R E V I E W S

NEW BOOKS
By Zadie Smith

ohn Gray’s the immortal- bold—it is also es-

J iz ation com mission:

science a nd the
str ange quest to cheat
sentially metaphori-
cal. Readers may find
metaphor insuffi-
death (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, cient to establish a
$24) offers two portraits of human hu- profound connec-
bris. The first depicts a circle of “psy- tion between the
chical researchers” in nineteenth- paranormal practice
century England; the second, a ragbag of “automatic writ-
of Bolshevik “God-builders” intent on ing” and the murder-
remodeling life on earth. What unites ous rampages of the
these movements, in Gray’s view, is Cheka. It’s certainly
the attempt to “conquer death.” It was a difficult tonal exer-
science, in the form of Darwinism, cise, moving from
that had revealed to the British and bleak comedy to pur-
Russians the intolerable truth of hu- est tragedy in two
man extinction, yet in the absence of hundred pages.
credible religious belief, both “turned The British section opens at a séance beyond-the-grave messages from Myers,
to science for escape from the world in 1874 in the London house of Erasmus Sidgwick, and others for more than
that science had revealed.” Darwin. Amongst the invited guests are thirty years. “The people involved in
It’s Gray’s subtle idea that when sci- brother Charles and George Eliot. Sé- the cross-correspondences,” Gray ex-
ence is used against itself in this way it ance of the season, surely. It didn’t go plains, “belonged in the topmost stra-
becomes “a channel for magic.” Some- very well: Charles found it “hot and tum of Edwardian society. Many of
times this magic is benign, prompting tiring” and left early; Eliot had only her those involved had suffered agonizing
otherwise sensible Edwardians to be- skepticism confirmed. But one man bereavements; some had long-hidden
lieve they are receiving messages from present that night was a believer, and personal relationships. The scripts be-
the dead; at other times it is the kind an influential one: Frederic Myers, in- came a vehicle for unresolved personal
of lethal black magic capable of “van- ventor of the word “telepathy” and fu- loss, and for secret love.” Incredible
ishing” all of Moscow’s boy scouts on a ture president of the Society for Psychi- what the British won’t do (talk frankly
single day in 1919. As you’ll gather from cal Research (SPR). In this role, he was about their feelings). Incredible what
the previous sentence, Gray’s case stud- in surprisingly good company: William they will do (transpose painful feelings
ies are so different in nature it is diffi- James was another president, as were into mediated communications from
cult to fit them together in summary— the philosophers Henry Sidgwick and the dead). It’s a really crazy scene Gray
actually it’s difficult, period. Despite a Henri Bergson. Members included John exhumes: half a dozen genteel ladies
bit of bullying parallelism in the intro- Ruskin, Prime Minister Gladstone, and channeling a stream-of-consciousness,
duction (“The Russian God-builders Prime Minister Balfour. If in life Myers cross-referenced, fantastical fiction net-
believed death could be defeated using was a key player in this world, in death work, peppered with “stories and phras-
the power of science. The English psy- he became its main object of study, es from ancient Greece and Rome, the
chical researchers believed science having instructed surviving friends to King James Bible and Shakespeare . . .
could show death was a passage into be on the alert for his posthumous com- Wordsworth, Browning and Tennyson.”
another life. In both cases the boundar- munications. James tried hard to re- But Gray, a philosopher, is less inter-
ies between science, religion and mag- ceive a message but came up empty; ested in the literary and subconscious
ic were blurred or non-existent”), this more successful were the wives and motivations than in the overt rationale,
begins as a book of two halves, and widows of various SPR members, who expressed by Sidgwick: “Unless human
remains so. The attempted synthesis is became “automatists,” transcribing personality survived bodily death, he

“Miss Evans with a spirit emanation,” by Staveley Bulford © The Granger Collection REVI EWS 69

