Memoir of a Thinking Radish: An Autobiography

by Peter Medawar

Book Overview

This fascinating volume presents the memoirs and reflections of Peter Medawar--the Nobel Prize-winning scientist and highly acclaimed author of Pluto's Republic, Aristotle to Zoos, and The Limits of Science. The image of man as a cross between Pascal's "thinking reed" and Falstaff's "forked radish," that Medawar invokes with the title to his autobiography, stems from his humble desire "not to claim for myself as an author any distinction more extravagant...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0192820834
• ISBN13: 9780192820839
• Release Date: March 1988
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.52 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.1" x 7.8"

Customer Reviews

Risible aspects of a life

To begin at the end, Peter Medawar concludes "despite its vicissitudes, my life has by no means been without its risible aspects." That is how we know him, because that is how he presented himself in a series of books, notably "Pluto's Republic": a vastly intelligent, ironic, sardonic skewerer of silly egos. Well, that and his Nobel Prize for discovering immunological resistance. In 1986, at age 71 and slowed by a series of strokes, he composed a brief, episodic "life" that is not, as he says, so much a history of his life as a chance to express opinions about things. It is his willingness to express opinions -- some original, some oft-thought but seldom expressed -- that keeps all Medawar's popular writings so fresh. And his courage. Not many -- probably not any -- other well-known public figure in England would go public with his remarks about the sadism of the homosexual nurses who plagued him in a rehabilitation hospital after his first stroke. We can take it as read that the sadism was real; Medawar, of all people, would not make it up. He also has at snobismus, disparagers of the National Health Service (the greatest social innovation in the past 150 years, he says, apparently dating from the revision of the Poor Laws), communism, racism (as the son of Lebanese Maronite, he ran up against it), and many others. Medawar pulls no punches. He was a great admirer of Karl Popper and judged the later generation of philosophers "mavericks and clowns." A just assessment despite the disrepute that Logical Positivism also enjoys now. It is thus startling to discover that even Medawar nods. I do not share his enthusiasm for opera, which is neither here nor there; but his distaste for Gilbert is strangely stated. He finds Sullivan's music mediocre but Gilbert's librettos callous in their treatment of old maids. Maybe so, but it is odd for him to say the cruelty came about because of a well-known demographic shortage of marrying men in the middle classes. Whatever can he mean by that? Yes, there was a shortaage when he started attending G & S productions, but there was no slaughter of men in the 1840s and `50s that would have affected Gilbert's or his audiences' attitudes in the `70s and `80s. Very strange. It is also a shock to find Medawar, usually so careful and skeptical, falling for the claptrap of Amory and Hunter Lovins. That he would admire such Luddites is particularly perplexing in light of his genial acceptance of scientific progress. The Lovinses are not about either progress or science. Strange bedfellows.

An autobiography both modest and hilarious

It's unfortunate that this book is out of print. Medewar won the 1960 Nobel Prize for his research in tissue transplantation, and later wrote extensively on science and scientific method (see his other books, esp. Pluto's Republic).This book is autobiographical and, as the author suggests, is not so much a life story as a series "of opinions which my life can be regarded as a pretext for holding." Well-written, lucid, with many wonderful descriptions of the humor and fun which came with his life. He looks back on his life with a degree of indulgent joy; as successful as it was, it was the journey, not the destination, which he enjoyed.If you feel that the education system is not geared for you, yet you hunger for what an education can provide, this book will give you hope. Medewar succeeded despite the education system, rather than because of it.This book has some strong opinions in it, with which you may not agree. That's fine. Enjoy it for its clarity and enjoyment of life, despite various trials along the way.