Rating: 
Summary: Very well-written
Review: The characters in this novel are so well-drawn that you keep expecting to meet them in real life. You don't know for sure if you want to, but they become real all the same. Benedict is an intense study in conflicted emotions, and a brilliant creation. One of the added bonuses of this book is that in reading it, you even pick up some general genetic knowledge and trivia. For example, after reading this, the next time you meet someone's dog, you can say, "Did you know dachsunds are achondroplastic, the canine equivalivent of dwarfs?" You'll also get some interesting info on the mating of farm-raised fish that will change the way you look at your dinner. Best of all, though, this is just a really good read.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating historical, scientific and personal narrative.
Review: This is a fascinating blend of historical and scientific detail, as well a a very personal viewpoint of someone absolutely different than the rest of scoiety. I enjoyed the book immensely, but it left me feeling very unsettled at the bitterness of the main character. Who can blame him for the way he feels? And yet who can blame society for their very natural response to an oddity of nature? I felt that although I could very much sympathize with him in the very unfair hand life had dealt him, I could also find no answer to the question "What could anyone have done to make him a happier person?" Even he himself was not attracted to others with the same deformity. What I like about the book is that it really brings into focus the moral and ethical questions raised by our scientific advances. And it is left for the answers to be determined by the reader.
Rating: 
Summary: Thinkers will love this thought-provoking novel.
Review: This novel is well worth reading. Mawer combines science and history and fiction in a remarkable way. Benedict the dwarf is an "Everyman," and his experience in life is a thought provoking, sometimes heartbreaking account of how people who are different see the world through the eyes of the "normal" who look at them with pity or shock. Benedict is not a saint, and his actions are not saintly. However, the author weaves together a story of Benedict and his distant famous relative Gregor Mendel that is brilliant. The love story is tender, touching, believable. And the bioethical dilemmas raised in this book are very thought provoking. I find myself thinking about different parts of this book without the book in front of me. That is a sign of a great novel. If you are a thinker who likes to ponder long after the last word of the last page is read, read this novel.
Rating:
Summary: How Passion Dwarfs Intelligence
Review: This novel tells the story of Benedict Lambert, a distant relative of Gregor Mendel, the founder of scientific genetics. Like Mendel, Lambert is a brilliant geneticist. Unlike Mendel, Lambert is a dwarf. The story is a mix of humor and philosophy. Lambert's stature as a dwarf does not effect his high intelligence. Nor does it dwarf his sexual needs and sexual appetite. His stature does make it difficult for Lambert to form a lasting sexual attachment, (or any sexual attachment) to a woman. The frustration and loneliness that human beings are heir to are magnified. Lambert uses his short stature to stare up women's skirts (with many predictable gags in the book). He frequents prostitutes and his home is cluttered with the latest x-rated magazines as well as with erudite scientific journals. The story tells of Lambert's efforts to form a relationship with a mousy but leggy librarian, Ms Janet Piercey. When they meet, Ms. Piercey is single but when the two become involved, she has married. The relationship is adulterous, and the attendant triangle has a complicated and violent denoument. The characters of Lambert and Piercey are well-developed and interesting. In addition, the book draws parallels between Lambert's life and that of his distant cousin Mendel, whose personal life was little known to me. There are also interesting discussions in the book of the classical composer Janacek, who was acquainted with Mendel and whose music is not as well-known in the United States as it might be. There is a lot of philosophical discussion in the book which is provocative but rather of the off-the-cuff variety. I found some of it got in the way of the story and the characters. Still, the book will make the reader think. The book discusses, of course, the nature of human "normality" (what is the consequence of being a dwarf?), and the power of human sexuality. For me, the most fascinating questions the book raises are religous in character. In the first half of the book, we seem to get a philosophy of naturalism which suggests that dwarfism, or the human condition, is not caused or fruitfully understood by the actions and will of a revealed God but is a function itself solely of the chance actions of genes with each other. In some sense this is a liberating philosophy because it frees Lambert from a sense of guilt and of anger with an allegedly all-powerful being at his condition. As the book progresses, a shift takes place. There is a discussion of the ethical dilemmas posed by abortion and by eugenics (human genetic engineering) that advances in science have made possible. There is some suggestion that human beings do not know everything and are not the measure of everything and that scientific-technological advancement and hubris have outstripped wisdom. I think the tone of the book as a whole is conservative and may tend to qualify, if it doesn't undermine, the sense of secularism conveyed in the opening chapters. This is a fascinating thoughtful book which reads well. It will make the reader both laugh and think.
