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"Continental Drift - Colliding Continents, Converging Cultures" .................................................................................................. |
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Review:
Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and Ireland Bulletin, August,
2001. .................... This book arrived for review when I was about halfway through Misha Glenny’s ‘The Balkans: 1804 – 1999’, reading of countries in southeast Europe struggling violently to forge identities and to carve out national boundaries, and of the aggregate of peoples who had come to live there, sometimes peacefully but more often, over the last centuries, bloodily. ‘Continental drift’ is by, and about, one individual’s successful attempt to escape a communist corner of this maelstrom. Only in passing is it about geoscience, specifically continental tectonics. The title, which Sherban Veliciu in his ‘Preface’ suggests is a triple entendre, conceals a mixture of personal odyssey, traveller’s impressions and brief cameos. Constantin Roman takes us from his Romanian roots through various encounters with his home authorities, academia and the British Home Office to establishing himself with residency in the UK. He dwells briefly on his initial attempts to settle in Paris and Newcastle in 1968 and 1969 but mainly covers his time at Cambridge from 1969 to 1973. Background events are never that far away. For instance having finally gained permission to travel and temporarily escape the clutches of the Romanian authorities, Roman finds his efforts to begin a PhD in Paris in May 1968 promptly thwarted by the ‘liberating’ activities of the local students. Science surfaces briefly in the form of Roman’s work on Carpathian and central Asian earthquakes. The latter principally as an account of how he beat US rivals to publication by taking his postgraduate results to New Scientist once he heard they had a manuscript in press. In his case a question of personal survival not academic vanity. Some greats of the Earth Sciences appear, Bullard, McKenzie, Matthews, Runcorn, but, with the notable exception of the "friendly, unceremonious" Bullard, it is the ‘great and good’, who came to Roman’s aid as he desperately sought to stay in the UK, who are the memorable characters of the tale. Lord Goodman, the retired diplomat Sir Duncan Wilson, and William Deedes – Private Eye’s ‘Dear Bill’ of the Thatcher years – are among those who helped the young Roman. Is there a lesson here for more recent, less worthy hopefuls who seemingly try to make do with the help of the odd Minister and a generous donation? These observations at first sight may not add up to an appealing whole, but the book is readable and takes you along at a good pace. At times I found the staccato style of the short sections of only a page or so in length into which the chapters are divided an annoyance and unnecessary. As did I the jumps from the first to the third person and back. There are also digressions down cul-de-sacs which I suspect owe something to Roman’s enthusiasm for culture in its broadest sense and must have made him a compelling companion when he worked as a tour guide in Cambridge to make ends meet. His brief travelogue on the caves of Lascaux, which, with his typical brass neck, he got permission to enter when they were closed to the world, is forgivable alongside his joy and wonder at the visit. But much of the final chapter which largely consists of snippets of the history and delights of Cambridge comes as a dampening sequence after Roman’s culminating triumphs of getting a work permit, job and PhD by the end of the preceding chapter. Possibly they just represent "typical Constantin, full of paradoxes and brinkmanship" as Roman’s Cambridge tutor observed in another context. Despite these reservations the book does add up very much to an "Ode to the Joy of Freedom" as John Dewey refers to it in his Foreword. Though I am left with the impression that inside there is another, not necessarily shorter, book struggling to get out. One that recounts the same tale of enthusiasm, obduracy and persistence but more fully and less disjointedly. One with more flesh on the bones of the characters involved. One that would feature in the displays at Waterstones at £5.99 rather than the book list of the Institute of Physics at £26. Dr. Andy Fleet, Principal Keeper, Natural History Museum, London. |
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