Charles Darwin-Naturalist, Poet, Adventurer

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	• The Voyage of the Beagle: Journal of Researches into the Natural History and Geology of the Countries Visited ... Charles Darwin Modern Library, 2001 - 496 pages average customer review:based on 5 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Charles Darwin-Naturalist, Poet, Adventurer

I learned a lot about Darwin in this book that I simply didn't know beforehand. The most important is what an exceptional writer he was. If he had never published his Origin of Species and become famous by it, this book would still be a classic, if not of science, than certainly of literature. His prose, while necessarily more pedestrian, reminds me more than anything of the prose of another famous naturalist, Thoreau (who actually quotes the "Naturalist Darwin" in Walden from this book regarding the natives of Tierra Del Fuego).

The "scientific detail" cited by another reviewer did not bog down the prose at all, a remarkable feat....a talent also found in Thoreau. The famed passage on The Galapagos was indeed interesting. But the most scientifically intriguing passages, I found, had to do with barrier reefs and atolls and how they come to be...I almost said "evolve"....But perhaps that would be premature for this book. In any event, I've never read a scientific account so riveting and fascinating as Darwin's on this subject given herein.

But, as I say, I learned quite a bit about Darwin as a young man, ready for adventure, risks, and brimming with curiosity. He is almost as much a poet as scientist in some passages, quoting Shelley at one point, and he fortifies his narrative with a poignancy absent in most scientific accounts. This stylistic flavour is evident in many passages, but I'll just proffer one from the end of the narrative:

"In my walk I stopped again and again to gaze upon these beauties, and endevoured to fix in my mind and for ever, an impression which at the time I knew sooner or later must fail. The form of the orange-tree, the cocoa-nut, the palm, the mango, the tree-fern, the banana, will remain clear and separate; but the thousand beauties which unite these into one perfect scene must fade away: yet they will leave, like a tale heard in childhood, a picture full of indistinct, but most beautiful figures." (P.444, in my edition)

Whether as poetic or scientific, this work is virtuosic and unsurpassed in its seamless melding of the two. I'll leave the reader to decide which s/he enjoys the most.

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A sentimental scientists

The Voyage of the Beagle is filled with exquisite detail about the plants, insects, animals, and people that Darwin encountered during his journey. I was amazed at how much he had observed and compared/contrasted. My favorite parts, however, were for the most part not these descriptions. I most enjoyed the comments Darwin made that showed how he felt and what personal obstacles he encountered. Despite having the purpose of sharing his observations (which it most successful accomplishes), The Voyage showed a more personal side of Darwin. The personal comments that Darwin included and the poetic imagery he so often used gave the impression that Darwin had a sentimental side beyond the pure scientist. Even the depth of the many observations demonstrated his child-like curiosity and excitement about science, nature, and seeing the world.

If you were looking for a fast-paced plot, this is not your book. If you were looking for wonderful descriptions made by a keen observer and to gain a better understanding of the scientist, this book is definitely for you.

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Charles Darwin as Indiana Jones

We all know Charles Darwin as a scholarly bearded old English gentleman, and like Leonardo da Vinci, Darwin has this image defining him for all future generations. Even though most everyone knows Darwin spent five years traveling the oceans on the HMS Beagle, the image of a young dynamic Darwin never takes over. Reading this book will change this.

Darwin sailed on the Beagle, a small three-mast sailing ship, and circumnavigated the globe. Over five years, he visited numerous islands in the Atlantic and Pacific and extensively surveyed the east and west coasts of South America. He hiked up and down mountains, traveled on horseback across the arid Argentinean plains, crossed the lonely Peruvian desert, and trekked the grandiose Chilean Cordilleras. He thought nothing of packing a train of mules for a two-month overland journey across the Andes going from Chile to Argentina and back again. On all his land expeditions he hired local guides, from Gauchos in Argentina to South Pacific islanders in Tahiti. Darwin's accounts of his expeditions are not only interesting adventures, they are also good portraits of the people he met. These include Latin American governors and generals, Argentinean ranchers, very primitive natives on Tierra del Fuego, and so on.

