancing athletes.
Blood is definitely thoughtful and moving. It is somewhat repetitive. Though Hill promises a careful division of topics into the five chapters/five lectures of the series, he revisits the same ideas—albeit from slightly different angles. Each chapters, as a result, has some high points mixed among a lot of, “Didn’t I already read this?” Though the book never goes so far as to be boring, it is not as insightful as its length might suggest.
It’s just a coincidence that I read this just as the adaptation of Hill’s The Book of Negroes premieres on CBC. Hill’s choice of subject for the Massey Lectures was certainly apt: his writing is often about blood and the effect it has on our lives. I haven’t actually read The Book of Negroes yet, but even from his non-fiction writing I can tell that Hill is a talented and thorough author. If the subject interests you, then Blood will be satisfying guide through the cultural baggage that courses through our veins and arteries. If you’re looking for a popular science book, though, you should continue your search elsewhere.
I’m seeing a lot of reviews of this book that express dissatisfaction with the lack of scientific information and the excess of anecdotes from Hill’s life. And, fair enough: if that’s the sort of thing you’re looking for, you will be disappointed. Although Hill gives a basic précis of how blood breaks down and when we learned all this, Blood is more about culture and history than it is about science—the science, when it’s there, is to illuminate the historical attitudes, rather than the other way around. Being disappointed with this is a totally legitimate attitude, but I think it’s a little disingenuous when the book never bills itself as popular science. My copy, at least, claims to be “a bold meditation on blood as an historical and contemporary marker of identity, belonging, gender, race, class, citizenship, athletic superiority, and nationhood” (woo, Oxford comma!). Laundry list aside, there’s no claim to scientific discourse here. Let’s not ignore the impulse of the Massey Lectures either, which is to discuss a topic as it relates to culture and philosophy. The whole point of this exercise is for Hill to remove blood from beneath the microscope and look at how it has affected our societies.
One point Hill wants to hammer home is that despite differences in blood types, all our blood is the same. That is, no one has ever managed to use blood to successfully replicate the cultural constructs of race and ethnicity. He examines the futility of trying to establish ancestry and descent through blood quanta. Your skin might be lighter or darker than other people; you might have hair that coils or curls or waves or stay straight; but as long as your blood types are compatible, you can share blood regardless of these surface-level characteristics. Hill reminds us that the idea we can neatly compartmentalize humans into categories like “race” is only that—an idea, promoted and perpetuated throughout the centuries whenever it is a convenient way for people in power to oppress others.
Obviously, Hill’s identity as a black man contributes heavily to this discussion, as does his identity as the child of Americans who immigrated. But he also talks about other ways in which blood has been used to oppress, separate, or otherwise distinguish people into less- and more-deserving groups. In particular, he mentions the ongoing struggle Aboriginal peoples of Canada have even in being recognized as being Aboriginal. Blood, blood quantum, and the idea that who one marries can affect whether your children are members of a certain group all contribute to allowing or denying access to certain privileges. This is a pattern of behaviour that has gone on for millennia and continues to this very day—but it has no basis in fact.
In this way, blood is one of the properties by which we determine what is human. Hill examines this from another angle when he discusses blood-doping and other steroid usage. As an amateur runner who gave up his athletic aspirations for literary ones, Hill knows a lot about the mechanics of running and the obstacles athletes face to run faster and longer. Blood plays an immensely important role in this. I never followed the blood-doping scandal when it was in the news—sports is of little interest to me. The transhumanist aspect of steroid use, however, is fascinating. Hill teases out the difficult ethical quandaries surrounding these issues, speculates how we will deal with more and more innovative ways of enhancing athletes.
Blood is definitely thoughtful and moving. It is somewhat repetitive. Though Hill promises a careful division of topics into the five chapters/five lectures of the series, he revisits the same ideas—albeit from slightly different angles. Each chapters, as a result, has some high points mixed among a lot of, “Didn’t I already read this?” Though the book never goes so far as to be boring, it is not as insightful as its length might suggest.
It’s just a coincidence that I read this just as the adaptation of Hill’s The Book of Negroes premieres on CBC. Hill’s choice of subject for the Massey Lectures was certainly apt: his writing is often about blood and the effect it has on our lives. I haven’t actually read The Book of Negroes yet, but even from his non-fiction writing I can tell that Hill is a talented and thorough author. If the subject interests you, then Blood will be satisfying guide through the cultural baggage that courses through our veins and arteries. If you’re looking for a popular science book, though, you should continue your search elsewhere.
An interesting look at blood, race, identity and humanity from Lawrence Hill.