(69-71) April New Books Final2CX2.indd 69 2/21/11 11:16 AM

 believed, morality is pointless.” That is, humans had to die, so that a new hu- tingency?). Still, if you object to
if humans have no special destiny, if manity could be free of death.” Bye-bye Dawkins’s elevation of science at the
their existence is not eternal but con- boy scouts. At this point you can’t help expense of religion, as many do, you
tingent, then the belief in morality as but feel, flicking through pages of will find appealing Gray’s sober view of
a system of duties is unsustainable. The Stalinist mass murder, that we seem to its limits (“Reality is exhausted by what
same dilemma presented itself to Kant have drifted some distance from our is and what happens. Beyond this there
and Nietzsche, whose respective re- original subject, immortality—unless is nothing”), even while you raise an
sponses to the problem (defense, aban- you accept Gray’s proposal that all this eyebrow as Gray himself overreaches:
donment) mark the poles of ethical murder of individual men is committed “The resurrection of the dead at the
debate through the twentieth century. for the future benefit of eternal man. end of time is not as incredible as the
Sidgwick was in the defense camp, Matters grow Grayer still when a final idea that humanity, equipped with
in a style typical of his time: he meant metaphorical link is made between growing knowledge, is marching to-
to fight contingency with science. Dar- occultism and espionage, which seems, ward a better world.”
winian science being the revelation of again, too loose to hold: “They attract Personally, I get a contact thrill from
extreme contingency, Sidgwick could those who look for a concealed pattern this kind of rhetoric, without ever being
continue thinking of himself as a man in events.” able to quite dismiss my inner Dawkins,
of science only by willfully misinter- What is the purpose of this strange who sits persistent in a corner of my
preting Darwin’s message. Death was book? The answer comes in a brief but brain comparing the Law of Gravity
just a stage of the evolutionary process: devastating final section. It’s entitled with the Second Coming, asking me
“Rather than the end of life, death was “Sweet Mortality.” Here we learn that baldly which I’d stake my life upon.
a phase in cosmic progress.” The idea “this confusion of science with magic Then again, Gray’s target isn’t really the
that evolution necessarily describes the is not an ailment of a kind that has a reality status of religion. Unlike
progress from lower to higher forms of remedy.” You find it today in scientists Dawkins, he does not waste energy
life was—is—a misapprehension as who think they can solve global warm- confronting readers of Genesis with the
common as the idea that “survival of ing (“They cannot stop the climate paleontological record (“The heart of
the fittest” means the “strongest” ani- shift they have set in motion”); in the all religions is practice—ritual and
mal wins. Darwin himself was con- Dawkins crowd, who believe science meditation. Practice comes with myths,
flicted on the issue, sometimes arguing can magically subvert belief in God but myths are not theories in need of
there is no more design in natural selec- (“No form of human behavior is more rational development”). Gray’s target is
tion “than in the course in which the religious than the attempt to convert science itself. For Gray, scientific natu-
wind blows”; sometimes speaking of the the world to unbelief, and none is more ralism and religious fundamentalism
tendency “towards perfection.” Gray is irrational, for belief has no particular both refuse to accept that “there is no
not conflicted: “There is nothing in the importance in either science or reli- hidden order in things,” that the world
theory of natural selection to support gion”). This is the first time Dawkins is is “riddled with chaos” and human will
[the latter] notion.” mentioned, but it’s possible to read the in the face of it “finally powerless.” Dar-
But the notion has always had its whole book as a subtle anti-Dawkins winism always has been a uniquely bit-
own momentum, morphing easily into enterprise, an attempt to shift the argu- ter pill, not much easier for men of sci-
eugenics. A famous adherent, H. G. ment away from the familiar Punch ence than for men of God—even
Wells, serves as a bridge here between and Judy fight—Science vs. Religion— Darwin gagged on it. Gray ends on a
London and Moscow. An early enthu- and toward a fuller comprehension of Kafka note: “All things may be possible,
siast of the Soviet project, in Anticipa- the shared delusions of both. Gray but not for us.”
tions (1901) he wrote passionately, pro- wants scientists to admit (as philoso-
phetically, about an oligarchy led by phers long ago conceded) that their peaking of attempts at immor-
the genetically “evolved”: “And for the
rest, those swarms of black and brown,
and dirty-white, and yellow people,
theories are only so many tools “we use
to tinker with the world,” which always
sounds conceptually good to literary
S tality, did you know the Duchess
of Devonshire is ninety-one this
month? In the past decade she seems
who do not come into the new needs types like your reviewer, though I won- to have performed a little voodoo of
of efficiency? Well, the world is a world, der what a real scientist would make of her own: magically extending her life
not a charitable institution, and I take Gray’s assertion that there are no “Laws by continually writing about it. This
it they will have to go. . . . It is their of Nature,” only “regularities.” Even to one is called wait for me! (Far-
portion to die out and disappear.” me it seems sophistical: I can’t know rar, Straus and Giroux, $28) and
Wells’s 1920 trip to Moscow frames with absolute certainty that an apple should feel overfamiliar, but like
Gray’s interpretation of Bolshevism as will fall every time I drop it, but it is my Chatsworth itself (the 400-year-old
a “materialist version of gnosticism” in very strong expectation that it will, and seat where she was chatelaine) the
which salvation is “collective and phys- it is on such contingent forms of Duchess’s life is so voluminous she is
ical” and the idea is to deliver man certainty—drawn from abundant ex- forever finding enough material for
from nature: “Aiming to create a new periential evidence of natural “regu- another memoir in some nook or
type of human no longer subject to larities”—that science, surely, performs cranny of it, like the time she found a
mortality, the Soviet state propagated its business (and wouldn’t most scien- van Dyck sketchbook at the back of
death on a vast scale. Unnumbered tists freely admit this mild form of con- an old cupboard. No matter how