The journal begins with an account of Cape de Verd islands, then most of the book is spent on Brazil, Argentina, and Chile, and we have to wait until Chapter 17 before we get to what all Darwin fans really want to read, namely the account of his visit to the Galapagos. Though short, the account does not disappoint. We read of Darwin's finches, of two allied species of lizards, and of the giant turtles. Darwin also presents his great insight: that geographical isolation contributes to speciation. He came by this insight when it was pointed out to him that nearly identical species were seldom found on the same island. Another insight was that the fauna and flora an island depends more on that of the nearby mainland than on latitude. For example the plants of the Galapagos Islands were similar to those of the American west coast, while those of Cape de Verd, at the same latitude but in the Atlantic, resembled plants found in Africa. Darwin then continues with accounts of Tahiti, New Zealand and Australia, where we read how he thought coral reef islands were formed.

In the last chapter Darwin tells us of his visit to St-Helena and he does in fact mention its most famous resident, Napoleon Bonaparte. Though the French Emperor had already died, his remains had not yet been moved to Les Invalides in Paris. Darwin writes of the grave only in passing and is explicitly careful not too make too much of it. Apparently visitors in those days had a habit of overdoing their descriptions of Napoleon's rather simple headstone.

Travel notes like these and the descriptions of the people he met, were for me the most charming aspect of the book. The portraits Darwin paints are invariably sympathetic to human nature. Certainly Darwin was a man of his times and valued civilization very highly, but he was no racist and believed that all men could find happiness and enlightenment, and that all men had a right to be free. He despised slavery, and wrote eloquent passages attacking the prevalent institution. From this journal, we come to know a dynamic, adventurous young man, and a thoughtful liberal one who would only later shake our view of our place in the world.

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Insight into the mind of Darwin

This book is an excellent source of knowledge on Darwin's thought process. He describes everything in very exact detail, and in some cases the reader can see the beginnings of his ideas on evolution, such as when he compares the bird species of Argentina and Chile, or the variety of finches on the Galapagos. However, he did not pay as much attention to the importance of the finches as he did in later years. Some of his observations point to problems that only became apparent later- he describes in his visit to St. Helena how much of the flora and fauna was introduced from England, and the native plants only existed on high ridges. He also spends quite a bit of time describing the formation of coral reefs and a number of other things that after a page no longer seem interesting to most of us. However, these descriptions and his lists of species clearly show how much he valued precision and accuracy, and how deeply he became involved in his endeavors.

Another aspect that I liked about this book was his descriptions of various people and how they differed. He clearly thought very highly of the gauchos of Argentina, but found their Chilean counterparts to be decidedly less friendly. He admired the Tahitian men (not the women) and thought that the people of Tierra del Fuego, who were hardly any less "civilized" than many of the Tahitians, were quite inferior. His references to slavery are also interesting; he recounts stories of abuse of slaves, including that of a strong man who thought that Darwin was about to strike him and was too scared to do anything but turn away. He also described a situation in which a man whom he believed to be very kind sold apart members of a family.

While long and at times difficult to get through, this book is well worth reading for those who want to learn about Darwin, or who enjoy reading travelers' accounts. I found that while it did generally take several pages for me to become engaged in the book, that afterwards I was content to read several chapters in one sitting.

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Darwin

If you like science and the little details that go with it-you will really enjoy this book. It reads easily yet contains much detail.

In 1831, Charles Darwin embarked on an expedition that, in his own words, determined my whole career. The Voyage of the Beagle chronicles his five-year journey around the world and especially the coastal waters of South America as a naturalist on the H.M.S. Beagle. While traveling through these unexplored countries collecting specimens, Darwin began to formulate the theories of evolution and natural selection realized in his master work, The Origin of Species. Travel memoir and scientific primer alike, The Voyage of the Beagle is a lively and accessible introduction to the mind of one of history's most influential thinkers.

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