The
Evolutionist by Avi Sirlin (published by Aurora
Metro Books) is a fascinating and exciting novel
about one of the nineteenth century’s most outstanding personalities,
the explorer and scientist Alfred Russel Wallace. Sirlin’s objective was “to remain heedful of
historical fact while approaching the story imaginatively” and he has
created a convincing portrait of Wallace and his times.
Beyond
the major personalities, whom Sirlin approaches with insight, there is a
host of minor characters who help bring life to the book. In the
emotionally charged courtroom incident concerning the trial of the
medium Henry Slade, where Wallace appeared as a witness, they add humour
and vitality to the depiction of law as a game played out according to
its own rules – a sad and sempiternal fact, the poignancy of which is
undoubtedly enhanced by Sirlin’s experiences as a lawyer. The fictitious
tavern scene which follows the courtroom episode is full of such
characters, and they act as an effective foil to the discussion between
Wallace and Darwin which takes place there, in which the complex
relationship between the two is expounded both faithfully and
sympathetically. The machinations of the fictional “composite character”
of Ramsay Newcastle in the novel help to explain some of that
complexity, and at the same time Newcastle introduces the further
complication of a triangle in human relationships, where a third party
has totally different relationships with the other two, and they to him,
which inevitably impinges on all of them.
The
book’s subtitle, The Strange Tale of Alfred Russel Wallace, is
an invitation into a story which is indeed unusual in many ways – not
least because it is inconceivable that it could happen today. Wallace’s
perception, at the end of the book, that “great men of science were
forever impressed by clear boundaries” is even truer now, when
specialisation has become the norm, and where a self-educated man of
Wallace’s polymathic abilities would find himself even less acceptable.
Were Sirlin’s Wallace alive today, in addition to seeing “the future of
the English countryside writ in the banality of ever-expanding urban
houses” he might also see the loss of the ideal of academic amateurism
together with the politicisation
of education as resulting in the groves of Academe being turned into
greenfield sites.
My
criticisms of the book are few and insignificant. One or two maps
charting Wallace’s travels would be helpful, as would a chronology,
which would at the very least set the story in relation to Wallace’s
birth and his death thirty-seven years after the end of the novel. The
gap is a significant one, and one wonders whether some indication of
what took place in those years should have been introduced. However, in
all works of art, whether a novel or a piece of sculpture, the author
must circumscribe his work in terms of its form, and perhaps Sirlin is
correct to end where he does. It could of course be
argued that a chronology is unnecessary (except in the broadest
terms of birth and death) given the use of date and place as chapter
headings. But then it would be helpful to have a list of contents to
enable one to return to a particular point in the time-line. It would
also, sometimes, help to have a little further information in the
chapter headings. I
am not sure that everyone entering on chapter 3 would be
sufficiently conscious of the dates thus far to realize immediately that
what is presented is a flash-back. Similarly, between chapters 21 and 22
there is an unusual gap of eleven years which I think is important, but
it is easily missed.
In summary, Avi Sirlin has produced an enjoyable and thought-provoking work which should thankfully introduce a remarkable (yet remarkably unknown) scientific giant to a wider audience.
Newsletter : Alfred Russel Wallace