The Bath Literature Festival has started and I will be very busy for the
next week. I thought I would report my meeting with history this afternoon!
Richard and Lalla gave a reading in tandem from his new book 'The Ancestors
Tale' in Bath this afternoon.
A couple of weeks ago I read Michael Ruse's 'Darwin and Design' and also
listened to a BBC Radio4 discussion with Simon Conway Morris so I had a
question in my mind which I asked Richard when he was accepting questions
after the reading (which I didnt pay much attention to). The question was:
'What do you think of the idea that evolution is a random walk to
complexity?' and I added 'Do you see progress in evolution?' He immediately
replied that he did see progress in evolution but not as a random walk to
complexity. I couldnt really make out what else he continued saying as I
couldnt extract any coherent meaning. My fault..sorry about that.
And that was my ten seconds of fame. I thought I should report it here.
Then Nikolai Tolstoy gave a brilliant account of the life of his stepfather
Patrick O'Brian. Speaking without notes for an hour he totally discredited
the existing biography which he has felt necessary to replace by his own
book. He emphasised that Maturin and O'Brian are the same person but he
couldnt find a particular model for Aubrey other than an eccentric Welshman.
He was very revealing about Patrick O'Brian's early life. Patrick didnt have
an easy time of it but was not as wicked as he has been painted. As to
Nikolai Tolstoy I have always had a great respect for him since I read his
book on Merlin which had some remarkably original ideas.
Tomorrow I have Karen Armstrong, all of whose books I love, and Richard
Fortey for some education.
Douglas Clark, Bath, Somerset, England ....
http://www.dgdclynx.plus.com
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