Acquainted With the Night
Encyclopedia
Acquainted with the Night: Excursions through the World After Dark (or Acquainted with the Night: A Celebration of the Dark Hours) is a non-fiction book by Christopher Dewdney
about various aspects of night
. It was first published in 2004 by HarperCollins
. It uses the same title as the Robert Frost
poem "Acquainted with the Night
". The book consists of 14 chapters, with one chapter dedicated to each hour of the night, from 6 pm to 5 am. Mini-essays populate each chapter which each follow a theme, like nocturnal creatures, dreams, astronomy, and mythology. Other subjects and topics touched upon include science, art, culture, natural history, superstitions, and psychology. The book was a finalist for the 2004 Governor General's Awards
and for the 2005 Charles Taylor Prize
. It tied with Dark Matter: Reading The Bones for the World Fantasy Award
in Anthologies.
. He had previously written 14 books, the last being the 2002 book of poetry, The Natural History. His previous non-fiction books were Last Flesh: Life in the Transhuman Era (1998) on the impacts of technological advances on humanism, The Secular Grail: Paradigms of Perception (1993) regarding the human psyche, and The Immaculate Perception (1986) on his views of consciousness, language and dreams. Dewdney's past books were described as being "more admired than read". On the topic of 'the night', he had a life-long fascination with nightlife and eventually decided to write a book about it. He quickly became overwhelmed by the amount of information relating to the subject. For research, he consulted a variety of genres and formats, including books, journals, magazines, music, and movies, and collected information within the broad topics of art, science, social sciences and history. The perspective Dewdney took was that of "explaining night to beings from another planet that had two opposed suns and no night at all".
s, the green flash
, the stages of twilight
, as well as Olbers' paradox
, and a definition of the size and speed of night. The 7 pm chapter deals with nature at night, how animals see and hear differently at night with a focus on bat
s, nighthawk
s, and nocturnal insects. The 8 pm chapter analyzes children's literature and bedtime stories. The 9 pm chapter discusses aspects of the city at night, including the evolution of nightclub
s, street light
s, and the impacts of light pollution
. The 10 pm chapter discusses night festivals around the world and throughout history. The 11 pm chapter explains the circadian rhythm
and the physiology of sleep and dreams.
The 12 am chapter traces the history behind dream interpretation from Gilgamesh
to Sigmund Freud
, Carl Jung
, and Calvin Hall. Here, Dewdney considers nightmares and takes sudden unexplained death syndrome
, whose sufferers are almost always Asian males, between 20 and 49 years old, as an extreme example of nightmares that cause the dreamer to die from a "ventricular fibrillation
...brought about by extreme terror". The 1 am chapter compares literary and mythological personifications of, or beings associated with, the night. The 2 am chapter tells the stories of the legends behind the moon
and the constellations. The 3 am chapter is all about insomnia
. The 4 am chapter provides a geographical aspect, touring the places with long nights, like Las Vegas
, cave
s, the poles
, and deep within the oceans. The 5 am chapter discusses artistic representations of night, especially in music, on film and through paintings. The final chapter is a conclusion in which Dewdney reflects on memorable sunrises he has experienced and contrasts sunrises with sunsets.
poem Acquainted with the Night
, which is quoted on the first page. The book's structure uses twelve chapters, equating to twelve hours of night, from 6 pm to 5 am. Two additional chapters, "First Night" and "Night's Last Stand", bookend the twelve chapters as an introduction and conclusion. This hour-by-hour structure was used to move the narrative along logically while jumping between diverse topics. The topics range from such disparate subjects as culture, superstitions, natural history, physiology, and psychology so that reviewers variously called the book "a compendium", "a browser's book" and full of "encyclopedic mini-essays". Autobiographical passages are also included. One reviewer noted the format uses personal observations that lead to discussions of broad subjects with "side trips into relevant supporting materials".
The reviewer for the Quill & Quire
cited the book as an example of a sub-genre which an article in The Atlantic Monthly
dubbed "mundane studies" referring to the ubiquity of the subject, like Mark Kurlansky
's Salt: A World History and Witold Rybczynski
's One Good Turn: A Natural History of the Screwdriver and the Screw. Dewdney's writing in Acquainted with the Night combines a poet's point of view with an interest for the sciences. The tone was described as "boyish enthusiasm" and "highly condensed yet personable voice". Gisèle Baxter, in the journal Canadian Literature, wrote that the its tone was set at the beginning of the book by "an anecdote of a small boy creeping into the moonlit, partly wooded backyard of his family home".
in May 2004. In the United States, Bloomsbury published the hardback version in July 2004 as Acquainted with the Night: A Celebration of the Dark Hours. The trade paperback version was published by HarperCollins in March 2005. An excerpt was published in the Canadian literary magazine Geist
. The book was nominated for the 2005 Charles Taylor Prize
, awarded to the best Canadian work of literary non-fiction, and Dewdney was a finalist in the English-language non-fiction category
of the Governor General's Awards
. The Library Journal
noted the book would be "most useful for larger public libraries".
