Strange as it sounds, scientists still do not know the answers to some of the most basic questions about how life on Earth evolved. Take eyes, for instance. Where do they come from, exactly? The usual explanation of how we got these stupendously complex organs rests upon the theory of natural selection.
You may recall the gist from school biology lessons. If a creature with poor eyesight happens to produce offspring with slightly better eyesight, thanks to random mutations, then that tiny bit more vision gives them more chance of survival. The longer they survive, the more chance they have to reproduce and pass on the genes that equipped them with slightly better eyesight. Some of their offspring might, in turn, have better eyesight than their parents, making it likelier that they, too, will reproduce. And so on. Generation by generation, over unfathomably long periods of time, tiny advantages add up. Eventually, after a few hundred million years, you have creatures who can see as well as humans, or cats, or owls.
This is the basic story of evolution, as recounted in countless textbooks and pop-science bestsellers. The problem, according to a growing number of scientists, is that it is absurdly crude and misleading.
The plate lunch of today is still built as pure fuel. It comes with your choice of protein, maybe hamburger steak drinking up gravy, teri (short for teriyaki) beef or guava chicken with its faint memory of Hawaiian Sun juice in a can. Equal weight goes to the carbs: two scoop rice — no “of,” if you please, and drop the “s” at the end of “scoops” while you’re at it — and one scoop mac salad, perfectly domed, like a helping of ice cream. (The traditional utensil for serving is, in fact, the ice-cream scoop.)
If you haven’t jumped over a barrel since “Donkey Kong,” you may be reluctant to read Gabrielle Zevin’s immersive new novel about video game designers. But don’t worry, you don’t have to wear a VR headset to experience “Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow.” It’s not a novelization of “Tron” or a homage to “Ready Player One.” You’re welcome on this journey whether the Oregon Trail makes you think of Francis Parkman’s memoir or your brother’s Commodore 64.
I feel confident making such a promise because “Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow” is actually a novel about friendship — particularly that rare, miraculous friend who may drift away for long stretches of time but always rises again with the vigor of Sonic the Hedgehog.
We are all going to die. Most of us don’t know when. But what if we did know? What if we were told the year, the month, even the day? How would that change our lives?
These questions drive Nikki Erlick’s debut novel, “The Measure,” which weighs Emerson’s claim that “it is not the length of life, but the depth of life” that matters.