Also in this Issue
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- Empire of the Senseless (Jan 14, 1998)
- The Accidental Philosopher Whether an Algerian-born street rat, a metaphysical quixoticist, or the James Dean of writers, the real Albert Camus steps forward in a new biography. (Dec 24, 1997)
- Little Hell on the Prairie In Garrison Keillor's new tome, Lake Wobegon looks more like Fargo--a place where the women are feeble, the men are addled, and all the kids are suffocating. (Dec 17, 1997)
- Anne Rice: Violin (Dec 17, 1997)
- Gordon Lish: Self-Imitation of Myself (Dec 17, 1997)
- Hanif Kureishi: Love In a Blue Time (Dec 10, 1997)
- Thomas Brussig: Heroes Like Us (Dec 10, 1997)
- Rumer Godden: Cromartie V. The God Shiva Acting Through The Government of India (Dec 10, 1997)
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Miroslav Holub: Shedding Life
Miroslav Holub
Shedding Life
Milkweed
MIROSLAV HOLUB IS both a poet and a scientist, but it's no secret in which discipline he invests his pride. Holub has a deep distrust of the intuition, faith, and love of the profound that defines the poetic, a distrust he elaborates repeatedly in Shedding Life, his collection of essays. In one essay, the internationally acclaimed immunologist derides "metaphysical and paranoid sciences, exorcism, parapsychology, and the natural cures of 'alternative medicine,' which have a single advantage: they are easy to understand, even for an ass." In another, he praises the scientist's acceptance of her own ignorance, contrasting it to the Zen master's proclivity toward "jumping to conclusions."
Of course, Zen masters do jump to conclusions, as does almost anyone else who finds research on T-cells and amoebas an insufficient methodology for achieving an understanding of the world and a person's place in it. Holub is among these great unscientific masses, though he doesn't seem entirely aware of the fact: It's telling that his hard-science essays are his least engaging. They do offer some intriguing notions--how disease has encoded itself into our genetic makeup, or the extent to which the process of discovery is an exhaustive, unglamorous one--but it's here that the writer's prose becomes occasionally impenetrable. When Holub bases his arguments on deep intuitions--not his impressive scientific knowledge--the author brings the most enthusiasm and conviction to the page. Take "Whatever the Circumstances," in which an observation of an opera company in a near-ghost town leads to a meditation on the indomitability of a thing for its own sake. Or the elegiac "The Night Song," in which Holub praises the quality of night and the beauty of the inexpressible with a disciplined elegance. It's in these pieces that Holub comes across as not just a respected scientist, but also an essayist of the highest order, equipped with an innate sense of poetry and a highly tuned sense of the profound. Holub should stop stumping for objectivity; his instincts are much better than he would like to admit.
About Francis Hwang
From the Archive
- Krylon City (Art - Dec 17, 1997)
- Anne Rice: Violin (Books - Dec 17, 1997)
- Hanif Kureishi: Love In a Blue Time (Books - Dec 10, 1997)
- Teen Spirit (Scrawl Comics - Nov 26, 1997)
- Verve vs. Voyeurism (Music - Nov 26, 1997)
- Chairwoman Chin Table for Two at the Tower of Babel: In print and radio ads, Leeann Chin's "Yeung Chao" fried rice becomes a more Minnesotan "Young Jewel." (Culturata - Nov 19, 1997)
- Dan Eldon: The Journey is the Destination (Books - Oct 29, 1997)
- Apollo Four Forty: Electro Glide In Blue (CD Review - Oct 22, 1997)
- More articles from the Francis Hwang Archive...
