Something New

 We feature each fortnight Nicholas Reid's reviews and comments on new and recent books.  

“THE SECRET LIFE OF THE UNIVERSE” by Nathalie A. Cabrol (Published by Simon & Schuster. Marketed in New Zealand by HarperCollins, $NZ30). ;  “NOTHING SIGNIFICANT TO REPORT – The Misadventures of a Kiwi Soldier” by Dario Nustrini (Published by HarperCollins, $NZ39.99)

Let me make a very obvious statement. I am not a scientist of any sort, and I would be totally lost if I were to attempt reading a genuine scientific treatise. For one thing, I would be floored by the necessary terms and jargon that science requires. But this does not mean that I am completely ignorant of scientific developments, scientific discoveries and for that matter scientific controversies. How do I know such things? Not by academic treatises, but by reading good popularisation written by scientists. In this matter “popularisation” does not mean “dumbing down”. It means good information passed on by scientists to lay people like me (and let’s ignore the fact that there are – alas – bogus non-scientific writers who produce unscientific clap-trap – see my think-piece on this blog U.F.O.s and My Tin-Foil Hat).  

Sub-titled “An Astrobiologist’s Search for the Origins and Frontiers of Life” The Secret Life of the Universe is the work of a genuine scientist. Nathalie A. Cabrol is an astrobiologist – that is, an astronomer who specialises in seeking signs of life in our solar system and beyond. This does not necessarily mean searching for intelligent life. It means searching for any form of life beyond planet Earth – even if that means tiny, microscopic building-blocks of life. And of course there is also the quest for water beyond planet Earth. Inevitably, Cabrol uses some scientific jargon – which slowed me down in some of my reading – but not so impenetrable as to miss their meaning. Read slowly and carefully.

In her opening Chapters, Cabrol introduces us to exoplanets – meaning planets moving around suns far beyond our solar system. They have been detected by the most modern telescopes and radio telescopes. Astronomers have so far discovered at least 3,800 stars with planets circling about them in our galaxy. This leads her to discuss how vast our galaxy alone is, and how planets were formed and how they will probably die. One theory on how Earth was formed, embraced by many astronomers, is the Theian theory. This is the idea that another huge planet, now dubbed Theia, crashed against the embryonic Earth creating the Moon and its tilt. This was mere thousands of millions of years ago. But, more to the point of the search for life in the universe, the crashing of two planets could mean how the earliest building blocks of life were passed on from one planet to another. In fact, there are many theories about how life is passed from one planet to another. One is the Panspermia theory which says that dust was scattered about the universe, seeding minute elements that could develop over eons and become minute forms of life. But this doesn’t tell us where minute life came from. Another theory sees life beginning with biochemistry; not to mention the idea that life began in the hot springs in the deep sea.

However Cabrol lays down some universal laws about life, telling us that thanks to recent astronomical work “…the elementary compounds that make the life we know, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur… are common in the universe. It is no accident that we are made of them… Organic molecules and volatiles are found at the surface of Mars, in the geysers of Saturn’s tiny moon Enceladus, in the atmosphere of Triton, in Triton’s stratosphere and on comets…. Much further away still, nearly two hundred types of prebiotic complex organic molecules were detected in interstellar clouds near the centre of our galaxy. They included the kinds that could play a role in forming amino acids – the building blocks of the life we know. Granted that organic molecules are not life, but they are the elemental building blocks life uses for its carbon and hydrogen backbone, and they are everywhere.” [Chapter 1, Pg. 14] She also makes it clear that “When it comes to the environments in which life could have originated, we can only test various hypotheses to the best of our current abilities: warm, cold, acidic, alkaline, and anywhere in between, and see how the chemistry works out. But there, too, a transition from prebiotic chemistry to life appears possible in more than just one scenario, as demonstrated by the various theories.” [Chapter 2, Pg. 42]

