Reviewing something like Carl Sagan’s Cosmos is a tricky proposition. On the one hand, it’s a book by an acclaimed scientist – and more significantly one of the eminent science writers and presenters of the 20th Century. It’s also a companion volume to one of what is considered to be one of the best science television series of all time. Hard stop. On the other hand, it’s hard for me to say that any particular author or work is above criticism or discussion – and I’ll admit we don’t talk about the book the way we talk about the TV show – so I’m going to give it a shot anyway.
To give a little background – back in the days before home video was widespread when you’d have a science television series like Cosmos or The Day The Universe Changed, you’d normally get a companion book to go with it. This would cover the same material that was covered in the show, and expand on some of the concepts that there might not have been time for on the show (or material that wasn’t conducive for a TV show) while brushing over some of the material that doesn’t work as well in prose. Much as Cosmos was a highly successful television series, the companion book was similarly successful, and has stayed in print over the years – and recently received an audiobook version, read by Levar Burton.
Burton has something of a tricky proposition to contend with here – Carl Sagan’s diction is inseparable from his writing, and Cosmos in particular, because of a connection to the TV series, makes it tricky to separate the two. On the other hand, there are massive chunks of the book where Sagan is just listing measurements to explain a particular point, where the book gets really dry. This is the kind of material in the TV show they’d use a visual aid as a way of illustrating the issue, but which doesn’t work as an audiobook, and arguably doesn’t work as well in the print book either.
Burton’s performance works – it helps that not only is he an excellent actor, he’s also been a TV presenter for over two decades with Reading Rainbow. It’s a situation where the material is significant, and popular enough that it makes sense to make an audiobook out of it, from a business standpoint for the publisher. The problem is that, through no fault of Burton’s, he’s dealing with material that works well on the printed page and on the TV screen, but not in the strictly spoken word.
The material in the book is also very well written and well presented – though there are some faults that I’m going to have to lay right at the feet of Carl Sagan. The first is that, if you watched the TV series on DVD or one of its many rebroadcasts, you might know that in later airings, before Sagan’s death from cancer, he would record addendums to the end of each episode covering scientific discoveries that were relevant to each episode’s material, discussing a particular point that had changed over the years since the original airing of the series. One of the points that Sagan makes repeatedly in the book is that science is changing, and what we know or think we know changes over time. So, we must adjust our theories based on the facts in evidence, through environmental observation and the results of experimentation. This does not apply to the book. We have no appendices or addendums to the various chapters that reflect changes in scientific knowledge over time. When the original book was written, we didn’t know about the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs – we discovered this later, and there was an addendum recorded for the show by Carl that discussed this. There was no such addendum added to later printings of the book, and thus that addendum is not represented in the audiobook.
The other issue is a degree of weird optimism that Carl shows in the book regarding certain social issues, regarding racial prejudice and institutional misogyny that feels baffling even in a pre-9/11 world, never mind in the 21st century. However, Sagan writes about institutional misogyny stopping women from reaching elected office, and about racism in a way that, I feel like had he lived to see Barak Obama elected, he’d have been one of those saying that “Racism was solved.” I wonder how Burton felt once he reached that part of the book – disappointment that Carl was wrong, a deep sigh at his naivety?
I do think that Cosmos is worth a read – but I think ultimately the strongest form of the ideas presented here is in the TV series. I do think you should read it (or listen to it be read to you by Levar Burton), but the TV show is Cosmos at its best.
The TV series and book are available from Amazon and you can also get the book through Bookshop.org. Those are all affiliate links, and buying anything through those supports the site (and in Bookshop’s case – also helps support independent booksellers).
Please support my Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/countzeroor
Buy me a coffee at Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/countzero
Watch my Live-Streams on http://twitch.tv/countzeroor
Check out my Let’s Plays at https://www.youtube.com/@CountZeroOrPlays
