Odyssey - Tom Chaffin ****

Not Homer, but a detailed description of Charles Darwin's Beagle voyage and what he got out of it, in a biographical sandwich - we get a short life of Darwin up to the Beagle, lengthy coverage of the voyage, and then a short summary of the rest of Darwin's life.

As a reader I am somewhat conflicted by this book. I recognise it as providing an in-depth look at exactly what happened on the voyage and how it changed Darwin's view of the world. As such it is very impressive and probably valuable to those with an interest in the fine detail of Darwin. But if I'm honest, a lot of it is rather dull. The reality is that while the famous voyage did sow seeds that would later blossom, very little of what happened on the voyage itself was of scientific interest, and much of what occurred was repetitive, while Tom Chaffin's enthusiasm for detail can be a little wearing.

However, I must stress how valuable the book is to get a complete picture of what fed into Darwin's understanding of the world. I have read several books on Darwin, but felt I knew him significantly better after this one. Inevitably with a historical character, some of this was gratifying - Darwin's horror of slavery, for example - other parts less so, with the inevitable biases of the time.

I also found there were aspects of the voyage that really hadn't got through to my consciousness before. One was the significance of the three Fuegians effectively kidnapped on FitzRoy's earlier voyage and returned on this Beagle outing with mixed success. The other was the lack of significance for Darwin of the Galapagos at the time - the importance of the islands in underlining the theory of evolution very much came with hindsight.

I'm glad I read the book, then, and have to recommend it - but I can't say I particularly enjoyed the experience.

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Review by Brian Clegg

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