Having set down these universal facts, in the following five chapters Cabrol proceeds to take us through the possibility of life on planets and their moons in our solar system. Mercury, nearest to the sun, is brushed aside. Being closest to the sun, Mercury is essentially scorched and cooked by the sun – an arid rock where even the most microscopic life is improbable. Cabrol turns to the “solar habitable zone”, meaning warmed by our sun enough to nurture life, but not so cold as to be inhabitable. In the habitable zone are Venus, Earth and Mars. Obviously Earth is teeming with life, so no more need be said. Venus is shrouded in steam and clouds. 96% of Venus’s atmosphere is carbon-dioxide, which does not encourage life. Possibly vestiges of life might once have existed on Venus. But we have to remember that slowly, over millions of years, the sun expands; and in this long process the growing heat would have destroyed such life as there might have been on Venus. Also discouraging Venusian life are Venus’s winds, which constantly run at 360 kilometres per hour. Incidentally, Venus spins in the different direction from most planets.

So we are taken to a more likely planet – Mars. Smaller than both Venus and Earth, Mars was once regarded as most likely to bear life – perhaps intelligent life. There were tales about canals on Mars etc. But a few sweeps around the small planet by Viking 1 and 2 in 1975 definitively destroyed such fantasies. The country that takes greatest interest in Mars is now China. Mars could have once been habitable as there were organic molecules there – but Mars lost its atmosphere. There may have been water on the surface of Mars 100 million years ago and there still is volcanic activity on Mars. There are on Mars mudstones [mud petrified] that suggest that eons ago there were lakes in the planet. Referring to NASA’s Viking explorations of Mars, Cabrol remarks:  “It gave us the first in-depth view of the history of a planet where everything looked incredibly familiar: ancient channels and dry lake beds, polar caps, dune fields, volcanoes, and lava flows now frozen in time. There is no need to invent new words to describe Mars. Its landscapes are very Earth like and yet so different, a red planet with blue sunsets, where rovers have sunken their wheels in the dirt for the past couple of decades now.”   [Chapter 4, Pg. 67] Further she notes of Mars: “Despite hostile conditions on the surface today, all data converge to show that Mars is on the high-priority list of worlds where life could have developed and survived over time. The new findings encourage us to think we are on the right path.” [Chapter 4, Pg. 86] It is quite feasible that Mars in its formation sent dust to Earth, in effect one factor seeding Earth.

So much for Venus, Earth and Mars, the three planets in the habitable zone.

Turning to the [apparently] largest planet in our solar system, Jupiter is essentially a bubble of gas – not a planet where there is firm ground and therefore not a place where life could develop. But Jupiter is surrounded by many moons, and it is they which Cabrol examines in detail. She remarks “Earth is only one of many ocean worlds in our solar system.” Jupiter’s moon Juno is covered in ice [NOT H2o], with possibly water deep under its crust [water is not one of the building-blocks of life, but it is needed to nurture life]. Possibly Jupiter’s small moon Ganymede carries water, but it is most likely to be found in the moon Europa.

The planet Saturn has not been examined as closely as its largest moon Titan. Titan  has been examined by NASA’s Huygens probe in 2005, which forced its way through Titan’s thick atmosphere and landed, despite the moon’s very strong winds. Later the Cassini voyage circled around Titan and examined it in detail: “Cassini completed over one hundred close flybys of the giant moon, mapped its surface, and continued to make detailed studies of the atmosphere. The detection of large gravity tides seemed to confirm the presence of a layer of liquid water underneath an icy crust, kilometres below the lakes and seas of methane sitting on the surface.”  [Chapter 6, Pg. 118] But does this mean water as we know it? Triton has some forbidding aspects – nor least that it revolves so slowly that each of its seasons takes 17 years. There will be more searches for prebiotic signals in future landings but as yet there is there is no evidence of signs of life. As for other objects in our solar system, the dwarf planet Ceres [in the asteroid belt] appears to carry water, Pluto’s moon Charon carries water and possibly that there is water underneath the surface of our Moon.

At which point you will reasonably ask why a book about finding life should be so concerned with water. Remember that over millions of years, the sun will expand and swallow planet by planet. Our Earth is in the habitable zone now, but it won’t be habitable forever. Our [very distant] descendants will find Earth becoming hotter and hotter. Could it be [and this is only speculation] that our descendants will then seek out moons in our solar system to which they can move … and they will need water. Science fiction? Maybe, but reasonable.

