Gavin Pretor-Pinney, contributor
From airborne pheromones to human flight, William Bryant Logan examines all aspects of a most ephemeral element of nature in Air
IN THE opening chapter of Air, William Bryant Logan peers down a microscope at the minuscule particles that fungus expert John Haines has just filtered from the breeze outside. As well as a few glassy crystals of silica and black blobs of carbon, he sees an array of microorganisms: fungus spores in the shape of miniature hot-air balloons, transparent bags of loot, strings of sausages, golden eggs, tiny globes with even tinier continents etched onto them.
"You could get lost in this world," marvels Logan.
"Yes, you can get lost in it for 40 years," replies the mycologist. "I did."
The reader too might become lost in a book on a subject as boundless and fluid as air. Logan's lyrical and engaging eulogy to our atmosphere comprises many short, self-contained passages. You never quite know where you will be wafted to next. For instance, a fascinating essay on how the flying skills of bats, bees and bar-headed geese are governed by the contrasting breathing apparatus of each animal is followed by an essay about the carnage that can occur when pilots mistakenly fly in the turbulent air downwind of a mountain peak.
But you never feel that you lose your way in this book. These contrasting takes on the atmosphere are grouped into broadly themed sections with suitably airy titles: Floating, Spinning, Flying, Telling, Calling, Breathing and Shining.
Logan's science writing is impressively agile. The way he shifts focus from the minute detail to the broad vista is both revealing and satisfying. Writing about pheromones, he describes how ants farm mealy bugs for the sweet honeydew they secrete when tickled. As the mealy bugs feed on nearby leaves, the ants loiter on the branches, ready to protect them from predators at the first whiff of alarm. It all works perfectly unless the predator is the type of lacewing larva to tear strips off its prey and stick them to its own body, using the scent of mealy bug to disguise itself.
From such diminutive dramas, he zooms right out: "To be a part of nature means to be born, and to be born means to start searching: searching for food, for a mate, for friends, for enemies, for a place to live, for the way home. The world for every creature... consists of these common needs. And for most of the living world, pheromones point the way to fulfil them."
Logan is less engaging when he shifts into arts mode. His quick summary of skies depicted in western painting feels tokenistic, and the parallels he draws between classical music sonatas and weather systems - delightful as the prospect sounds - seem slightly forced.
Nevertheless, this book is a wonderfully multifaceted exploration of this most ephemeral and least-considered aspect of the world. "We know so little about the air," Logan laments. "There is no actor more powerful on this earth, yet for the most part we studiedly ignore it."
Gavin Pretor-Pinney is the author of The Wavewatcher?s Companion (Bloomsbury, 2010)
Book information
Air: The restless shaper of the world by William Bryant Logan
W. W. Norton
?16.99/$26.95
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