Missouri Life September 2023

BOOKS

Tick of the Clock A University of Missouri professor’s new book broadens our definition of deep time. REVIEW Evan Allen Wood

By now it’s almost a truism that the history of humans on Earth is so miniscule compared to the history of the planet itself that, if that history were represented by 24 hours, the first appearance of our species to now would account for mere seconds. The historical record as we know it would probably need a smaller unit of time to be quantified. This concept of the goings-on on Earth before our arrival is best known as deep time, a term that applies to the almost unfathomable scale—millions and billions of years—on which the tectonic events of this planet (to say nothing of the cosmos in general) have transpired. Although we often associate this concept with geology, a new book by Curators’ Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Missouri Noah Heringman may change that perception. Deep Time: A Literary History proposes to broaden the possible applications of the term deep time by exploring its appearances in works of philosophy, poetry, and naturalism from before geology had come into its own as a discipline. The book pays particular attention to writers, including the poet William Blake and naturalists Charles Darwin and the Comte de Buffon. By pointing out that the concept of deep time (sometimes also referred to as “the abyss of time”) Heringman invites us on a philosophical, mind-broadening journey. As Heringman states in the introduction: “The metaphor ‘deep time’ has a wider purchase and a longer history than the modern-day [Geological Time Scale].” Deep Time is certainly an academic study and may feel too cerebral or dry for the tastes of the average reader, but it is not nearly as bogged down by verbiage as the most trying examples of academic writing tend to be. Furthermore, because of the book’s interest in the way our present epoch—sometimes referred to as anthropocene—blurs the line between human and natural history, it may appeal to any non-academic reader interested in that time-honored practice of better understanding the present by exploring the past.

DEEP TIME: A LITERARY HISTORY Noah Heringman, 320 pages, non fiction, Princeton University Press, softcover, 6 x 91∕₄ inches, $35.

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