Having dealt with our puny little solar system, in her last five chapters Cabrol turns to the bigger picture of our galaxy and whether there are any signs of life therein. Astronomers are now able to detect distant suns which, in the way they “wobble”, reveal that they have planets circling around them. It is possible that there are between 20-trillion to 80-trillion planets in our galaxy alone, the odds therefore being that life must exist far from our solar system. AI systems are able to detect not only stars with planets, but stars very many light-years away. The gas giants we know [like Jupiter] may have small rock cores carrying a form of life… but we do not know. Nevertheless Cabrol says “The laws of physics and chemistry are universal and the building blocks of life on Earth are abundant and common, and though they might not be exactly the same elsewhere, the odds suggest that many more analogue blueprints of the process of life could exist in the universe, in the same way synonyms provide different means to convey the same information in grammar. Now we just have to figure out ways to test this hypothesis and see how it may help us to search for life beyond our planet.” [Chapter 12, Pg.249]

Remembering that some suns are well on the way to dying and other suns are newly bred, it is possible that there are not only signs of life but there may be ancient  civilisations in our vast galaxy with whom we have not yet connected… but of course this is only [reasonable] speculation. In the meantime, the SETI project has now for over six decades been attempting to detect extra-terrestrial techno-signatures; and there are many discussions among astrobiologists about what sort of extra-terrestrials might be interested in us… but so far nobody has met an extra-terrestrial. In her very last chapter, Cabrol deals with the possibility that the whole universe teams with life, but not intelligent life. In her epilogue, she discusses the decline of Earth in its pollution and constant loss of species… and pessimistically, she says that it is very unlikely we human beings will ever find an alternate home.

In putting together this synopsis, I have grossly simplified Nathalie A. Cabrol’s complex theses, and I admit that I found it harder to understand her ideas once I got into the last five chapters. That is why I wrote comparatively little of those chapters. For all that, The Secret Life of the Universe is an enlightening book and certainly one that reminds us of our status in the order of things.

  *.  *.  *.  *.  *.  *.  *.  *.  *.  *.  *.  *.  *.  *.  *.  *.  *.  *.  *.    *

 

And in the immortal words of Monty Python, now for something completely different. Nothing Significant to Report, subtitled “The Misadventures of a Kiwi Soldier” is Dario Nustrini memoirs of six years in the New Zealand army before he resigned and was honourably discharged. He joined when he was 19 and was discharged when he was 25. Most of those six years were taken up with training.

            As it begins, Nothing Significant to Report is almost a breezy, rollicking tale, but eventually moves into darker things. Dario Nustrini (his name came from his Italian forebears) divides his tale into four sections.

First there is “Basic Training” at Waiouru, which involves getting used to being messed about, first by corporals then by NCO’s. There are such things as almost having to wear the wrong sized uniform; marching, marching and more marching; the inevitable incompetent barracks fool who always does everything wrongly; beginning to fumble with rifles before getting used to them; route marches and other necessities. Dario Nustrini is attracted to the signals corps. All this is told in humorous tone – yarns about doing things wrongly, cracking jokes and of course swearing as often as possible. Rough Kiwi jokers in short, with laughing camaraderie.

Then there is “Corps Training and Beyond” down south at Linton and Burnham Camp, which at least has a bar where young soldiers can booze in their off hours. Nustrini becomes an Electronic Warfare Operator [meaning signals] and now has the onerous task of carrying around heavy equipment in marches and field manoeuvres. There is much training in mountains and bush in the South Island and tales of twerps who have to be shown how signals work. And then there are lectures on wars going on elsewhere… especially Afghanistan.

“Fun and Games” (of course the title is ironical) deals with his being sent to various allied countries, including Canada for a while, to understand more about signals. His craft is honed in New Zealand, including having to know how to set up a site for sending and receiving signals, with camouflage and other cover. There is one tale of him and his team being ordered, at night, to penetrate the Auckland Zoo without being detected – a tale that ends in laughter. On brief leave there are [largely] harmless capers about picking up girls. And there are further exercises with the Australian Army in Exercise Listening Redback. Both Australia and New Zealand are readying to join the U.S.A. and U.K. to fight in Iraq.

