The Beauty of the Beastly [Paperback]

Natalie Angier (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 4, 1996

Natalie Angier knows all that scientists know - and sometimes more - about the power of symmetry in sexual relations, about the brutal courting habits of dolphins, about the grand deceit of orchids, about the impact of female and male preferences on evolution. She knows how scientists go about their work, and she describes their ways, their visions, and their arguments. Perhaps most poignantly, she understands the complexities and the sad necessity of death. "The beauty of the natural world lies in the details, and most of those details are not the stuff of calendar art," she points out. Few writers have ever covered so many facets of biology so evocatively in one book. The Beauty of the Beastly tells us how the genius of the biological universe resides in its details and proves why, according to Timothy Ferris, author of the acclaimed Coming of Age in the Milky Way, Angier is "one of the strongest and wittiest science writers in the world today."

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Angier (Natural Obsessions: The Search for the Oncogene), the Pulitzer Prize-winning science reporter for the New York Times, confesses that she enjoys writing "about organisms that many people find repugnant: spiders, scorpions, parasites, worms, rattlesnakes, dung beetles, hyenas." In these elegant essays (most of which have appeared in the Times), Angier discusses sexual and parental behavior, medical and health issues from an evolutionary and cross-species perspective. Not afraid to anthropomorphize, she even sees molecules as characters in little plays; the decadence of orchids, she says, would make Oscar Wilde wilt. Other topics introduce the latest discoveries in molecular biology and the work of female scientists. From cockroaches to cheetahs, DNA to elephant dung, Angier gives us intimate and dramatic portraits of nature that readers will find rewarding. Author tour.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Angier, a Pulitzer Prize^-winning science writer for the New York Times, admits that she anthropomorphizes "shamelessly," a perspective that imbues her marvelous essays with a palpable delight in life's madcap ingenuity. Not only does every creature, even a roundworm, have consciousness, even personality, but under Angier's perspicacious scrutiny, so do molecules. Although terrified of cockroaches as a child, Angier has become a champion of roaches and their ilk--" the bloodsuckers, the low lowlifes, and the brutes" --and writes glowingly about such intriguing creatures as scorpions, pit vipers, and parasites. She has organized her widely varied and snappily composed essays under such headings as "Loving" (monogamy is not evolution's favored practice), "Dancing" (DNA's graceful and efficient choreography), "Slithering" (creepy crawlers), "Adapting" (the importance of play in the development of muscle tissue and the brain), "Healing" (what menstruation really achieves), "Creating" (the indisputable link between art and madness), and "Dying." In every essay, Angier offers us something new to ponder, whether she's proving that dolphins aren't cute, describing androstenedione, the female equivalent of testosterone, or explaining how joy actually promotes health. Donna Seaman --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books (April 4, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0395791472
• ISBN-13: 978-0395791479
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #615,607 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

NATALIE ANGIER writes about biology for the New York Times, where she has won a Pulitzer Prize, the American Association for the Advancement of Science journalism award, and other honors. She is the author of The Beauty of the Beastly, Natural Obsessions, and Woman, named one of the best books of the year by the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, People, National Public Radio, Village Voice, and Publishers Weekly, among others. A New York Times bestseller and National Book Award finalist, Woman is "a text so necessary and abundant and true that all efforts of its kind, for decades before and after it, will be measured by it" (Los Angeles Times Book Review). Angier lives with her husband and daughter outside of Washington, D.C.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

39 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A book that made me yelp with joy, August 6, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Beauty of the Beastly (Paperback)

