The Face: A Natural History [Paperback]

Daniel McNeill (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 2000

This "natural history" of the face unravels the surprising mysteries of one of the most familiar sights in everyday life, exploring the face's anatomy, its singularity, its ability to communicate, and its beauty.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

What Frank Wilson did for The Hand, and Diane Ackerman for the senses, Daniel McNeill now does for the face. In a fascinating tour of our magnificent mugs, McNeill uses biology and history to help readers appreciate the underappreciated. "We often treat the face as the self," he writes in the introduction, and hence we look right through the most interesting part of our bodies. From our strange, pointy noses ("zoologically bizarre") to our rubbery lips ("twin pleasure puffs, rich with touch sensors"), our faces mark humans as unique among animals. And, oh the things we do with our faces! McNeill examines them all, unflinchingly analyzing the kiss, the sneer, the grin, the blush, and the bluff, not to mention the fleeting expressions that reveal our poker hands, lies, and true feelings. He speculates about fascinating things like the origins of the smile and the use of cosmetics. He works science, literary references, and historical anecdotes into the text effortlessly, weaving a mesmerizing narrative full of bits of trivia that will have you raising your eyebrows, pricking up your ears, and laughing out loud. --Therese Littleton --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

If, as Cicero noted, "Everything is in the face," then this book should have universal appeal. Science journalist McNeill, principal author of Fuzzy Logic (LJ 1/93), considers why humans developed their characteristic facial components and why we find certain features more appealing than others. The questions he poses range from the fundamental (why did sense organs come to "cluster up front?") to the more controversial (is there such a thing as universal beauty?). McNeill borrows examples from art, literature, history, and mythology to illustrate how the face figures in our interactions with others across a variety of cultures. Among the fascinating issues he explores are the act of kissing, veiling the face, the changing fashion in beards, eyewitness error, mirrors, cosmetics, and the phenomena of crying and laughter. While not an essential purchase, McNeill's book provides a unique slant on a very personal subject and is written in a straightforward, entertaining style that should appeal to many readers.?Laurie Bartolini, MacMurray Coll. Lib., Springfield, IL
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Back Bay Books (July 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316588121
• ISBN-13: 978-0316588126
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.9 x 8.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,199,159 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A LENS FOR MONNALISA, August 23, 2000

By 

"toscoreadens" - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Face (Hardcover)

How many things can be said about our faces and from how many points of view!

Apart from the deep interest of the topic itself, in the richness of the aspects addressed, the book is wonderfully written and this alone makes it worth reading. McNeill has the rare gift of an enjoyable, entertaining expression which translates into a fluent and brilliant narrative. There have been many pages where, like in a conjurer's trick, the author sprang up from the printed words and took shape at my side as a sort of domestic conteur, accompanying me while slowly walking around my kitchen's table where I use to read books in a slow, tacit peripatetic rite, away from the TV set and the PC. Since my childhood's years I have been almost totally incapable to read without moving: the phenomenon started with a rhythmic oscillation of the legs and went further through successive stages of mild agitation, until it peacefully settled into a stable circular - I dare say, mandalic - form of ambulation: maybe this quality of mine as a reader can be deciphered in some trait of my face, let's say, the way I laugh or the way I look at people when I speak close in front of them.

Who knows which mysterious relationships our inner world establishes with our faces and in which way they tend to show externally, when perceived by the others!

McNeill takes you in the heart of this constant link between souls and faces, between life and facial expression and appearance. But, although the book never descends to the level of an arid exposition of facts and findings, don't believe its content escapes the filter of a rigorous scientific approach.

On the contrary, each assertion, while light and elegant in its wording, rests upon a solid background of careful observation and experiment. Few books are so poetically taxonomic, only that definition and category disappear from view disguised in a masterful reporting. You pass from a detailed examination of facial muscles (now I know which one to blame for my forehead wrinkles: the corrugator!) to the typical clues which may give you away as a lying hypocrite. Anecdotally overabundant the book gets you acquainted with lots of characters and ideas picked up from a vast segment of the history of thought. Psychology, neurology, physiognomy, social behaviour and cultural traditions are all deeply searched in order to extract meaning out of faces. But perhaps the most important lesson you are taught is that when you cope with faces - of course starting with your own - you should be quite careful not to take all at its face value.

So my advice is: read this beautiful book, then watch yourself straight in the eyes in front of a mirror and honestly tell me if you really see the same person as before.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars finally I know a fun fact about the pineal gland, November 27, 2000

By 

sarah (vancouver island, Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Face (Hardcover)

Everything the amazon.com review says up there is true. A well-written, well-rounded, fascinating, funny and sometimes poetic book-- but also big fun for science-heads like me! It is so lovely when books can draw from biological, evolutionary, historical, psychological, sociological, literary and cultural perspectives at the same time (and more, I just got tired of listing ologies). The antidote to the other kind of specialised learning.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An Eyebrow Raiser, June 6, 2004

By 

takingadayoff "takingadayoff" (Las Vegas, Nevada) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Face (Hardcover)

You might get the idea that this is a book of fun facts about the face and so it is. But it is also a look at philosophy and psychology and human behavior and art and culture, using the face and its individual parts as jumping-off points.

For instance, we learn that the purpose of the eyebrow is to keep sweat out of the eye. But author Daniel McNeill goes on to observe that in different cultures and at different times, it has been fashionable for women and men to pluck out the eyebrows. And the main purpose of the eyebrow is communication. With it, we can indicate a wide range of expressions. McNeill uses Groucho Marx, John Belushi, Uriah Heep, and Charles Darwin to makes his points about eyebrows.

McNeill proceeds to deconstruct the eyelashes, and nearly every other bit of the face in much the same way, using French poetry, Elizabethan drama, 20th century popular culture, and smatterings of natural science to illuminate his descriptions. We learn that flight attendants routinely convince themselves that they like the difficult passenger so that they can deal with him more effectively. What does that have to do with the face? The flight attendants know that it is almost impossible to fake a convincing smile so they can only be effective if they believe they truly like the truculent boor in seat 14D. It's the same sort of logic that makes a successful telephone worker smile even though the listener can't see the smile. You sound different when you smile. Happier.

There are tidbits like this throughout The Face. If you find a discussion about Greek philosophers heavy going, hang on, McNeill will have moved on to Dracula or Mark Twain in a few paragraphs.

The Face was so enjoyable and informative, that I am quite puzzled to find that McNeill hasn't written any more non-fiction since this 1998 book.