And so to “Around the World”, which happens to be the shortest section of Nothing Significant to Report. In Iraq, Nustrini is mainly together with the Aussies and the Yanks. Naturally there are the discomforts of active military life, with barely sanitary barracks and of course much danger. There are many fire-fights. He has respect for the Iraqi soldiers who are fighting against the terrorist ISIS, but he gradually becomes disillusioned with army life. After just this one “deployment”, when he returns to New Zealand he resigns, is discharged and leaves the army.

While much of Nothing Significant to Report is written tongue-in-cheek and making light of army life, its humour is only fitful. Nustrini’s admiration for his comrades is real, but the comedy is sometimes strained and slowly falls away. Still, the life in barracks seems painfully real.

 

Something Old

 Not everything worth reading is hot off the press. In this section, we recommend "something old" that is still well worth reading. "Something Old" can mean anything from a venerable and antique classic to a good book first published year or two ago.

"UNE TENEBREUSE AFFAIRE” [“A Murky Business”] by Honore de Balzac ( first published in 1841as a “scene from the political life” in Balzac’s “Human Comedy”). Sometimes translated as “A Gondreville Mystery”.

            As you will know from my review of Honore de Balzac’s The Chouans, I am now working my way through other of Balzac’s novels which I have previously neglected. With Une Tenebreuse Affaire, Balzac, by now fully involved in penning novels set in his own era, reverted to writing in this novel about [partly fictious] events which would have happened when Balzac was a baby. The novel takes place between 1803 and 1806. Napoleon is on the point of becoming emperor and building up his empire, but [as in Les Chouans] there are émigrés , still pining for the Ancien Regime, who are returning to France and plotting against Napoleon. The aristocratic woman Laurence de Cinq-Cynge is shielding four young émigrés. Two of these émigrés are her cousins, Paul-Marie and Marie-Paul Semeuse (who happen to be identical twins and who are both in love with Laurence). The other two are Robert and Adrien d’Hauteserre. The émigré Semeuse twins have been deprived of their chateau and estate by one of Napoleon’s senators, Malin. The police agent Corentin [who figured in Les Chouans], together with his assistant Peyrade, is trying to track down the unwanted émigrés. Largely thanks to the cleverness of Michu the bailiff, the aristocrats evade arrest. At which point Napoleon issues an amnesty for the émigrés, so long as they keep the peace.

            But the story resumes two years later. The police agent Corentin takes revenge for having been outwitted. Malin, the senator, is kidnapped by assailants who resemble Michu and the four émigrés who are supported by Laurence de Cinq-Cynge. They are arrested and tried and (particularly because Corentin has tricked Michu’s wife into implicating her husband) they are found guilty, despite the excellent defence prepared by their lawyers. Poor Miche is executed. But Laurence de Cinq-Cynge, thanks in part to the good offices of Talleyrand [the famous diplomat who was able to go along with any regime that happened to be ruling] she is able to visit Napoleon in person on the eve of the battle of Jena, and she begs for clemency. The four aristocrats have their prison sentences commuted to service in Napoleon’s army… and we are told that three of them die in various of Napoleon’s battles. The fourth, Adrien d’Hauteserre, survives and marries Laurence de Cinq-Cynge, and they live to see the Restoration when, after Napoleon fell, the monarchy returned.

            This novel is, however, in part a detective story. Who really kidnapped Malin, if it wasn’t the four émigrés? It turns out that it was disguised ruffians who worked for the Imperial (Napoleonic) Police and who had been organised by Corentin himself. We learn that, in the giddy political  manoeuvering of the time, Malin – who lived through the July Monarchy as the Comte de Gondreville – was up to his neck in a plot, contrived by Fouche, Sieyes, Talleyrand and Carnot [all historical figures], who wanted to restore the republic, rather than the monarchy, should Napoleon’s campaigns fail. Though the novel as a whole is largely fictional, the kidnapping of Malin was loosely based on a real case.

