Pronged Ants, Horned Humans, Mice on Toast, and Other Marvels of Jurassic Technology
by Lawrence Weschler
Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Oct 1995
163 pages
Genre: Science, Health and the Environment
Publication Information
Writing with great style and humor, Weschler guides the readers through the Museum of Jurassic Technology and through the mind of its curator, David Wilson, a man of unusual imagination who mounts exhibits such as spore-inhaling ants, bats deploying ultraviolet frequencies, peach-pit carvings, and other exhibits that seem the manifest definition of bizarre. Illustrations.
"The impulse to inventory oddities, he observes, dates back to Europeans' wonderment at the New World. Wilson, he concludes, has tapped 'into the premodern wellsprings of the postmodern temper.' Slight, but memorable." - Publishers Weekly.
"Weschler's journalistic style enhances this monograph's odd subject, and this slim volume will no doubt be enjoyed by the same fringe element that is making Wilson a cult hero in the museum world." - Library Journal.
"[A]t turns, a tour of the museum, a profile of its founder and curator, David Wilson, and a meditation on the role of imagination and authority in all museums, in science and in life. Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder is an exquisite piece of 'magic realist nonfiction' that will prove utterly captivating." - Amazon.
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