Phineas
G. Nanson is fed up with studying theory - he wants to do something more
concrete. One of his tutors introduces him to the biography of Sir
Elmer Bole by Scholes Destry-Scholes - little known, but a masterpiece of its
field. So enthused is Phineas by Scholes's passion, and by his obscure
life and death, that he decides to embark on a biography of his own. Scholes
Destry-Scholes is to be his subject.
Phineas goes to
Pontefract to see where Scholes was brought up. A disappointing
experience, since he really learns nothing about Scholes the man, and staring
at his house all day just makes the woman who lives there think that he's a
stalker. But then someone finally replies to Phineas's ad in the TLS, and
he has a bit more luck tracking down correspondence between Scholes and his
publisher. Three documents are brought to light, and a chest full
of Scholes' things (including underwear and marbles), are opened for Phineas's
inspection. The three documents are biographical accounts of Linnaeus,
Sir Francis Galton, and Henrik Ibsen. Did Scholes's supposed death in the
Maelstrom interrupt these projects? On his quest, Phineas meets two very
beautiful, but very different women: Fulla, the Bee taxonomist, and Vera,
the radiographer. Whilst working in Puck's Girdle, a literary travel
agency, Phineas also meets a dragon in the form of Maurice Bossey...
I wasn't sure
of The Biographer's Tale at first. I thought that it was a very good
account of the life of the researcher, all those coincidences which seem to
gather to compose an answer. All those jigsaw pieces which you and you
alone can put together. The Biographer's Tale is such a learned piece
that it is quite daunting. There are a huge variety of references to
names and places which aren't crucial to the plot, they're just part of the
vista. For me, this was difficult at first, since I like to look everything
up. I had to adapt, to just look up things that I really didn't know
anything about, and to ignore those references which I recognised.
In short, you do need a researcher's skill to get something from
this novel, to know where to look. Scholes's card index system will be
very familiar to most researchers. However, I think that you have to be
interested in the actual subjects in order to put all the pieces
together. Someone else's research is never as stimulating as your
own. Having said that, Linnaeus, Galton, and Ibsen are very interesting
subjects, so it's worthwhile doing some background reading. There were
also aspects of the plot that I was unhappy with. From being almost an
asexual man, Phineas has not one, but two lovely ladies thrust upon him - or
maybe that's just my jealousy. There's also that dreadful scene where
Phineas waves a penknife around in Puck's Girdle with hysterical abandon,
although he's valiantly rescued by Fulla. Or maybe Phineas has been
afflicted by 'The
Feminization of Nature', that admirable treatise put forward by Deborah
Cadbury.
A. S. Byatt's
own research is impeccable. There really is a dearth of bee taxonomists
in the world, as Fulla states, and the Stag Beetle is very much in danger of
extinction. I delighted in reading up on the alkali bees and the
pollination of Alfalfa. It's also great to read what abominable snowman
lies behind Linnaeus's homo nocturnes idea, and it's true that the great
taxonomist thought swallows spent their winter under sea. Galton really
did push Nangoro's niece out of his tent in Ovampo, in the fear that she would
ruin his white linen garments. The Ibsen fan who wrote 'Brand's
Daughters' was Laura Petersen, and she may have been an inspiration for 'A
Doll's House'. Phineas seems to think that Galton was not all that well
known, but there is a great deal of information out there on the Father of
Eugenics. A. S. Byatt seems to have captured the mood of the current
times admirably: Galton thought the Australian Aborigines were the lowest form
of human life, something which is echoed in the attitudes towards the Tasmanian
Aborigines, in Matthew Kneale's admirable 'English Passengers'.
Having said that, Galton did believe that Victorian gentlemen were two rungs
below the Athenians (but, on the negative side, the Athenians owned
slaves). Phineas is much at a loss as to how to compose the story of a
man's life, since there are so many ways at looking at man, and at a man.
Now the human genome has been mapped, and Galton's genetics is experimented
upon in our fields. Fulla believes in the interdepence of life, Vera the
radiographer can see cancer weave its web across a patient's body.
The Strange Passenger in Ibsen's Peer Gynt asks Peer to donate his body to
science; Galton puzzles over what is real and what is imaginary.
Given his name, Phineas can't but help be an explorer as well,
although not quite in the Jules Verne style of Phileas Fogg. I
believe A. S. Byatt chose the rather silly name 'Phineas G. Nanson',
because it's very close to 'Phaeogenes nanus', the mite that preys on the
beetle that causes Dutch elm disease. Since I haven't found out
anything about this small mite, I'm unsure of what relevance it is to
Phineas's character. However, just as American hospitals are
overwhelmed with people queuing up to have their bodies scanned in
3D, so Phineas finds out a great deal about a person other than Scholes
Destry-Scholes.
After the third or fourth reading, and a bit of studying, The Biographer's Tale
does emerge as a worthwhile endeavour.
