Taking a risk with the detailed language of science

摘要

Anthill by E.O. Wilson starts as a novel should: when and who are followed swiftly by where and how. "Two weeks before Labor Day, Raphael Semmes Cody sat with his cousin Junior in Roxie's Ice Cream Palace." A fine beginning, and by the end of the first page, you learn that the ice cream palace is in Clayville, Alabama, and to beat the heat the boys are going to set off down the Chicobee River in search of a giant snake. The fellow they meet on their little trip, Frogman, plays an essential role in the novel's climax. A solid opening, a good set up.If you put down the story of Raff long enough to look up the author, it might surprise you to learn that E.O. Wilson is a renowned Harvard biologist. He has won two Pulitzer Prizes, one for a book on humanism and science, On Human Nature (1975) and the other for coauthor-ing The Ants (1990). This leads one to wonder why a successful sociobiologist and entomologist would try his hand at a novel.