Regarding Dewdney's writing, the reviewer for Publishers Weekly
wrote that Dewdney writes carefully and "confidently". Another reviewer called the book "engaging and recreational". Gisèle Baxter, in Canadian Literature, found his use of language "provok[es] consideration through its elegant turns of phrase and image" and Laura Wright, in Discover
called the imagery "arresting". In The Globe and Mail
, poet and novelist Margaret Atwood
wrote, "The prose moves from the strictly informative to the lyrical to the charming to the amusing to the odd to the strangely moving without batting an eye." Another reviewer noted Dewdney "combined a deft lyric touch with a deep interest in science". The reviewer for Canadian Geographic
wrote that "the strength of the book is in its artful mix of science and poetry". Literary critic Sven Birkerts
found Dewdney to be "an engaging enough narrator and solid, enthusiastic stylist". The book's structure received mixed reviews, some reviewers found Dewdney was able to effectively transition between various topics while other reviewers did not. Birkerts wrote the book has "a fun-facts-fished-from-the-data-ocean...[and] end-of-term crammer" sense to it. The Quill & Quire
and The Economist
reviewers found the topics were too cursory, like "an encyclopedia entry". Birkerts concluded "that any one of Dewdney's excursions could earn its keep as a column in a popular science magazine" but assembled into one book the topics seemed random.
Christopher Dewdney
Christopher Dewdney is a Canadian writer and poet.He was born in London, Ontario, and presently lives in Toronto, where he is a professor at York University. He is the long-time partner of writer Barbara Gowdy. Winner of the 2007 Harbourfront Festival Prize, he is the author of four books of...
about various aspects of night
Night
Night or nighttime is the period of time when the sun is below the horizon. This occurs after dusk. The opposite of night is day...
. It was first published in 2004 by HarperCollins
HarperCollins
HarperCollins is a publishing company owned by News Corporation. It is the combination of the publishers William Collins, Sons and Co Ltd, a British company, and Harper & Row, an American company, itself the result of an earlier merger of Harper & Brothers and Row, Peterson & Company. The worldwide...
. It uses the same title as the Robert Frost
Robert Frost
Robert Lee Frost was an American poet. He is highly regarded for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloquial speech. His work frequently employed settings from rural life in New England in the early twentieth century, using them to examine complex social and...
poem "Acquainted with the Night
Acquainted With the Night
Acquainted with the Night: Excursions through the World After Dark is a non-fiction book by Christopher Dewdney about various aspects of night. It was first published in 2004 by HarperCollins. It uses the same title as the Robert Frost poem "Acquainted with the Night"...
". The book consists of 14 chapters, with one chapter dedicated to each hour of the night, from 6 pm to 5 am. Mini-essays populate each chapter which each follow a theme, like nocturnal creatures, dreams, astronomy, and mythology. Other subjects and topics touched upon include science, art, culture, natural history, superstitions, and psychology. The book was a finalist for the 2004 Governor General's Awards
2004 Governor General's Awards
The nominees for the 2004 Governor General's Awards for Literary Merit were announced on October 26. The children's literature winners were announced on November 15, and the other winners were announced on November 16...
and for the 2005 Charles Taylor Prize
Charles Taylor Prize
The Charles Taylor Prize is a Canadian literary award, presented by the Charles Taylor Foundation to the best Canadian work of literary non-fiction. It is named for Charles Taylor, a noted Canadian historian and writer....
. It tied with Dark Matter: Reading The Bones for the World Fantasy Award
World Fantasy Award
The World Fantasy Awards are annual, international awards given to authors and artists who have demonstrated outstanding achievement in the field of fantasy...
in Anthologies.
Background
At the time of Acquainted with the Nights writing, author and poet Christopher Dewdney was 52 years old and living in Toronto with his wife, Barbara GowdyBarbara Gowdy
Barbara Gowdy, CM is a Canadian novelist and short story writer. Born in Windsor, Ontario, she is the long-time partner of poet Christopher Dewdney and resides in Toronto.-Literary career:...
