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3.12 AVERAGE
3.12 AVERAGE
thought provoking, succinct read covering speech and its importance/distinctive tool for humans
I'm having a difficult time with the review of this books, 3.5 is probably a more accurate rating.
I'll start with the positive. This was the first thing I've read by Tom Wolfe and I understand why people are enthralled with his writing. His "New-Journalism" style came out in full force throughout this work. While many readers would consider this a negative, I found it refreshing to see a writer not try to hide behind the fake walls of objectivity - you knew exactly what Wolfe thought, at any given time. Also, for not being an expert in Darwinian Evolution nor Linguistics, I was impressed by the type of research that Wolfe showcased throughout the work. (This is said as someone, who like Wolfe, is not an expert in these areas.) More importantly, his research took away a full day from me for I couldn't resist reading some of the primary material he brings up, like Alfred Wallace, Noam Chomsky, and Daniel Everett. This is what a good book will do - make you want to read the material influencing it. I also must say that I enjoyed, at least on the surface, the concluding section of this book. Wolfe does an incredible job at conveying the deep importance of language and the role it plays in human dominion. (For those of you who enjoy theology there are great theological discussions to have in response to this book: common grace, imago Dei, theological anthropology, theological linguistics, etc.)
As for the negatives, the combination of reading an author writing outside their jurisdiction and the style of New-Journalism seemed to create significant overstatements that don't have a place in a work like this. Anything from calling the Big-Bang the silliest idea to saying that Chomsky's political activism was only for showmanship, Wolfe frequently oversimplified and overstated. As someone who's already skeptical of an outsider (me) reading an another outsider (Wolfe), this did not help my uneasiness. (This was heightened when doing outside research of Wolfe outside this work. Exaggeration and overstatements seem to be a pattern for him during interviews.) Now, I do realize that I can't expect much else from a 200-page work. It's hard to expect Wolfe to do much more academic work than he did on topics as deep as Darwinian Evolution and Universal Language theory along with a few other Chomskyan ideas. Yet, this is where a question of the justifiability of scope has to come into question.
All in all, I enjoyed this read. I will likely read more by Wolfe and will recommend this to others. However, I've seen it marketed as a "takedown of Darwinian evolution." If you're going into this work expecting that type of outcome, you will be disappointed. Instead of a polemic against evolution, the work is more accurately marketed as propagating the thesis that speech, not evolution, is the cause for the preeminence of mankind over other speeches.
I'll start with the positive. This was the first thing I've read by Tom Wolfe and I understand why people are enthralled with his writing. His "New-Journalism" style came out in full force throughout this work. While many readers would consider this a negative, I found it refreshing to see a writer not try to hide behind the fake walls of objectivity - you knew exactly what Wolfe thought, at any given time. Also, for not being an expert in Darwinian Evolution nor Linguistics, I was impressed by the type of research that Wolfe showcased throughout the work. (This is said as someone, who like Wolfe, is not an expert in these areas.) More importantly, his research took away a full day from me for I couldn't resist reading some of the primary material he brings up, like Alfred Wallace, Noam Chomsky, and Daniel Everett. This is what a good book will do - make you want to read the material influencing it. I also must say that I enjoyed, at least on the surface, the concluding section of this book. Wolfe does an incredible job at conveying the deep importance of language and the role it plays in human dominion. (For those of you who enjoy theology there are great theological discussions to have in response to this book: common grace, imago Dei, theological anthropology, theological linguistics, etc.)
As for the negatives, the combination of reading an author writing outside their jurisdiction and the style of New-Journalism seemed to create significant overstatements that don't have a place in a work like this. Anything from calling the Big-Bang the silliest idea to saying that Chomsky's political activism was only for showmanship, Wolfe frequently oversimplified and overstated. As someone who's already skeptical of an outsider (me) reading an another outsider (Wolfe), this did not help my uneasiness. (This was heightened when doing outside research of Wolfe outside this work. Exaggeration and overstatements seem to be a pattern for him during interviews.) Now, I do realize that I can't expect much else from a 200-page work. It's hard to expect Wolfe to do much more academic work than he did on topics as deep as Darwinian Evolution and Universal Language theory along with a few other Chomskyan ideas. Yet, this is where a question of the justifiability of scope has to come into question.
All in all, I enjoyed this read. I will likely read more by Wolfe and will recommend this to others. However, I've seen it marketed as a "takedown of Darwinian evolution." If you're going into this work expecting that type of outcome, you will be disappointed. Instead of a polemic against evolution, the work is more accurately marketed as propagating the thesis that speech, not evolution, is the cause for the preeminence of mankind over other speeches.
Far, far too much back story until you get to the real argument.
Even though the book is only 160+ pages, it's padded. Wolfe goes into various alleys, ,like explaining the cosmogonies of specific peoples or details of Everett's sojourns in the Amazon that have nothing to do with his thesis; namely, evolution is incapable of explaining speech. His final paean to the power of speech is way overblown.
I had never heard of fly-catchers before (aside from pitcher plants and their ilk), but after reading Wolfe’s account of Alfred Russell Wallace to Daniel Everett, however, I’ve developed a warm place in my heart for the intrepid souls who venture out into the field to capture examples of life or linguistics in their native habitat. Wolfe’s discussion of the origins and issues with the idea that language evolved just like every other human trait is entertaining and informative. It’s also fun to watch him tear strips off Darwin’s elitist coterie and the Cult of St. Noam (Chomsky). Unfortunately, by the time Wolfe dispenses with the opposition--by citing their own admission that after a century and half of study, nobody knows how language really works--he spends less than twenty pages presenting his own favored theory: language is an artifact, the foremost and most powerful human creation, not evolved but manufactured just like bows, arrows, skyscrapers, and computers. It’s an interesting idea, but Wolfe settles for simply stating it as fact, so self-evident that it requires no proof or support. It, and the opposition, deserve a more thorough exploration. And, given how enjoyable Wolfe’s writing is, so does the reader.
Read this for a book club and, with allowances for Tom Wolfe's sometimes irritating stream of consciousness style and his clear lack of objectivity, I enjoyed it. Wolfe is an iconoclast who likes to bring down idols, and in this case his targets are Charles Darwin and Noam Chomsky. Along the way, he introduces readers to an isolated Amazonian tribe whose speech patterns raise major questions about how language is formed. Not for everyone, but recommended.
“The Ultimate Artifact”
“Speech is what man pays homage to in every moment he can imagine.”
“Speech is what man pays homage to in every moment he can imagine.”
Far, far too much back story until you get to the real argument.