Angels and Ages by Adam Gopnik

Next month we celebrate the bicentennials of Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin, both of whom were born on February 12, 1809. It is this cosmic historical coincidence that forms the basis of Adam Gopnik’s new book Angels and Ages.

Gopnik’s book can more precisely be called a book-length essay. Besides their shared birthday, the two men did not have much in common besides the fact that each changed the world: Darwin, of course, transformed our idea of how we got here, and Lincoln expanded the notion of personal liberty. They never met, though they were familiar with each other’s work. Darwin followed the progress of the American Civil War from afar and was sympathetic to the Union side; Lincoln most likely heard of On the Origin of Species, though Gopnik can uncover no evidence that he actually read it. (Well, 1859 and the years following was a particularly busy time for him.)

Gopnik presumes the reader has some familiarity with the biographies of both Lincoln and Darwin, and so jumps through the chronologies of their lives and work without spending much time filling in the gaps. (This reviewer, born and raised in the Land of Lincoln and thus compelled to write biographical reports every February during elementary school, was not bothered by the dearth of biographical material on the sixteenth President; the Darwin portions, however, were more problematic and also tantalizing, but fortunately Gopnik provides a rich assortment of resources for further reading.)

Lincoln appears here as a frontier politician who came of age in a culture that venerated public speaking, when a two-hour speech on the courthouse steps or on the Fourth of July was a major civic event. He mastered the art of rhetoric, borrowing liberally from Shakespeare and the Bible, and gradually made his way from small-town lawyer to national politician in a way that was almost, but not quite, Machiavellian.

Gopnik has far more affection for Darwin, the shy naturalist with a careful eye for detail and a lovely way with prose, particularly physical description, and who delayed in publishing his revolutionary book because he was afraid it would upset his beloved wife Emma, who had very deep and conventional religious beliefs. Darwin had once shared those beliefs until his faith was shattered by the early death of his favorite daughter, Annie, leaving him free to consider a world constructed without an ultimate Creator.

The question of faith plays a large role in Angels and Ages although Lincoln himself was likely an atheist. The book takes its title from a remark that Edwin Stanton, Lincoln’s dear friend and Secretary of War, made at his deathbed. Depending on which account you read, Stanton said either “Now he belongs to the ages” or “Now he belongs to the angels.” Gopnik delves into this mystery as well, but in the end, he transforms the two words angels and ages into a metaphor for the two forces of history and change that pushed and pulled both Lincoln and Darwin toward their respective destinies.

Well, Gopnik tries to make angels and ages into a metaphor. As always, he does some fancy writing and some serious thinking, but he never quite pulls that metaphor off. Still, it’s a pleasure to read some thoughtful writing about Mr. Lincoln – who too often gets the plaster-saint treatment – and an even greater pleasure to make the acquaintance of Mr. Darwin and to imagine what these two unlikely birthday-twins might have said to each other.

Reviewed by Aimee Levitt

Angels and Ages by Adam Gopnik
Knopf, 2009
Cloth, pp 224, $24.95
ISBN-10 : 0307270785