. He had previously written 14 books, the last being the 2002 book of poetry, The Natural History. His previous non-fiction books were Last Flesh: Life in the Transhuman Era (1998) on the impacts of technological advances on humanism, The Secular Grail: Paradigms of Perception (1993) regarding the human psyche, and The Immaculate Perception (1986) on his views of consciousness, language and dreams. Dewdney's past books were described as being "more admired than read". On the topic of 'the night', he had a life-long fascination with nightlife and eventually decided to write a book about it. He quickly became overwhelmed by the amount of information relating to the subject. For research, he consulted a variety of genres and formats, including books, journals, magazines, music, and movies, and collected information within the broad topics of art, science, social sciences and history. The perspective Dewdney took was that of "explaining night to beings from another planet that had two opposed suns and no night at all".
Content
The content is divided into 14 chapters. The first chapter serves as an introduction and considers the mythological and geological origin of night. The next 12 chapters are each titled after an hour starting with chapter 2's 6 pm and ending with chapter 13's 5 am. Chapter 2 discusses the transition into night, including sunsetSunset
Sunset or sundown is the daily disappearance of the Sun below the horizon in the west as a result of Earth's rotation.The time of sunset is defined in astronomy as the moment the trailing edge of the Sun's disk disappears below the horizon in the west...
s, the green flash
Green flash
Green flashes and green rays are optical phenomena that occur shortly after sunset or before sunrise, when a green spot is visible, usually for no more than a second or two, above the sun, or it may resemble a green ray shooting up from the sunset point. Green flashes are a group of phenomena...
, the stages of twilight
Twilight
Twilight is the time between dawn and sunrise or between sunset and dusk, during which sunlight scattering in the upper atmosphere illuminates the lower atmosphere, and the surface of the earth is neither completely lit nor completely dark. The sun itself is not directly visible because it is below...
, as well as Olbers' paradox
Olbers' paradox
In astrophysics and physical cosmology, Olbers' paradox is the argument that the darkness of the night sky conflicts with the assumption of an infinite and eternal static universe. It is one of the pieces of evidence for a non-static universe such as the current Big Bang model. The argument is also...
, and a definition of the size and speed of night. The 7 pm chapter deals with nature at night, how animals see and hear differently at night with a focus on bat
Bat
Bats are mammals of the order Chiroptera "hand" and pteron "wing") whose forelimbs form webbed wings, making them the only mammals naturally capable of true and sustained flight. By contrast, other mammals said to fly, such as flying squirrels, gliding possums, and colugos, glide rather than fly,...
s, nighthawk
Nighthawk
A nighthawk is a nocturnal bird of the subfamily Chordeilinae, within the nightjar family, Caprimulgidae. Nighthawks are medium-sized New World birds, with long wings, short legs, and very short bills. They usually nest on the ground. They feed on flying insects. The Least Nighthawk, at and ,...
s, and nocturnal insects. The 8 pm chapter analyzes children's literature and bedtime stories. The 9 pm chapter discusses aspects of the city at night, including the evolution of nightclub
Nightclub
A nightclub is an entertainment venue which usually operates late into the night...
s, street light
Street light
A street light, lamppost, street lamp, light standard, or lamp standard is a raised source of light on the edge of a road or walkway, which is turned on or lit at a certain time every night. Modern lamps may also have light-sensitive photocells to turn them on at dusk, off at dawn, or activate...
s, and the impacts of light pollution
Light pollution
Light pollution, also known as photopollution or luminous pollution, is excessive or obtrusive artificial light.The International Dark-Sky Association defines light pollution as:...
. The 10 pm chapter discusses night festivals around the world and throughout history. The 11 pm chapter explains the circadian rhythm
Circadian rhythm
A circadian rhythm, popularly referred to as body clock, is an endogenously driven , roughly 24-hour cycle in biochemical, physiological, or behavioural processes. Circadian rhythms have been widely observed in plants, animals, fungi and cyanobacteria...
and the physiology of sleep and dreams.
The 12 am chapter traces the history behind dream interpretation from Gilgamesh
Epic of Gilgamesh
Epic of Gilgamesh is an epic poem from Mesopotamia and is among the earliest known works of literature. Scholars believe that it originated as a series of Sumerian legends and poems about the protagonist of the story, Gilgamesh king of Uruk, which were fashioned into a longer Akkadian epic much...
to Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...