Authortrek
Rating:8/10
Kevin
Patrick Mahoney
Go
to our A. S. Byatt page
The Biographer's Tale -
Kevin Patrick Mahoney investigates A.S. Byatt's novel. For references to the context of the novel, see
below:
Ataman Hotel - Evliya
Celebi - whose work was translated into English by Sir Elmer Bole in
The Biographer's Tale. Celebi's a fascinating character
Evliya Celebi -
a concise bio
The Epic of Gilgamesh -
one of Destry-Scholes's volumes on Sir Elmer Bole is called "A Singular Youth"
- maybe Byatt got this phrasing from the olddest tale on Earth? Enkidu is
described as a 'singular youth'
The
Bird and the Bees - a short description of Bombus Lucorum - the Bumble
Bee
Carl Linnaeus -
including the portrait of Linnaeus in Lapland dress
Edinburgh Review
1863 - in which Linnaeus's Homo Nocturnes or Troglodyte is discussed
Burnt Norton by
T. S. Eliot - where the "boarhound" quote comes from
There Rolls the
Deep by Alfred Lord Tennyson - quoted in The Biographer's Tale
Sir
Francis Galton - a bio
Sir
Francis Galton - finger printing, the torture of stats, and the first
weatherman
Death of Henrik
Ibsen - from the Guardian, including the sawmills quote
Fourier -
is very popular at the moment, he's also mentioned in Helen DeWitt's The Last Samurai
Karl Pearson -
The Grammar of Science
Livingstone -
it was this legendary explorer who discovered Lake Ngami
A Descent into the
Maelstrom by Edgar Allan Poe - Phineas writes: "did I say that
Destry-Scholes's fabrication of Linnaeaus's fabrication of his visit the
Maelstrom was a pastiche of Edgar Allan Poe?"
The Strange Passenger -
from Peer Gynt
The Biographer's
Tale - Kevin Patrick Mahoney investigates A.S. Byatt's latest
novel. For the context of the novel, and references, stick to this
page.
Ataman Hotel - Evliya
Celebi - whose work was translated into English by Sir Elmer Bole in
The Biographer's Tale. Celebi's a fascinating character
Evliya Celebi -
a concise bio
The Epic of Gilgamesh -
one of Destry-Scholes's volumes on Sir Elmer Bole is called "A Singular
Youth" - maybe Byatt got this phrasing from the oldest tale on
Earth? Enkidu is described as a 'singular youth'
The
Bird and the Bees - a short description of Bombus Lucorum - the Bumble
Bee
Pontefract
History - including Pontefract Cake
How did he get
that idea? - a bio of Linnaeus and a discussion of his ideas,
including the mistake about how swallows spend their winter
Human Evolution summary -
includes discussion of homo sylvestris
The
Linnean System - excellent Linnaeus page
Carl Linnaeus -
including the portrait of Linnaeus in Lapland dress
Edinburgh Review
1863 - in which Linnaeus's Homo Nocturnes or Troglodyte is discussed
The Abominable
Snowman - is this what Linnaeus meant by Homo Nocturnes?
Save the Sea
Cows! - looks like Linnaeus may have got his cows confused
Delerium Tremens -
a definition
Mansfield Parkyns - no doubt
his mother was a fan of Austen - here's Parkyns the authority on Ethiopian
dishes
Galton
in South West Africa: to the Ovampo - Galton's own account of
rejecting Nangoro's niece
Burnt Norton by
T. S. Eliot - where the "boarhound" quote comes from
There Rolls the
Deep by Alfred Lord Tennyson - quoted in The Biographer's Tale
Francis Galton: an
Exploration in Intellectual Biography and History - a superb page on
Galton, featuring extracts from his memoirs, eugenics, and his relationship
with Darwin
Galton and Darwin's
Theory of Pangenesis - rabbits
Galton
in South West Africa: Negotiations with Namaqua Chiefs
Galton
in South West Africa: Size of the Caravan
Galton
in South West Africa: Horrors of Savagedom
Sir
Francis Galton - a bio
Francis Galton Founder
of Eugenics - Athenians at the top, Australian aboriginals at the
bottom - further evidence of this racist science in Matthew
Kneale's English
Passengers
Sir
Francis Galton - finger printing, the torture of stats, and the first
weatherman
Francis Galton: Hereditary
Genius
Death of Henrik
Ibsen - from the Guardian, including the sawmills quote
A
Doll's House and Ibsen's Feminist Slant - tells the story of
Laura Petersen who wrote Brand's Daughters, their correspondence mentioned in
The Biographer's Tale
Ibsen: A Biography by Michael
Meyer
Henrik Ibsen and Skien - Family,
Adolescence, Memories
Rachel Carson and Silent
Spring - there were warnings about the use of pesticides as far back
as the Fifties
Automated
Classification of Solitary Bees - "The main objective to develop
a computer based system for the automated identification of bees was that
studies on bee diversity, conservation and on pollination ecology are hampered
due to the difficult taxonomy of bees, the lack of classification literature
and bee taxonomists"
Geriatric
Taxonomy: Retired, Elderly, Volunteer and amateur - Fulla's not
kidding when she says that there are very few bee taxonomists in the world
Alfalfa Seed
Production in the Western USA - honey bees aren't quite as good as the
alkali
Agriculture
Contributes to World Pollinator Decline
Fourier -
is very popular at the moment, he's also mentioned in Helen DeWitt's The Last
Samurai
Linnaeus -
mentions Petrus Artedi
Karl Pearson -
Galton's disciple
Karl Pearson -
The Grammar of Science
Galton
in South West Africa: Back to Walfish Bay - Galton certainly didn't
make it to Lake Ngami, as Phineas writes
Livingstone -
it was this legendary explorer who discovered Lake Ngami
A Descent into the
Maelstrom by Edgar Allan Poe - Phineas writes: "did I say that
Destry-Scholes's fabrication of Linnaeaus's fabrication of his visit the
Maelstrom was a pastiche of Edgar Allan Poe?"
Prisons over Two Centuries -
mentions Sir Edmund du Cane
Galton's
Personal Odyssey - mentions the legendary land of Kantsaywhere
Stag Beetle
Advice Note - its guidelines will be quite familiar to readers of The
Biographer's Tale
Dutch
Elm Disease: Historical Overview
The Dutch Elm Disease
Epidemic - frustratingly though, I can't find any mention Phaeogenes
Nanus, the mite that preys on the beetle which carries Dutch Elm Disease, and
which I believe Byatt used as the source of the name for her character Phineas
G. Nanson
The Strange Passenger -
from Peer Gynt
