From archive (archive)
Subject: BROTHER ESAU by Douglas Orgill and John Gribbin
From: ecl@cbnewsj.ATT.COM (Evelyn C. Leeper)
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Date: 6 Aug 89 12:18:16 GMT




	       BROTHER ESAU by Douglas Orgill and John Gribbin
		       Tor, 1982, 0-812-58680-8, $3.50.
		      A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
		       Copyright 1989 Evelyn C. Leeper

     Interestingly enough, this book was labeled by the publisher as
"general fiction" rather than "science fiction."  But I read another novel,
with basically the same premise, last year that was definitely marketed as
science fiction.  That novel was ORPHAN OF CREATION by Roger MacBride Allen,
and it's difficult to avoid comparing the two.

     In BROTHER ESAU (the earlier of the two by six years), an American
paleontologist has a theory about the origins of man in the Himalayas.
While digging there, she (or rather her party) find first the bones of what
appears to be a Homo erectus from the mid-1800s, and then a live Homo
erectus.  [See note at end for a brief overview of the stages of the
evolution of man.]  This (he?) is, of course, immediately tagged as the
"Missing Link" as well as the Abominable Snowman.  In ORPHAN OF CREATION a
black paleontologist reads in her great-great-grandfather's diary of
"Beasts" brought in to work the fields alongside the slaves.  She digs up
the bones of these beasts and discovers that they were Australopithecus
boisei brought from Africa in 1851, and furthermore, there are still
Australopithecus boisei alive in Africa today.  In both cases, the following
questions arise:  Are they animals?  Are they people?  Are they something in
between?  What will this do to the theory of evolution or to creationism?
How will it be resolved?

     As I said last year, all these are interesting questions and were when
Vercors wrote his novel YOU SHALL KNOW THEM in the 1950s, asking the same
questions.  However, though both BROTHER ESAU and ORPHAN OF CREATION show us
something of how paleontology works, neither probes the philosophical issues
are not probed any deeper than Vercors did.  Orgill and Gribbin spend as
much time examining the border tensions between India and Pakistan (where
their story is set) as it looking at the actual discovery.  There is also
some mystical mumbo-jumbo with one of the digging party being driven insane
by the discovery after having all sorts of premonitions about it.  This is
unfortunate, because they have a lot of material for a thought-provoking
story here, and they chose not to use it.  Perhaps creationism was not such
a hot topic in 1982 when this book came out as it was in 1988, when MacBride
Allen's book was published.

     A few other works have been written about this idea, making this almost
a sub-genre.  GOR SAGA by Maureen Duffy (upon which FIRST BORN, a BBC
three-hour mini-series recently run on the Arts & Entertainment Network, was
based) dealt with the supposed cross-breeding of a gorilla and a human.
Another film, SKULLDUGGERY, was loosely based on YOU SHALL KNOW THEM.  And
then there is H. Beam Piper's LITTLE FUZZY, a more science fictional
reworking of the same theme.  The most recent entry is probably Michael
Bishop's ANCIENT OF DAYS, expanded from his novelette "Her Habiline Husband."

     While I am not wholly satisfied with BROTHER ESAU, I can say that if
you are interested in this sub-genre it is not a book without merit.  It
may, however, be hard to find.

     [Evolution of man: The earliest form is Ramapithecus dating from 15 8
million years ago.  It is not agreed whether this form is Homididae (man) or
Pongidae (anthropoid ape).  Australopithecus afarenis ("Lucy"),
Australopithecus africanus, Australopithecus robustus, and Australopithecus
boisei (listed from oldest to most recent) were in eastern Africa during
periods ranging from 3.5 to 1.2 million years ago.  None of these is not
believed to be our ancestor, but rather parallel track(s) that died out,
though there is some dispute over Australopithecus africanus.  In fact,
specimens of Australopithecus boisei have been found that are
contemporaneous with Homo erectus, which is supposed to have been an
ancestor.  Homo habilis lived about 2 to 1.6 million years ago, and Homo
erectus (Java man) about 1.5 million to 500,000 years ago.  Homo erectus
spread from Africa to Europe and Asia and evolved into Homo sapiens over the
above mentioned period.  Neanderthal man lived about 75,000 to 35,000 years
ago, and was therefore contemporaneous with Homo sapiens.  Whether
Neanderthal man is our direct ancestor through interbreeding with Homo
sapiens or is just another dead end is still debated.  End of lesson.]

Evelyn C. Leeper   |   +1 201-957-2070   |   att!mtgzy!ecl or ecl@mtgzy.att.com