BOOK OF THE WEEK
How stones, faeces and nuclear power form the bedrock of human accomplishment
Collecting Stones from a Beach
by Professor Stafford McQueen
994pp, Cambridge University Press $57
Reviewed by Tim McLaughlin
Stafford McQueen is a poet, teacher and quantum physicist. Quantum physicist first, he worked with Stephen Hawking in the late 1960s on black hole theory. After co-developing this theory, he taught it. Later, he became one of the first modern physicists to appreciate the linkage between poetry, art and science. Collecting Stones from a Beach is proof-pudding of that belief, containing as it does poetry, art and cutting edge science.
Very early on in this delightful book, McQueen explains that collecting stones from a beach will, if carried out regularly, lighten that beach over a considerable period of time. However, as the stones cannot be unmade, that is to say, dispersed beyond the confines of this planet (unless loaded into a modified Saturn V and blasted towards Mars) he then beautifully points out that redistributing the stones elsewhere on this planet for instance, to ones mantelpiece achieves a kind of Malthusian balance. In other words, the mantelpiece accepts the weight that has been removed from the beach, resulting in a Gaian equilibrium of harmony. McQueen rightly desists from delving into the obvious fact that the mantelpiece would inevitably collapse if too many stones were placed upon it. A surprising omission, one may think, but in my view the inclusion of structural engineering principles and health and safety policy would have detracted from his beautiful, flowery prose. This truly wonderful mantelpiece metaphor is but one of many in this singularly unique book, a book of stones, dreams and blustery days on the North Sea coastline.
Throughout the book, McQueen likens these billions of stones to the billions of faeces that mankind has shed from its body temple throughout the millennia. His defecation analogy occurs repeatedly throughout the book, a powerful leitmotif of mankinds fragility. We can observe this theme in the preface, where McQueen indulges our fancies with just one of many marvellous poems:
Stones
Stones are everywhere, they are
On the beach
And within us
And elsewhere too
Yet these stones belong
To nobody but the Earth
Spewed out from the crust of
The planet, like so much
Diarrhoea
Cooling after aeons
Then crumbling to form
Stones
On a beach
Like rabbit droppings
I myself visited Dungeness beach the beach that inspired this poem two years ago when researching the first volume of my latest book Great British Nuclear Power Stations, a personal travelogue of these leviathans of the atomic age. Stumbling along the stony beach, and nodding pleasantly at the day-trippers, the massive bulk of Dungeness Nuclear Power Station looming impassively ahead, I was, like Thomas Pynchon, thankful to be famous yet unrecognised. Anonymity gives one such an advantage; for instance, when it comes to teasing information from a reluctant employee of British Nuclear Fuels Limited. Assuming the demotic also helps she was amazed by my gurning cod-Suffolk accent. Had I been publicly recognisable, the employee in question would have gushed with unashamed embarrassment, and given me far more information much of it useless than I required for my research. As it happens, it was only after I was released by the security guards (security guards too stupid to recognise me don't they read The Guardian?) for attempting to climb the perimeter fence that I was confirmed as being on a mission of research, not terrorism. Later, as I walked back to my B&B, nursing the bruises inflicted by the security guards, the swollen orb of the setting sun reminded me of the power contained within Dungenesss mass of concrete and steel; a power I would have been happy to see released in the form of an uncontrollable meltdown, wiping out not only myself and half of Kent, but (more importantly), the nearby beach hut and garden of the late homosexual avant-garde writer/director Derek Jarman. A pleasant enough fellow, but curiously overrated.
Digression aside, this fine book (McQueenss) proves beyond all doubt that years of contemplation can lead to a beguiling assemblage of curates eggs.
Tim McLaughlin is a writer living in Romford. His Great British Nuclear Power Stations (Part 1 Essex to South Wales) will be published in October by Macmillan.