The Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search for the Soul (inscribed to Beat poet Michael McClure)
NY: Scribners, 1994. First edition. Hardcover. A nice association copy, inscribed on the front free endpaper: "Best wishes to Michael, Francis." Michael McClure is the seminal Beat poet who shared the stage with Gary Snyder and Allen Ginsberg at the famous Six Gallery Reading that kicked off the Beat generation. He remained in the center of that San Francisco scene. Crick of course shared the Nobel Prize with James D. Watson and Maurice Wilkins for the discovery of DNA. As Crick details in a short essay he wrote for a 1975 symposium, "The Poetry of Michael McClure: A Scientist's View," he took a particular interest in McClure's poetry when he bought a broadside of McClure's "Peyote Poem" and pinned it up on his wall. Later Crick learned of McClure's particular interest in science and ecology and understood his attraction to this poetry: "Michael McClure is so at home in the fantastic world that science has conjured out of ourselves and our surroundings - a world which makes that of other cultures seem contrived and pedestrian - that he takes it all in his stride. . . . The worlds in which I myself live, the private world of personal reactions, the biological world (animals and plants and even bacteria chase each other through the poems), the world of the atom and molecule, the stars and the galaxies, are all there; and in between, above and below, stands man, the howling mammal, contrived out of "meat" by chance and necessity. If I were a poet I would write like Michael McClure - if only I had his talent." McClure and Crick became friends, and McClure later wrote a poem he dedicated to Crick, "Moire," published in the Paris Review. In this book, "Ben on deciphering the complexities of the brain, Crick maps out the neurobiology of vision. The result a cogent, witty, and richly detailed analysis of how the brain 'sees,' and a daring exploration of some of the most fundamental questions of human existence." A near fine copy with a tiny bump to one corner and a half-dozen dogeared pages (maybe leads into some of McClure's poems). In a near fine jacket with rubbing. Near fine / Near fine. Item #1895
ISBN: 9780684194318
Price: $1,500.00 save 5% $1,425.00