Angels and Ages: Darwin in Time

Passage: pages 168-196, the latter half of Chapter 4: Darwin in Time 

     Author Adam Gopnik’s persistence and meticulous attention to detail become especially evident in this section of Angels and Ages.  This section is a culmination of information Gopnik previously discussed about the circumstances that led Darwin to write and eventually publish On the Origin of Species.  In his discussions, Gopnik is able to evoke in the audience strong feelings of sorrow for Darwin because of the loss of a daughter, admiration of Darwin’s own attention to detail and observation, and awe of Darwin’s masterful understanding of not only the natural world but also of rhetoric and prose.  Although this section was incredibly dense and often tangential, Gopnik’s ability to bring together themes from both Darwin’s and Lincoln’s pasts lent a unique perspective to the writing, and allowed Gopnik to make some valuable insights about Darwin’s effect on the world. 

     A notable strategy used by Gopnik to help create a holistic sense of Darwin for the audience was his inclusion of countless excerpts and quotes from things Darwin wrote and said.  The snippets of private letters to his wife, Emma, help to create a sense of him as an affectionate and caring husband and father; sections of his published novels convey his patience, wisdom, and painstaking observation of the natural world; and segments of letters exchanged between Karl Marx and him help the reader to visualize Darwin in his own time, as his contemporary philosophers, economists, and scientists grappled with the Darwinian concept of natural selection.  These primary source documents subsequently add a level of credibility (ethos) to Gopnik’s research of Darwin’s life.

     Impressively, these inclusions flow well within Gopnik’s writing, a flow that is further enhanced by his usage of many “sound” devices.  For instance, Gopnik describes, “Dogmatic, difficult, and determined, he [Louis Agassiz] dominated American natural history…” (185).  The implementation of consonance in the repeated “duh” sounds, as well as some assonance in the repeated “ih” sounds, allow Gopnik’s diction to roll smoothly off the reader’s tongue.  Yet, this flow did occasionally feel disrupted when certain words seemed not to fit the diction of the other words around them.  For example, take Gopnik’s description of one of Darwin’s books, “Having studiously avoided comparisons for hundreds of pages packed with ornithological detail…” (Gopnik 183).  The word ornithological seems out of place in a sentence with simpler diction, of which the most complex word is “studiously.”  Overall, however, this was only a minor occurrence.

     Consequently, the majority of Angels and Ages flowed well, and nicely expanded but later brought together seemingly disparate points about the separate yet similar lives of Lincoln and Darwin.  Perfect for an audience that enjoys historical novels with a flair of mystery and focus on rhetoric, Angels and Ages is a book sure to offer an intriguing new look on the lives of some of society’s most respected icons.