| THE DREAM OF ETERNAL LIFE Biomedicine, Aging, and Immortality Mark Benecke Rachel Rubenstein (Translator) New York: Columbia University Press, 2002 |
Rating: 3.5 Fair |
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| ISBN-13 978-0-231-11672-5 | ||||
| ISBN 0-231-11672-1 | 196p. | HC/BWI | $? | |
Mark Benecke is an international consultant in forensic entomology. Perhaps he should have written a book on that subject. His treatment of the subject of eternal life comes across as little more than a hastily assembled collection of legends, anecdotes, and statistics. The subject deserves more. In addition, I suspect the translation veers a little too close to the literal. (Originally written in German, this book is entitled Der Traum vom Ewigen Leben). In the translation, I noticed some oddly (for English) constructed sentences. There are phrases posing as sentences. There are un-attributed quotes. There are unsupported opinions and contradictory statements. I formed the opinion after a few pages: Either this author is not very good at molecular biology, or at conveying his ideas in writing. (The quality of translation plays a part in this, of course; how big a part I cannot tell.) And he may be uncomfortable with large numbers.
The end result was that I stopped reading in Chapter 2 — about halfway through the book. I'll give Benecke this: he does debunk some quack nostrums (most of them of historical interest only), and he presents some interesting facts (e.g. the treetop burials of the Eipo tribe in New Guinea). But his treatment is shallow, rambling, and fragmentary. I will not condemn this book; but neither do I recommend it. There must be many books on life extension that are far more rewarding of a reader's time.
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