A review by sharkybookshelf
The Second Body by Daisy Hildyard

3.0

An extended essay exploring how we inhabit the global ecosystem and how, simultaneously, it inhabits us, such that we have two bodies.

I have no formal (or informal) training in philosophy, and I spent a fair part of this book wishing I had and wondering if it might have helped me with the thought process of the book. I struggled to get my head around Hildyard’s central thesis - conceptually, I understood it and it’s a fascinating idea, but I just couldn’t quite wrap my head around it in practical terms. The writing style was bewildering, with various random details (what an interviewee was wearing, the weather) which I assume were meant to be immersive such that the reader could imagine themselves as a witness to the conversation, but to me just felt irrelevant and a distraction from whatever point was being laid out. The Art-Science divide writ large perhaps. I am only half-joking - a clear-cut divide between the two is obviously far too simplistic, but I do think there are general differences in how we are taught to approach and present arguments, and this was pretty clear when Hildyard related conversations she’d had with scientists. As a (lapsed) scientist, it was a peculiar experience to read the scientific concepts presented from a non-scientific, much more philosophical position. A thoroughly intriguing central idea, but slippery to pin down from a practical point of view, written in a perplexing style which really didn’t suit my science brain.