70 HARPER’S MAGAZINE / APRIL 2011

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 ment, affection for Oswald Mosley, natural ruling class the same way they
Hitler, and Stalin, and calm cer- knew buttercups appeared in spring.
tainty that “a man who [has] spent Churchill was “Cousin Winston” to
all his life in politics or public af- them, and Macmillan “Uncle Harold”;
fairs was more likely to have a son Jack Kennedy was a cute boy who
capable of following in his foot- turned up at a few balls the year Debo
steps than a man who has never came out. They had nicknames for the
paid attention to either.” I don’t royal family, for Christ’s sake (Prince
believe that, nor do I believe that Charles was “Friend,” the Queen Moth-
decolonization, like the national- er “Cake”). Educational achievement of
ization of coal, was a lot of point- any kind was considered irredeemably
less show, nor that the next best vulgar and the English seasons marked
person to clean one’s house is the not by meteorological change but mass
son or daughter of the person who alighting from different train stations:
has been cleaning it for forty years. Ascot, Glyndebourne, Henley. I have
My own grandmother was in ser- a fairly high tolerance for this sort of
many memoirs she writes she will vice in a great house: thank God the thing, but also a limit. When an Amer-
never meet demand: no amount of war broke this natural law of inheri- ican friend (Bunny Mellon) decides to
Mitford will satisfy admirers of that tance. But! I can’t resist the Mitford send Debo’s mother-in-law, who runs
eccentric clan. You can read all Nan- comedy. Love that Farv read only one an East End women’s charity, a con-
cy’s novels, the letters and biogra- book in his life—White Fang—and signment of clothes, Debo and the girls
phies, and you will still want to hear considered it so good he didn’t want to are shocked to find the boxes, when
more about these seven siblings and spoil matters by reading another. Love they arrive, full of Balenciaga. They
their irresistible, monstrous, Commu- older sister Nancy torturing Debo at intercept the gowns, and send the
nist, Nazi, absurdly posh ways. The bedtime: “As soon as you’ve women instead “decent, un-
Duchess (“Debo” to Mitfordiacs) un- gone I shall do the joy worn clothes of our own
derstands this, and sprinkles Mitford dance.” Love Nancy disguis- that satisfied my mother-in-
manna on the fans with her opening ing herself as a tramp and law’s purposes.” Meanwhile
“Note on Family Names,” three whole accosting her terrified sisters the Mitfords step out in
pages long, from which I can quote in public places, leering their new couture. Debo:
only a representative paragraph: “Give us a kiss.” “No-one could have appre-
You tend to think of ciated them more.” Where
Muv and Farve called Nancy Koko . . . Nancy as the engine of to begin?
Pam and Diana called her Nuance and comedy in the Mitford Class is a cocoon—it
to me she was the Ancient Dame of
France, the French Lady Writer, or just
house because she tran- takes genius to think your
Lady. Pam was Woman to us all, with scribed it so well, but read- way out of it. Debo is no
variations thereof. Tom was Tuddemy ing Debo’s account your respect shifts genius, as she’d be the first to admit.
to Unity and Jessica (“Tom” in Boudle- to Farv, whose comic capacity was as But she is a funny, honest, and unpre-
didge, their private language) and this enormous as it was unintended. Upon tentious writer, with a winning mix of
was taken up by the rest of us. Diana finding a lot of Nancy’s smart Oxford naivety and wisdom. Her social expe-
was Dayna to Muv and Farve, Deerling friends at the breakfast table he in- riences may have been narrow (aren’t
to Nancy, and Honks to me . . . Unity quires of Muv (very loudly): “Have all our social experiences, whether on
was Bobo, but Birdie or Bird to me. Jes- these people no homes of their own?” the top or the bottom, narrow?), but
sica called her Boud (“Bobo” in Bou- Here he is answering the phone to her domestic experience was broad
dledidge). Jessica was Little D to Muv,
Stea-ake to Pam and Hen or Henderson
Peter Watson, a beau of Nancy’s: “Nan- and often sad, and serves as a remind-
to me, but she was Decca universally— cy, that hog Watson wants to speak to er that there exist human troubles
and remains so in this book. you.” When Muv tries to remedy Farv’s from which no amount of money or
illiteracy by reading Tess of the class will protect you. Debo had six
For your reviewer this book was a d’Urbervilles aloud, she is surprised to pregnancies: three babies who died at
great and guilty pleasure, my own rela- find him moved by Tess’s fate: “Oh, birth, three survivors. This dark peri-
tionship with the Mit- darling, don’t cry, It’s od—and her husband’s lifelong alco-
fords being somewhat only a story.” Farv: holism—she dispatches in only a few
agonized. In a manner “W H AT. D o you pages, demonstrating those once-
that the Duchess mean to say the damn general British qualities, discretion
makes clear she finds feller made it up?” and stoicism, whose disappearance
banal and bourgeois, I As for class con- she elsewhere laments, along with
am repelled by various sciousness, you can’t elbow-length gloves and that bit in
individual Mitfords’ hope for that from the Harrods where a fellow could leave
anti-Semitism, unlim- Mitfords. They felt his country hounds while he went to
ited sense of entitle- themselves to be the his club. ■

Study for an Equestrian Portrait, Possibly Albert de Ligne, Count of Arenberg, by Anthony van Dyck © The
Metropolitan Museum of Art/Art Resource, N.Y.C.; Bulbous Crowfoot (Buttercup) © Mary Evans Picture
Library; A Hound and a Bitch in a Landscape, by George Stubbs © Tate, London/Art Resource, N.Y.C. REVIEWS 71

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