Gosh, hmm.. 3.5 stars. Of course SF abounds with novels about the nature of man. And this one is a little weak, in some ways, because there's lots of talk and not much action - the reader doesn't even meet the tropis. But I really liked the talk, the ideas, the conflicts of philosophical and political and zoological considerations.

Is man defined by his sense of spirituality? If a species has taboos, rituals, or ju-jus, is it human? Or is he defined by his relationship to nature? If he's one with it, and does not question or fear it, is he beast? If he's four-handed, is he beast? If he walks upright, is he man? Shall we define him as beast so we can have him work in our mills, or as man because that would be slavery?

There are a few women in the story that are very interesting. All are intelligent and individual, but also (like the men) representative of 'types' that the author wanted to explore with the reader. Not stereotypes, mind you, but each with her own pov. I found them, actually, to be more interesting than the men.

Reads, in tone and British pov, as if decades older than 1953. Many of the concepts and debates are relevant today. Recommended if you like SF for the Ideas, for the Sense of Wonder. ( )

An unusual book about the 'missing link' creature and what its discovery-- as a living species-- could do to soceity. Raises interesting questions about the meaning of life/us/etc, like it was intended to-- but sometimes these questions overwhelm the rest of the story. No one is very fully characterised, characters are sort of slapped around and treated as tools to introduce important questions (there's no closure for any of them but the main two), and the translation is very spotty.

Also: while being very critical of 'racialism' and the mistreatment of 'backwards races,' this book is simultaneously very condescendingly racist itself. If you feel like that would bother you, just don't read it. The author specifically states several times that the pinnacle of mankind's evolution is the white European male.

This book would make a good source for some kind of African-American Studies/Biology/History of Science thing, an interdisciplinary college student project, perhaps. Anyway, it's less valuable as a casual read and more significant as some kind of primary source, I think, for examining what some people in the mid-20th-century thought of Darwinian evolution. ( )