Physiology

Just as author Tom Segev relates that Ben-Gurion increasingly harked back to the episodes that shaped him in his earlier life, so too are these episodes more vivid to us than later ones. This would be fine and even impressive as a literary gambit, having the reader feel about Ben-Gurion’s life the way Ben-Gurion himself did, but at least for this reader it was somewhat disappointing in that it’s the later events ⁠— founding and leading the State of Israel ⁠— that we are reading for. But again, this too may be a literary achievement, suggesting that for the subject of this biography, it was the younger man’s experiences that were important ⁠— and that by extension this is the case for all lives. But I’m not sure that’s accurate; surely the ambitious younger Ben-Gurion would have been overjoyed at the eventual achievements of his later self.

It’s a strange complaint to make, but I feel this book wasn’t long enough; each of the many episodes, particularly the later more historic ones, I felt could have withstood more detail.

I was pleased to learn of Ben-Gurion’s erratic behavior and attitude towards his family, and of his penchant for travel and mild but somewhat constant womanizing, and his growing intellectualism alongside faddishness. Segev concludes that Ben-Gurion’s philosophical disposition is basically that of Anglo-American liberal; all to the good. Almost. The implication is that this temperate poise made him the wise indispensable man, but also open him to more exciting dead-end intellectual enthusiasms.

Friendships, sex, religious relations, despair ⁠— the richness of the subject matter’s life encourages in the reader a life in politics as it’s a life in full.

It’s arguably a profound and important book in that it can change our self-perception to one that’s closer to the truth.

Putting aside some questionable attempts at humor, the core of the book is an engaging, informed Fantastic Voyage from in the mouth all the way to out the bottom. I’ve seen so many images of our digestive system but never been presented with the process as a clear narrative, with emphasis on the differences between the organs involved and the inflection points between them.

Gut

Recommended by my sister-in-common-law, a physiotherapist, I get the feeling the author was chomping at the bit to make this more comprehensive but agonized about making it entertaining. This is a mistake as anybody who wants to read this book is interested in the subject matter and doesn’t need her Germanic attempts at humor, levity, etc. What’s entertaining and great is the core of the book: an engaging, informed Fantastic Voyage from in the mouth to out the bottom. That is where it works. How many countless pictures of our digestive system have I seen, yet I’ve never had it presented as a clear narrative, with emphasis on the differences between the organs involved, and the inflection points between them.

I did not know the process of the vomit, nor that only some animals can do it (horses and rats can’t). And that the small intestine can send food back up to the stomach for vomitting, though the vomit can be just the stomach contents only.

Nor did I have any conception of the banana/dumbbell shape of the stomach, and that our smooth, involuntary muscle can stretch so much. And that the stomach is not in the pit of our bellies but higher up (though that makes sense).

But mainly perhaps it corroborated and burnished a sense that we are actually dual selves: not only does the gut have a brain but as we would perhaps expect, we are dual beings, an aware one (the brain) and an unaware one (the gut). This is vividly illustrated by the opening metaphor of the sea squirt [p114]. It is as apt as the other main metaphor, that of a tree to tell us that our visual image of it is wrong because a tree is a dumbbell, half underground – this serves to frame the explanation that as we delve into our smooth muscle organs, those involved with digestion, we lose sensory perceptions of them – we don’t even know they are there. We lose awareness of food once it leaves our throats. Meditating on this is kind of enlightening – we’d somehow expect to be more aware of something once it’s inside us.

So yes in some ways this is a profound and important book in that it can change our self-perception to one that’s closer to the truth.

All this is in Part 2, which ends with a chapter on the relationship between the gut and brain. Parts 1 and 3 lack this successful framing structure of a journey (though the tree metaphor is the beginning of Part 1).

Part 3, completely about gut flora, also has a framing metaphor, but it didn’t stick with me, even as it’s illustrated on the book’s final page: the earth at night. That’s because the section is about gut flora, which she calls “the most amazing giant forest ever”. Well, fine, but the visual image is of the earth at night, where we can only see cities, not forests. And the forest within us is confusing because we’ve already used the tree itself to describe ourselves. I suppose this can hold if we consider things holographically, but it failed for me, and so I lacked a hook on which to hold the microbe discussion, even though she tried to provide one.

No matter, the idea, the shift in perception, that we ourselves are an ecosystem, is powerful. We already knew this, but sometimes it takes some pages and pages of drumming in facts and a perspective to make us give a new perspective its due.

The illustrations loom large. They are irritating somehow, like she insisted on getting someone who insists on being unable to draw. Sure, we don’t need photorealism, but still. It’s sort of Barbapapa but unappealing.

There is so much to cover here once she opens up the topic that it feels rushed and could be 3x longer for a more comprehensive treatment. This is probably an accomplishment from her perspective, turning this topic into a popular book (though her home German audience probably needs no encouragement). For instance, “Where the ‘self’ originates” gets 2 pages.

“How the gut influences the brain” also is of great interest to me. After reading this book the thought came to me that if we are not actively remembering or doing something, we are just reflecting on how we feel, on who we are, then this is more about how the gut feels than the brain. In fact, can the brain actually feel at all? Don’t we do all our feeling in our torsos? Certainly our brain can generate ideas, thoughts, memories that can create feelings, but is that where we feel them? More than that, even when nothing’s actively going on, I know from a 50-day juice fast that you can feel like someone else when your gut feels different. I remember saying I felt like I was 8 years old. I think, more accurately, what I meant (I forget the actual feeling, this fast was a dozen years ago now) was that I feel as I felt when I was 8. Is that because I had gotten my guts to a state more akin to how they were at 8?

The gut is the largest sensory organ, she argues. Some – quite a lot – of that is sent to the brain (via the vagus nerve).

She does not mention fasting at all, which is weird. Nor mucoidal plaque, which falls out of the intestine (small?) in handfuls during a fast and creates a different feeling of selfhood (well, this seems debunked).

Published in 1976, the themes nonetheless feel contemporary some 40 years later: environmental destruction, economic inequality, social alienation, childlessness. It’s all very naturalistic. We never encounter any aliens because they are long gone, and we don’t understand their amazing technological artifacts at all. And the people are in constant emotional turmoil.

Published in 1976, the themes nonetheless feel contemporary some 40 years later: environmental destruction, economic inequality, social alienation, childlessness. It feels very naturalistic: we never encounter any aliens because they are long gone, and we don’t understand their amazing technological artifacts at all. But we’re trying, we’re organized, fumbling around for it, and desperadoes like our (male) narrator Robinette Broadhead are at the vanguard of discovery, setting out in the alien pre-programmed spacecraft in a gold rush for more abandoned alien technology.

The committee that runs the colony from where it happens is also very nicely depicted in that it’s harsh but seems meticulously fair; large sums of money are doled out to successful pilots.

As well as the scenario and setting, the characters and their tales are also naturalistic: they’re in constant emotional turmoil. It’s an interplanetary human society that without religion and tradition leaves many of its members morally rudderless.

Only the narrative device of telling the story to an AI psychotherapist feels a bit clunky.

Assigned by the Brighton Science Fiction Discussion Group.