杏吧原创

THE plot doesn鈥檛 grab me. On the other hand, I did keep turning the pages
of Barry Jones鈥檚 Dictionary of World Biography (Information Australia, pp 808,
A$39.95). Good reference books are like that. Difficult to follow any
particular thread, always taking you in different directions, but you keep on
reading. Jones wanders far and wide in his 8500 biographies. Rarely, though,
do the entries live up to the 鈥渙pinionated and subjective鈥� claim of the book鈥檚
dustjacket. For that you have to go to the biographies and reference works
that Jones lists as further reading.

If ever there was a subject that deserved an opinion, it is Lloyd Webber
Sir Andrew (1948-). No such luck. Fortunately, the entry is short, 15 lines
with a third of them given over to a wife and brother. This is about half the
length of the entry accorded to Mandelbrot, Benoit (1924-), a laudable
imbalance that betrays Jones鈥檚 interest in the sciences. Jones was Australia鈥檚
Minister for Science during much of the I98Os.

The scientific emphasis and understanding also shows in the quality of the
entries. Not many writers could sum up chaos theory in one sentence. It is,
says Jones, 鈥渁n attempt to describe the operation of persistently unstable
systems鈥� 鈥� much better than the circular argument that it is about 鈥渢he
breakdown of ordered systems鈥�.

There is a refreshing shortage of references to the obvious. The book is
poor on sportspersons, but good on music makers as well as scientists,
emphases that might go against the book in Australia, or is my prejudice
showing?

As you would expect Jones is also good on Australians. I like the throwaway
reference in the entry for Oliphant, Sir Mark Laurence Elwin (1901-).
Oliphant鈥檚 work 鈥渙n hydrogen-isotope interactions contributed (much to his
horror) to the hydrogen bomb鈥�. The 鈥渟traight鈥� reference book has its work cut
out in these days of multimedia works. With luck an enterprising 鈥減ublisher鈥�
will add Jones to a CD-ROM, then we could dive around the work chasing
subjects as
well as people.