One of the nice things about writing a book is that people start sending you books to read. It is especially good when the books are from and by people that you used to know (though not necessarily in the Gotye way).
Elon Dann did a PhD in particle physics at DESY in Hamburg at the same time as me. He was called Alistair then. We’re talking about the early 1990s, a lot has happened since. Alistair I weren’t particularly close friends, but we got on, and there’s a certain camaraderie amongst a cohort of PhD students (there’s the awful RAL Summer School photograph you share, for example). Alistair and I also, as his book reminds me, share a taste for wordplay.
I read “Clockwise to Titan” a little while ago, some time after I received it. It is aimed at people younger than me; for example my son, Leon – then twelve, now thirteen. Puns and particle-solidarity notwithstanding, you never know with books, so a dad who is thinking of recommending one to his son has a limited amount of credit, which has to be expended carefully. Read it first, I say.
Once started, I found the book made me want to read more – I think the term is “page-turner” - and at some point it became gripping. I recommended it to Leon. He put it on his desk and it vanished for several months.
The book resurfaced during a summer-holiday tidy-up (think Heracles and stables) and he began reading it about 28 hours ago. The elapsed time involves Cornwall holiday activities (see photograph), some eating, and food. He just finished it now on the train home to London. This is a high compliment to the book.
His first reaction was that he “hasn’t felt that emotional about a book” before. He does read a fair bit, so that’s not a statement to be taken lightly. Also, he talked about the fact that the primary characters do not have the sort of primary-character safety-net that reduces the tension in many books and films (and which Hitchcock used so well in Psycho¹). I completely agree with him on this. The story is about escape and survival, and the characters feel genuinely exposed to chance throughout. That is a rare achievement.
Anyway, Leon is going to read the sequel when we get home. It’s called Awe of Mercury – according to the jacket, it is “A neveryday story of love, nutmegs and particle physics. (And cheese.)” Kudos to Alistair. And I will be interested to see where particle physics features - there was no sign of it in the first book.
Full disclosure; apart from the PhD thing, Elon was also very complimentary about Smashing Physics. But I wouldn’t have written the above if it weren’t true, he doesn’t even know where I live.
Back to the physics now, starting with this.
¹ my addition, he hasn’t seen that yet