Rating:
Summary: How Passion Dwarfs Intelligence
Review: This novel tells the story of Benedict Lambert, a distant relative of Gregor Mendel, the founder of scientific genetics. Like Mendel, Lambert is a brilliant geneticist. Unlike Mendel, Lambert is a dwarf. The story is a mix of humor and philosophy. Lambert's stature as a dwarf does not effect his high intelligence. Nor does it dwarf his sexual needs and sexual appetite. His stature does make it difficult for Lambert to form a lasting sexual attachment, (or any sexual attachment) to a woman. The frustration and loneliness that human beings are heir to are magnified. Lambert uses his short stature to stare up women's skirts (with many predictable gags in the book). He frequents prostitutes and his home is cluttered with the latest x-rated magazines as well as with erudite scientific journals. The story tells of Lambert's efforts to form a relationship with a mousy but leggy librarian, Ms Janet Piercey. When they meet, Ms. Piercey is single but when the two become involved, she has married. The relationship is adulterous, and the attendant triangle has a complicated and violent denoument. The characters of Lambert and Piercey are well-developed and interesting. In addition, the book draws parallels between Lambert's life and that of his distant cousin Mendel, whose personal life was little known to me. There are also interesting discussions in the book of the classical composer Janacek, who was acquainted with Mendel and whose music is not as well-known in the United States as it might be. There is a lot of philosophical discussion in the book which is provocative but rather of the off-the-cuff variety. I found some of it got in the way of the story and the characters. Still, the book will make the reader think. The book discusses, of course, the nature of human "normality" (what is the consequence of being a dwarf?), and the power of human sexuality. For me, the most fascinating questions the book raises are religous in character. In the first half of the book, we seem to get a philosophy of naturalism which suggests that dwarfism, or the human condition, is not caused or fruitfully understood by the actions and will of a revealed God but is a function itself solely of the chance actions of genes with each other. In some sense this is a liberating philosophy because it frees Lambert from a sense of guilt and of anger with an allegedly all-powerful being at his condition. As the book progresses, a shift takes place. There is a discussion of the ethical dilemmas posed by abortion and by eugenics (human genetic engineering) that advances in science have made possible. There is some suggestion that human beings do not know everything and are not the measure of everything and that scientific-technological advancement and hubris have outstripped wisdom. I think the tone of the book as a whole is conservative and may tend to qualify, if it doesn't undermine, the sense of secularism conveyed in the opening chapters. This is a fascinating thoughtful book which reads well. It will make the reader both laugh and think.
Rating:
Summary: Wow
Review: This was quite simply a great book. The story is wonderfully unique and Mawer's prose is a joy to read. Dr. Benedict Lambert is one of the most memorable literary characters I have ever come across. The combination of intriguing, thought-provoking, and heart-breaking plot, unique characters, excellent writing, and scientific education all in this slim volume makes for one amazing book.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful blend of fiction, history and science
Review: We follow a portion of the life of Benedict, an achondroplastic with a carrer in genetics (searching for the gene that created his own deformity). The story blends a history of Mendel, a philosophical overview of Mendelian inheritance and Benedict's evolving relationship with Jean, a professional friend. I loved the perspective of the dwarf on life, chance and bravery. The science was elementary for those with a biology background (me) but might turn off those who are unfamiliar. Overall, one of my best reads this year.
Rating:
Summary: Marvelous summary of both genetic deformity & eugenics
Review: What a good read! As a sometimes student of genetics and a mathematician, I enjoyed the history within the book, the careful intellectual destruction of the ideas of eugenics, and the marvelous construction of the life of a person whose physical deformity forces him into the life of a social outcast. The ending is excellent, but to me, unexpected. Recommend highly.
Rating:
Summary: You don't have to know genetics
Review: You don't have to know genetics to understand Mendel's Dwarf, but it helps. The reader may think the title refers to Mendel's dwarf pea plants, but in fact the narrative is in the voice of Dr. Benedict Lambert, a genetics biochemist, an achondroplastic dwarf and great-grandnephew of Gregor Mendel, the father of genetics. The novel's theme shifts between the current love story of Benedict and a librarian, Jean (get it?), and Mendel's activities and researches with peas and corn. Interesting and difficult questions are raised by way of this story: 1) Why was Mendel's research largely ignored in its time although it was the obvious solution to questions raised by Darwin about evolution? (It had the scintillating title, "Research in Pea Plants," and the Darwin-Huxley-Fisher group were more interested in descriptive natural history and the British Empire than in Pascal's triangle and probability quotients.)
2) How was eugenics used as a rationale for the British Empire and by Hitler for the Holocaust, and are we still doing it?
3) Is it even possible to avoid unnatural selection in our time? (Isn't the practice of birth control a form of eugenics?) There are footnotes and references throughout, but be careful. I checked a reference to a journal, Trends in Genetics, May 1995 via PubMed, but although I found the journal, could not locate the article he cites. There is suspense throughout, even to Benedict's final dilemma. The book might have been called Benedict's Choice, but the author was too imaginative for that. Aside from enjoyment, this book might be an excellent selection for a course called Science in Literature. Teenagers, especially, would identify with Benedict's loneliness and would be interested in the social and ethical dilemmas raised by our knowledge of modern genetics.
Rating:
Summary: You don't have to know genetics
Review: You don't have to know genetics to understand Mendel's Dwarf, but it helps. The reader may think the title refers to Mendel's dwarf pea plants, but in fact the narrative is in the voice of Dr. Benedict Lambert, a genetics biochemist, an achondroplastic dwarf and great-grandnephew of Gregor Mendel, the father of genetics. The novel's theme shifts between the current love story of Benedict and a librarian, Jean (get it?), and Mendel's activities and researches with peas and corn. Interesting and difficult questions are raised by way of this story: 1) Why was Mendel's research largely ignored in its time although it was the obvious solution to questions raised by Darwin about evolution? (It had the scintillating title, "Research in Pea Plants," and the Darwin-Huxley-Fisher group were more interested in descriptive natural history and the British Empire than in Pascal's triangle and probability quotients.)
2) How was eugenics used as a rationale for the British Empire and by Hitler for the Holocaust, and are we still doing it?
3) Is it even possible to avoid unnatural selection in our time? (Isn't the practice of birth control a form of eugenics?) There are footnotes and references throughout, but be careful. I checked a reference to a journal, Trends in Genetics, May 1995 via PubMed, but although I found the journal, could not locate the article he cites. There is suspense throughout, even to Benedict's final dilemma. The book might have been called Benedict's Choice, but the author was too imaginative for that. Aside from enjoyment, this book might be an excellent selection for a course called Science in Literature. Teenagers, especially, would identify with Benedict's loneliness and would be interested in the social and ethical dilemmas raised by our knowledge of modern genetics.
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