June 28, 2010

ELEPHANTS ON ACID

(and Other Bizarre Experiments)
by Alex Boese
268 pages, Pan Macmillan, 2007

Review by Paul Fenton

I began reading this book with high expectations; admittedly only briefly-held expectations, as I’d been suckered in by the need to complete a three-for-two purchase at Waterstones and it caught my eye amongst a ninety-percent dross three-for-two table. How could it not, with a title like that? And all the prettily-coloured elephants parading across the cover … but like an instant coffee which smells pretty decent when first brewed, that was the high point. I should have read the quotes on the back cover, one of which said: “One of the finest science/history bathroom books of all time.” I’m not a qualified judge of that particular genre, but if I leave a book in the bathroom, it’s not because I lose control of my bowels with excitement when reading.

E on A is a follow-up to one of Boese’s earlier outings into weird science books, “Hippo Eats Dwarf” … which appeals to me more, as a title, but it wasn’t in the sale. It’s essentially a collection of unusual or obscure scientific experiments, grouped by theme. The first section, for example, is “Frankenstein’s Lab”, and it summarises a number of experiments where those kooky scientists (many of whom were in their prime during the nineteenth century) try to zap life into dead things. They were about as exciting to read as watching a teenager chug a can of Red Bull.

I could sit here and catalogue every experiment recorded, but doing that for only a fraction of them would make you sleepy. (If that happens – have some Red Bull! I’ve heard only good things about it.) Instead, I’ll skip straight to the title track, “Elephants on Acid”. It being the sixties, everyone was naturally curious about LSD, and some scientists in Oklahoma had this (heavily paraphrased) conversation:

SCIENTIST 1: Dude?
SCIENTIST 2: Dude.
SCIENTIST 1: Dude, you know what we should do?
SCIENTIST 2: What?
SCIENTIST 1: We should … heh.
SCIENTIST 2: Heh.
SCIENTIST 1: Heh-heh.
SCIENTIST 1: Heh-heh-heh-heh-heh.
SCIENTIST 2: Heh-heh-heh-heh-heh.
SCIENTIST 1: We should … heh.
SCIENTIST 2: Heh.
SCIENTIST 1: Heh-heh.
SCIENTIST 1: Heh-heh-heh-heh-heh.
SCIENTIST 2: Heh-heh-heh-heh-heh.
SCIENTIST 1: We should … heh … we should give acid to an elephant.
SCIENTIST 2: Oh. Oh my god. We should totally do that.

And so some imbecile at the Oklahoma City Zoo agreed to the experiment, and our goofy white-coats administered an LSD dose to Tusko the Elephant roughly three thousand times the average human dose (but only five times the average Hippo dose, who tend to eat dwarves when tripping, or something).

At about this point I was thinking, oh boy, here comes the payoff. Here’s why I’ve waded through over a hundred pages of some of the driest scientific sniggers on paper. What is this crazy elephant going to do now?

What did Tusko do? What do you think he did? He bloody well died, as would any living creature after being dosed with a small brick of LSD. One of the scientists tried to repeat the experiment at a lower dose, and not much happened. Maybe the elephant saw into the fourth dimension, but how to tell?

I think Boese knew the content and delivery was straight monochrome, or his editor did, because many of the stories (I’m calling them stories because it’s nearly midnight, which means I’m way too tired to think up a faux-clever mash-up name for whatever these things are) end with really, really bad jokes. Really bad. Seriously: Christmas cracker bad. Taken at random, a story about the visual senses, mooting the possibilities which could extend from retinal image capture:

“Or how about this: never carry a camera again. Take pictures by blinking your eyes. It would work great unless you had a few too many drinks on vacation!”

Ha ha ha. Ha ha. Ha … hmm.

Way too many of those in there. One is too many, I know, but that was one of the better ones.

So I’m not going to be rushing out to buy “Hippo Eats Dwarf”, not even if I go book shopping when toasted. (I don’t do that, I’m just trying to sound cool.) For me, I’m afraid, E on A has been a mammoth disappointment.

Ha ha ha. Ha ha. Ha … hmm.

1 comment:

  1. Although this has ruined my fantasies of one day seeing an elephant in a white robe with a daisy chain hat, it's still a great review

    P

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