The title is something of a misnomer. David Suzuki’s autobiography was actually published two decades ago. It was called Metamorphosis: Stages in a Life and it was a best-seller, according to the aging cover of its paperback edition. Now Suzuki is 70 and apparently feels the need to revise this earlier work and add a lengthy postscript.
Like most Canadians, I am a great admirer of Suzuki. He has been compared to the late Carl Sagan in the United States but there is really no one like him. Starting out as a scientist, he became a brilliant interpreter of science on radio and television and then our most popular and persuasive environmentalist. All this was related in Metamorphosis, which was an engaging personal account of his first 50 years.
What he has done in this second version is to condense the story of his earlier years, the best part of the first book, and attach to it a chronicle of the past 20 years, which is largely and perhaps...
Peter Desbarats spent 30 years as a print and TV journalist before being appointed dean of journalism at the University of Western Ontario. Now retired, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2006.
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