            If you are not au fait with French history, the synopsis of this novel I have given is very dry and misses the fact that much of this [relatively brief] novel is also romantic. Once again, as in Les Chouans, Balzac appears to have been influenced by Walter Scott.  Indeed in his papers he paid Scott the direct tribute of claiming that the character of Laurence de Cinq-Cynge was based on Diana Vernon, the strong-willed heroine of Scott’s novel Rob Roy. Naturally this novel has its melodramatic qualities – notably the secret vault in the forest, under a monastery ruins, in which Michu hides the émigrés, and where later Corentin has Malin imprisoned. There is also the romantic contrivance of selfless, idealistic identical twins both in love with the heroine. Nevertheless, despite the laborious time it takes before the main characters are introduced, Une Tenebreuse Affaire is sharper and more-to-the-point than Les Chouans. There is a comparatively tight structure in the outwitting of Corentin, the kidnapping and the particularly dramatic trial – with a satisfying denouement in Laurence de Cinq-Cynge’s quest for clemency and the result.

            Regarding the political implications of the novel, it is again more enlightening than Les Chouans. “Will you be sensible henceforward? Do you realise what the French Empire is to be?” Napoleon asks Laurence de Cinq-Cynge rhetorically when she seeks him out at Jena. Being “sensible” is the essential theme, for the novel shows how old-school aristocrats, no matter how noble and how much admired by Balzac, they have to come to terms with the fact that the old regime is over and the nouveau-riche are in the saddle. Malin, former Themidorean and possessor of an émigré’s estate, is the archetype of nouveau-riche (despised by Laurence de Cinq-Cynge and her cousins, despite the fact that Malin gave generous testimony for them). Laurence de Cinq-Cynge initially idealised Charlotte Corday – the young woman who assassinated the extremist revolutionary Marat – and hated Napoleon. But she has to swallow all her noble pride. Even so, she continues to hate the Restoration and the July Monarchy because she sees that it is the “trimmers” who prosper in that and any other regime after the revolution.

            Balzac himself appears to be on the side of the “trimmers” – people like the older  d’Hauteserres and the old Marquis who would rather let their aristocratic privileges go than being involved in a sort of civil war.  They must conform to Napoleon. Perhaps this is why, in his pragmatic way, Balzac puts in some favourable words for the likes of Fouche and Talleyrand  - arch-trimmers both. In a long aside on the administration of justice under Napoleon, Balzac also suggests that a trial should be interrogation by professionals rather than having emotion-swayed juries.

            The historical moment caught by this novel is one in which Napoleon is menaced both from the “right” (aristocratic plots) and by the “left” (republicans), yet the conspiracies are so contradictory that they never succeed. Presumably, had Balzac been so inclined, he could have written a novel about an unreconstructed republican learning to be “sensible”.

            While Une Tenebreuse Affaire is widely read in France, it is not regarded as one of Balzac’s greatest works and it is less read outside France

 

Something Thoughtful

 Nicholas Reid reflects in essay form on general matters and ideas related to literature, history, popular culture and the arts, or just life in general. You are free to agree or disagree with him. 

                                                       CARAMEL AND DUMP

For the last few weeks I’ve been annoyed by two irritating people who have dominated our television news and “think pieces” in what pass for newspapers. There’s Caramel and there’s Dump. Both of them wanted to be President of the Divided States. Caramel became a candidate only because her boss, President Joe Burden, was discovered, rather late, to be deep into cognitive decline. It was painful to see him slowly reaching for words when he tried to debate with Dump. And it was twicefully painful to see Burden’s wife Shrill holding a meeting where Shrill pathetically said “He answered all the questions!”… which was patently untrue. Behind Shrill stood Burden not saying anything, incapable of speaking. The Dimmercratic Party went into panic mode and dumped Burden as their candidate. But time was running out before the election. So, without considering who could be the most capable candidate, they quickly chose Burden’s lacklustre vice-president Caramel.

