Madame Bovary's Ovaries: A Darwinian Look at Literature [Paperback]

The authors, a father-daughter team, have scoured a wide range of literature, from Shakespeare through Tolstoy to Mark Twain, in demonstrating which human characteristics are best portrayed in fiction or drama. They are quick to insist that biology is not "the" tool for analysing writing, but is "a" tool. One which should be used more often and given more attention than it has. They show how Othello, a play whose characters have been adapted to endless variations, is at heart, about male jealousy. Nature teems with examples of manifestations of this basic trait, from the physical to the behavioural. Scientific publications present countless examples from insects to elephants.

The chapter "The Key to Jane Austen's Heart" is about "what women want," and why. There's far more involved than Helen Hunt's ambition to be a successful manager or Freud's lack of answering his own question. The situation rests on finding the right mate. Like male jealousy, females of the species have a strong vested interest in what kind of male they select. Unlike males, females of many species, especially we primates, make a heavy investment in the reproductive process. For human females, there's the long gestation period, need for assistance during upbringing of the offspring and indication of long-term support. One of Darwin's great insights is that while males may do much posturing prior to copulation, it is the females who ultimately accept or reject the male's advances. This situation is reflected in the title of the book. While a female may accept one male for some aspects, she may wander afield searching for others for different reasons. Even a male bird seeking food or other mates may return to the nest to find himself displaced. Whose chicks will he be feeding?

Once offspring have been produced, a whole new spectrum of behaviours is unleashed. How many stable households have been disrupted by parent-offspring conflict. Twain's Huckleberry Finn, with no mother and a dysfunctional father, moves from one surrogate family to another. None beat him, reject him nor judge him, but he leaves them all, closing his narrative with the intent to "light out for the territories". As children mature, they develop their own agendas. From the "terrible twos" to the stresses of adolescence, parent-offspring conflicts reflect the stress of developing individuality, which may only be fulfilled by flight.

We've waited a long time for the insights provided here. Although the Barashes aren't the first to attempt this technique, this book is clearly the best effort made to date. The authors explain every factor clearly, there's no need for the reader to have a degree in zoology. Preconceived notions of what literature is about, however, should be placed in a tightly locked container. There are new and challenging ideas here and every fiction reader should consider them. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

** Thanks to Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young

Sure, there is the individual writer’s style, originality, social conscience (none of this will be denied by this book) – but the main thing that makes Homer, Shakespeare, Flaubert or Faulkner so successful, Barash&Barash propose, might have more to do with nature than with art (for art’s sake). In that sense, even the title of the book is most fortunate, since it already indicates how much the latter is linked to the first.

Throughout the book, the reader is urged to look at a great number of renowned works of literature from the “gene’s eye-view”, with Barash&Barash providing the essential tools by explaining the ABC of evolution through natural selection (often enough quoting or referring to the pioneering work of scientists who contributed to the understanding of the gene as the single unit of selection – and the implications of this on organisms’ behaviour and tactics). Since maximizing one’s chances of passing one’s genes on to the next generation is just about all ANY organism on this planet can (or should) “think of”, it should come as no surprise that the main topics in literature have mostly revolved around a handful of questions:

- Who should I reproduce with, in order to make sure that my genes get “properly” copied (i.e., combine with another set of genes that secures future reproductive success)?

- (for males) How can I inseminate as many females as possible, thereby sending oodles of copies of my genes to the next generation – without having to pay the heavy price of wife&child support?

- (for males again) How can I be sure that my reproductive partner isn’t actually trying to get protection and support from me – and sperm from that nicer-looking guy next door?

- (for females) How can I be sure that my reproductive partner won’t take off as soon as I allow him to mix his sperm with my valuable egg – thereby leaving me alone with the heavy task of rearing the offspring?

- (for females again) How can I “fool” a “generous” providing male to rear the child I have produced with another, more promising (but less resourceful) set of genes?

- How can I make sure that my genetic legacy gets passed on – via my own children or at least nephews/nieces, cousins and the whole kin?

- How kind should I be to anybody who is not genetically related to me – i.e., how will my genes benefit from my alliances with strangers?

This doesn’t mean that our brains (or those of literary characters) are openly concerned with these questions – rather, one could say that there is a type of unconscious “gene-thinking” permanently going on, which then gets translated into feelings, expectations, satisfaction or frustration. Literature, just like real life, abounds with these “symbolic” expressions of our genes’ reproductive “aims”.

As it turns out, humans share these nagging anxieties with countless other organisms on the planet, and so, through entertaining and enlightening examples of other creatures’ trials and tribulations, Barash&Barash prove how truly universal good literature can be. Which is to say that even Mrs. Blackbird would enjoy Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice”, and Mr. Gorilla would feel empathy towards Shakespeare’s “Othello” – if only they could be bothered to make something out of human language. (I suspect, however, that rare creatures such as the bdelloid rotifers, who are exclusively female and therefore do not recur to sexual reproduction to get their genes copied, might find most of our literature – with its emphasis on love, jealousy and competition – invariably boring…)

The authors thereby manage to instruct their readers on two fronts: on the one hand, we are presented with a variety of plots and characters that exemplify the workings of natural selection over human minds and societies; on the other hand, we are confronted with “real stories” of many other species that confirm the value of literature as a “mirror” to nature.

If you are NOT particularly offended about the fact that human nature is fundamentally similar to that of elephant seals or blood-sucking bats, this book may turn out to be a helpful and enjoyable form of reflecting about everyday dilemmas and conflicts. And it certainly adds to the understanding of literature not as something otherworldly and complex (which would require the “interpretation” of literary “experts”) but as a form of expression, entertainment and instruction that has been useful to humans in their attempts to understand the surrounding world – and find ways of getting their genes through.