I am a noisy reader. I groan when I come across clumsy wordings or badly twisted sentences. I sigh when I am bored. I snort when I encounter assertions that are (in my view) outrageous. And occasionally, meeting up with prose that startles me with its elegance, vividness, and originality, I find myself uttering an involuntary yelp of sheer joy. Mind you, this doesn't happen very often. It doesn't happy very often at all when I'm reading pieces about science, and certainly not when the subjects of the pieces are animals such as cockroaches, scorpions, and pit vipers. Yet my passage through The Beauty of the Beastly was punctuated with innumerable such yelps. I couldn't help myself. How else can you respond to a book that describes an orchid this way: "They are the P.T. Barnums of the flower kingdom, dedicated to the premise that there is a sucker born any minute: a sucker, that is, with wings, a thorax, and an unquenchable thirst for nectar and love." Or one i! n which the author says of the lowly dung beetle: "In the vast world of beetles, they have the stamp of nobility, their heads a diadem of horny spikes, their bodies sheathed in glittering mail of bronze or emerald or cobalt blue." Yelp! Yelp! I didn't feel guilty about making such a racket because the author of The Beauty of the Beastly writes so directly and personally to the reader that I suspect she hopes the reader will respond directly and personally as well. I happen to be an animal lover, and probably have more tolerance for insects and reptiles than many people. But I'm convinced that Natalie Angier could coax even my friend with a terrible snake phobia into some fondness for the creatures. Perhaps more to the point, I emerged from the book with new thoughts and a new approach to those things that creep and crawl and jump. "...if there is any lesson I have learned in my years of following science," Angier writes, "it is that nothing is at it! seems. Instead, things are as they seem plus the details y! ou are just beginning to notice." No one, I think, is as good at noticing them as Angier herself.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Up close to life, August 12, 2002

By 

Stephen A. Haines (Ottawa, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Beauty of the Beastly: New Views on the Nature of Life (Hardcover)

Angier's urge to teach us all about Nature is irrepressible. Metaphor is her bow, with anthropomorphism a valuable arrow in her quiver. Enzymes become muscular bodyguards, orchids are lazy, deceptive, or magnanimous and scorpions can be "model spouses and parents." Such imagry will leave many "bench scientists" aghast at her "softening" the science, but others, and we readers, applaud her ability at stripping away the arcane aspects of dealing with Nature's wonders. She exposes life with a fresh view, making us intimate with its wonders and coming away with enhanced interest to learn more. That is precisely her aim and she scores a bullseye with every essay.

She has grouped the essays into seven major topic areas ranging from adapting to slithering. The categories cover genetic mechanisms DNA uses through mating practices to the ultimate "subject that knows no species boundaries, the cloak with room to cover us all - death." Before arriving at this terminal condition, however, Angier is able to sprinkle petals of flowery prose on prolonging life. In "Why Vegetables Are Good For You," she provides new information on plant chemistry's impact on our bodies. That dread aspect of civilized life, fat, is also given attention - and its due. You will be delighted with her revelations on "adipose pucker."

After a set of paeans celebrating various practicing scientists, Angier finally turns to the "great mystery" - the ending of life. "Cell death is universal to life," she begins. Demonstrating its necessity in allowing evolution to proceed, she proceeds to relate how the process of cell death provides insights in the diagnosis and treatment of various afflictions. In tracking the mechanisms leading to the demise of various cells, particularly within our immune system, reseachers have found new genetic signals that keep our bodies healthy. Otherwise, we would be likely to self-destruct. It's a fine balance kept continually on a fine tightrope. Yet, after aknowledging its necessity, Angier doesn`t accept there's such a thing as "a good way to die." The loss of a friend leads her to express the mechanism of the AIDS
virus and the epidemic's effect on social thinking.

Angier's imaginative essays provide a wealth of topics for further thought, even investigation. It's a pity she failed to provide any supportive reading suggestions. Many of her essays discuss the researchers while omitting to identify them. There's no reason to discount the facts she provides for our enjoyment and edification, but pursuit of a chosen topic is impeded by lack of pointers. That shortcoming is alleviated only by the fact that an index is provided. However, the range of topics and Angier's prose nearly overcome the lack of a bibliography.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Unapologetic Anthropomorphist, October 29, 2006

By 

B. Jensen (Olney, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Beauty of the Beastly (Paperback)

Natalie Angier explains in the introduction to her collected that while there is a raging debate in the science community on the "propriety of anthropomorphism," she weighs in with the anthropomorphists to the point of anthropomorphizing plants and even molecules. And it is this empathy that Angier feels with the lowliest that makes this such a fascinating and ultimately educational read.

The chapters are short, as they are reworked columns printed previously in the New York Times, but they are strung together to depict a fascinating portrait of life in all its complexities from nucleic acids to the sex life of hyenas. Angier's compassion and passion for life is the guiding force that links the essays. The individual essays stand alone as sturdy little dramas of life in its many forms, but between the covers of this beautiful and beastly book, they stand together as a portait of the deep connectedness of all life.