, Carl Jung
Carl Jung
Carl Gustav Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist and the founder of Analytical Psychology. Jung is considered the first modern psychiatrist to view the human psyche as "by nature religious" and make it the focus of exploration. Jung is one of the best known researchers in the field of dream analysis and...
, and Calvin Hall. Here, Dewdney considers nightmares and takes sudden unexplained death syndrome
Sudden unexplained death syndrome
Sudden unexpected death syndrome, or Sudden unexpected nocturnal death syndrome , is sudden unexpected death of adolescents and adults during sleep.Sudden unexplained death syndrome was first noted in 1977 among Hmong refugees in the US...
, whose sufferers are almost always Asian males, between 20 and 49 years old, as an extreme example of nightmares that cause the dreamer to die from a "ventricular fibrillation
Ventricular fibrillation
Ventricular fibrillation is a condition in which there is uncoordinated contraction of the cardiac muscle of the ventricles in the heart, making them quiver rather than contract properly. Ventricular fibrillation is a medical emergency and most commonly identified arrythmia in cardiac arrest...
...brought about by extreme terror". The 1 am chapter compares literary and mythological personifications of, or beings associated with, the night. The 2 am chapter tells the stories of the legends behind the moon
Moon
The Moon is Earth's only known natural satellite,There are a number of near-Earth asteroids including 3753 Cruithne that are co-orbital with Earth: their orbits bring them close to Earth for periods of time but then alter in the long term . These are quasi-satellites and not true moons. For more...
and the constellations. The 3 am chapter is all about insomnia
Insomnia
Insomnia is most often defined by an individual's report of sleeping difficulties. While the term is sometimes used in sleep literature to describe a disorder demonstrated by polysomnographic evidence of disturbed sleep, insomnia is often defined as a positive response to either of two questions:...
. The 4 am chapter provides a geographical aspect, touring the places with long nights, like Las Vegas
Las Vegas metropolitan area
The Las Vegas Valley is the heart of the Las Vegas-Paradise, NV MSA also known as the Las Vegas–Paradise–Henderson MSA which includes all of Clark County, Nevada, and is a metropolitan area in the southern part of the U.S. state of Nevada. The Valley is defined by the Las Vegas Valley landform, a ...
, cave
Cave
A cave or cavern is a natural underground space large enough for a human to enter. The term applies to natural cavities some part of which is in total darkness. The word cave also includes smaller spaces like rock shelters, sea caves, and grottos.Speleology is the science of exploration and study...
s, the poles
Polar night
The polar night occurs when the night lasts for more than 24 hours. This occurs only inside the polar circles. The opposite phenomenon, the polar day, or midnight sun, occurs when the sun stays above the horizon for more than 24 hours.-Description:...
, and deep within the oceans. The 5 am chapter discusses artistic representations of night, especially in music, on film and through paintings. The final chapter is a conclusion in which Dewdney reflects on memorable sunrises he has experienced and contrasts sunrises with sunsets.
Style
The title shares its name with the Robert FrostRobert Frost
Robert Lee Frost was an American poet. He is highly regarded for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloquial speech. His work frequently employed settings from rural life in New England in the early twentieth century, using them to examine complex social and...
poem Acquainted with the Night
Acquainted With the Night
Acquainted with the Night: Excursions through the World After Dark is a non-fiction book by Christopher Dewdney about various aspects of night. It was first published in 2004 by HarperCollins. It uses the same title as the Robert Frost poem "Acquainted with the Night"...
, which is quoted on the first page. The book's structure uses twelve chapters, equating to twelve hours of night, from 6 pm to 5 am. Two additional chapters, "First Night" and "Night's Last Stand", bookend the twelve chapters as an introduction and conclusion. This hour-by-hour structure was used to move the narrative along logically while jumping between diverse topics. The topics range from such disparate subjects as culture, superstitions, natural history, physiology, and psychology so that reviewers variously called the book "a compendium", "a browser's book" and full of "encyclopedic mini-essays". Autobiographical passages are also included. One reviewer noted the format uses personal observations that lead to discussions of broad subjects with "side trips into relevant supporting materials".