Meanwhile Dump, the Reprehensible Party candidate, was running around talking about illegal immigrants eating pet cats and dogs and mis-order at the border. He had been President of the Divided States before; and the Dimmercratic Party were always ready to remind people of his reluctance to hand over power once his term as president was over. In fact he encouraged his followers to storm the capitol. Dimmercratics also harped on Dump’s lecherous ways – he had consorted with prostitutes and then lied about paying off one of them. A court said he was a felon. Really, his shagging seemed almost as bad as the titantic shagging of the Dimmercratic JFK – but JFK was lucky to live in an era when reporters didn’t delve into president’s private lives. Caramel was ready to say that Dump was a misogynist and also she proclaimed that she was “a woman of colour”. Early in her [relatively brief] campaign, Caramel proclaimed that she was the party of “freedom” and women’s rights which included something called “women’s reproduction rights”. I’m in favour of women reproducing if they want to. But then I realised Caramel really meant abortion. So why didn’t she say so? Funny that.

Anyway, the two campaigns bumbled on. And there were massive rallies on both sides (people of the Divided States love overblown shows). And there were “think pieces” which claimed Dump could win only if there was a massive wave of racism and misogyny. And most of the media backed Caramel. And even in my country – New Zoohouse – I heard a woman saying hysterically that if Dump won it would be the end of democracy. And on the whole our main New Zoohouse television station tended to say nice things about Caramel’s followers and more-or-less condescending things about Dump’s followers.

Then came the election. And Dump won by a country mile. Okay – I know and you know that the Divided States have a weird system called the Electoral College whereby state by state determines who will become president for the whole country. And often there are “battle states”, meaning states that can be coaxed into changing their minds election by election. The result of which is that sometimes a president is elected when the other candidate won more votes nationwide, that is, the popular vote. [Not that I’m being snooty about this – until some years ago, New Zoohouse used to have a similar system called First Past the Post and a number of times a prime minister came to power without having won the popular vote.]

But the fact is that Dump this time won both the Electoral College AND the popular vote. To put it more simply, over half of the Divided States voted for Dump. Is it possible that all those who voted for Dump were racist and misogynist? Obviously not. Not only did many tens of thousands of women vote for Dump, not only did many tens of thousands of people of many ethnicities vote for Dump, but people were concerned about rising prices for food, an uncontrolled border, and a rookie candidate who was clearly out of her depth. So Dump has become – or will become - only the second president to serve two non-contiguous terms [the first was Grover Cleveland in the late 19^th century].

All of which may lead you to think that I’m being partisan and “voting” for Dump. Not a bit of it. I’m going with Mercutio’s immortal “A plague on both your houses”.

The main problems with Dump as seen by a New Zoohouser are this -  Dump is essentially an isolationist, interested only with what benefits the Divided States. Therefore he’s prone to say that he might withdraw help for NATO if the countries of NATO don’t pay their way. This means opening the way for a real autocrat, like Vladimir Putin, to push his intended empire further and further west. There is suspicion about how Dump has dealt already with Putin. And clearly Dump wants to withdraw any help to beleaguered Ukraine. Then there is Dump’s determination to boost his economy by declaring tariffs on incoming goods. For a New Zoohouser, this could mean a huge loss of income – or no income at all.

And what of Caramel and her followers? Their cardinal fault is their smugness. Dimmercratics embrace fashionable causes and like to present themselves as being interested in the poor and deprived. They like to see the leaders of the Reprehensible Party as made up of billionaires and corporations. Now it’s true that Dump and his friend Elon Musk are billionaires… but so are the leaders of the Dimmercratics. In fact there are probably more billionaires on the Dimmercratic side than the Reprehensible. Dimmercratics look down on the lower classes. Dump’s followers were labelled “deplorables” by an earlier unsuccessful Dimmercratic candidate. Joe Burden called Dump’s followers “garbage”. Night-time satire TV depicted Dump’s followers as yokels, dimwits, bigots, uncouthed etc. etc. This is not exactly a way to woo most of the electorate. The working classes rebelled… and they were not placated at all by movie stars and pop-singers who endorsed Caramel in her rallies - George Loony, Taylor Schitt, Bruce Springroll, Robert de Nightpot etc. etc.  By this stage, working classes understood that such “celebrities” were themselves pampered billionaires who live lives far from hard toil. Personally I believe the more entertainers appear at political rallies, the less likely they are going to persuade the electorate.

FOOTNOTE : So you think I was going hard on the Dimmdercratics? Please pause a moment and remember that it was the very left-wing Bernie Sanders who said "The Democrat Party left the working class so the working class left the Democrat Party." Yep. True.