A library exists apart from the tempo of commerce. It is a place where, through quiet encounters with otherness, we are able to peaceably locate the edges of our finitude.
I’m sceptical, first, of the reports themselves. There are various cultural pressures that might lead people to report such regrets, whether they feel them or not, and might lead us to attribute them to the dying, whether they report them or not. Second and more importantly, I doubt that the perspective of the dying gives them a clearer view on what really matters. There are reasons to think that the view from the deathbed is worse, not better, than the view from the midst of life. Their lack of engagement in ongoing projects might leave them with an impoverished sense of their value.
What carries Mbue’s decades-spanning fable of power and corruption is something much less clear-cut, and what starts as a David-and-Goliath story slowly transforms into a nuanced exploration of self-interest, of what it means to want in the age of capitalism and colonialism — these machines of malicious, insatiable wanting.
The CRISPR history holds obvious appeal for Walter Isaacson, a biographer of Albert Einstein, Benjamin Franklin, Steve Jobs and Leonardo da Vinci. In “The Code Breaker” he reprises several of his previous themes — science, genius, experiment, code, thinking different — and devotes a full length book to a female subject for the first time. Jennifer Doudna, a genuine heroine for our time, may be the code breaker of the book’s title, but she is only part of Isaacson’s story. The subtitle promises a wider reach: “Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race.” This may sound like publisher’s hyperbole, but Isaacson devotes much anguished discussion to the ethics of gene editing, especially when it comes to “germline” changes that can be passed on through generations and “enhancements” such as green eyes or high I.Q. that prospective parents could insert into their offspring’s genomes.
The past is falling on the house
lightly, insistently
with its own unnameable scent.