It’s true: it was the oxymoronicishness of the title that made me pick up Thomas Keneally’s book, The Book of Science and Antiquities, A Novel”. I imagined something like The Golden Compass (see holiday recommendations below), but I was disappointed. I was not surprised to learn that in Australia, where the book was written and published, it sold under the title Two Old Men Dying. I mean who would buys a book with that name? Seriously?! But Mr. Keneally is a well-known author, with about a gajillion books in his oeuvre. His most famous, Schindler’s List, is emblematic of the first documentary made by the main character in this book, which, by winning an Academy Award, allows him a life time pass to anything he wants to make a film about.

And that is the crux of the problem with this book. I can’t decide whether it’s a beautiful mess, or just a mess. We go to Viet Nam, Eritrea during the revolution, the bottom of the deep sea in a submersible, and to the Bering Sea for a seal meat barbeque. It’s like Keneally had a bunch of notes on books he wanted to write, thought he was out of time, and threw them all together in this one.

The second old man in the Australian title, is Learned Man, a skeletal remain based on Mongo Man. Mongo Man was recovered in a dry lake bed near Sydney. 42,000 years old, he was presumed to be ancestral to the aboriginal people of Australia. (It’s an interesting story; a link is provided below). Shade, as the character is called, is an elder in his tribe, called upon to maintain the order prescribed the Heroes, celestial beings who advise him. 

Those of us who studied literature know the truth of the main character’s (Shelby Apple by name) observation about Shade that “He was a man who lived on the lunette of a lake a little like a householder, and who traveled for same reasons we do: romance, and education, pilgrimage and trade”.  The same problems beset humans throughout history and we feel compelled to keep a record of them.

Unfortunately, whether he did research or not, Mr. Keneally never really brings either character to life. Both men are fascinated by their women’s breasts, which both describe as “gourds”. Shade worries that his wife is cheating on him; Shelby cheats on his.

Despite the very real problems with this book, not the least of which is the candy coating of the life of struggle faced by aboriginal peoples, something kept me reading. I like Shade, I did not like Shelby. I tried to see the parallels in their lives, but it just wasn’t there. Shade’s protectiveness of his people seemed natural for folks who lived a pre-industrial life; Shelby’s controlling nature toward his adult daughter seemed chauvinistic and pandering.

The book raised a lot of questions for me: did someone really think that the Eritreans were a leap forward in human development; did the Learned Man, as he’s called in the book, really die in the manner he dies in the book; and does regalia really define the authenticity of native rituals?  I did research the Mongo Man, but the others will have to wait for another day.

This is a book you might read when you’re out of other stuff to read, but I probably wouldn’t rush out to find it.

The Book of Science and Antiquities, A Novel, Thomas Keneally, Atria Books, an imprint of Simon and Schuster, 2019.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/nov/14/finding-mungo-man-the-moment-australias-story-suddenly-changed