The Ancestor's Tale: Not Quite a Review

Richard Dawkins' The Ancestor's Tale is the story of life on Earth, recounted in 39 rendezvous with other forms of life, each rendezvous set at the point of divergence of our ancestor and the other. I always intended to write a review, but now, at the end, I really can't. I am more of a viewer than a reviewer. I like a book where I can get into an argument with the author, and one where I can stop and wonder at the marvels shown, and Dawkins' book marvellously fits that description.

Instead of a review, I have presented eleven (now twelve) views of The Ancestor's Tale here.

It is a quite wonderful book, and I intend absolutely no disrepect to the author when I say that its merit lies more in the tale than the teller - though he tells it very well. He quite explicitly says the same. The author's love and indeed reverence for his subject is very much in evidence. He says a few words at the end about his disdain for the conventional reverence for the supernatural, and his chosen alternative:

It's not because I wish to limit or circumscribe reverence; not because I want to reduce or downgrade the true reverence with which we are moved to celebrate the universe, once we understand it properly. . . My objection to supernatural beliefs is precisely that they miserably fail to do justice to the sublime grandeur of the real world. . .

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