The reviewer for the Quill & Quire
Quill & Quire
Quill & Quire, a Canadian magazine about the book and publishing industry, was launched in 1935 and has an average circulation of 5,000 copies per issue, but its publisher claims a readership of 25,000...
cited the book as an example of a sub-genre which an article in The Atlantic Monthly
The Atlantic Monthly
The Atlantic is an American magazine founded in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1857. It was created as a literary and cultural commentary magazine. It quickly achieved a national reputation, which it held for more than a century. It was important for recognizing and publishing new writers and poets,...
dubbed "mundane studies" referring to the ubiquity of the subject, like Mark Kurlansky
Mark Kurlansky
Mark Kurlansky is an American journalist and writer of general interest non-fiction. He is especially known for titles on eclectic topics, such as cod or salt....
's Salt: A World History and Witold Rybczynski
Witold Rybczynski
Witold Rybczynski , is a Canadian-American architect, professor and writer.Rybczynski was born in Edinburgh of Polish parentage and raised in Surrey, England before moving at a young age to Canada. He attended Loyola High School , located on Sherbrooke street, in Montreal-Ouest...
's One Good Turn: A Natural History of the Screwdriver and the Screw. Dewdney's writing in Acquainted with the Night combines a poet's point of view with an interest for the sciences. The tone was described as "boyish enthusiasm" and "highly condensed yet personable voice". Gisèle Baxter, in the journal Canadian Literature, wrote that the its tone was set at the beginning of the book by "an anecdote of a small boy creeping into the moonlit, partly wooded backyard of his family home".
Publication and reception
Acquainted with the Night: Excursions through the World After Dark was published as a hardback in Canada by HarperCollinsHarperCollins
HarperCollins is a publishing company owned by News Corporation. It is the combination of the publishers William Collins, Sons and Co Ltd, a British company, and Harper & Row, an American company, itself the result of an earlier merger of Harper & Brothers and Row, Peterson & Company. The worldwide...
in May 2004. In the United States, Bloomsbury published the hardback version in July 2004 as Acquainted with the Night: A Celebration of the Dark Hours. The trade paperback version was published by HarperCollins in March 2005. An excerpt was published in the Canadian literary magazine Geist
Geist (magazine)
Geist is Canada's most widely read literary magazine. Geist is published four times a year in Vancouver since 1990. The magazine takes its name from the German word geist, meaning "mind" or "spirit."...
. The book was nominated for the 2005 Charles Taylor Prize
Charles Taylor Prize
The Charles Taylor Prize is a Canadian literary award, presented by the Charles Taylor Foundation to the best Canadian work of literary non-fiction. It is named for Charles Taylor, a noted Canadian historian and writer....
, awarded to the best Canadian work of literary non-fiction, and Dewdney was a finalist in the English-language non-fiction category
Governor General's Award for English language non-fiction
This is a list of recipients of the Governor General's Award for English-language non-fiction.-1930s:*1936: T. B. Robertson, collected newspaper articles*1937: Stephen Leacock, My Discovery of the West*1938: John Murray Gibbon, Canadian Mosaic...
of the Governor General's Awards
2004 Governor General's Awards
The nominees for the 2004 Governor General's Awards for Literary Merit were announced on October 26. The children's literature winners were announced on November 15, and the other winners were announced on November 16...
. The Library Journal
Library Journal
Library Journal is a trade publication for librarians. It was founded in 1876 by Melvil Dewey . It reports news about the library world, emphasizing public libraries, and offers feature articles about aspects of professional practice...
noted the book would be "most useful for larger public libraries".
Regarding Dewdney's writing, the reviewer for Publishers Weekly
Publishers Weekly
Publishers Weekly, aka PW, is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers and literary agents...
wrote that Dewdney writes carefully and "confidently". Another reviewer called the book "engaging and recreational". Gisèle Baxter, in Canadian Literature, found his use of language "provok[es] consideration through its elegant turns of phrase and image" and Laura Wright, in Discover
Discover (magazine)
Discover is an American science magazine that publishes articles about science for a general audience. The monthly magazine was launched in October 1980 by Time Inc. It was sold to Family Media, the owners of Health, in 1987. Walt Disney Company bought the magazine when Family Media went out of...
called the imagery "arresting". In The Globe and Mail
The Globe and Mail
The Globe and Mail is a nationally distributed Canadian newspaper, based in Toronto and printed in six cities across the country. With a weekly readership of approximately 1 million, it is Canada's largest-circulation national newspaper and second-largest daily newspaper after the Toronto Star...
, poet and novelist Margaret Atwood
Margaret Atwood
Margaret Eleanor Atwood, is a Canadian poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist, and environmental activist. She is among the most-honoured authors of fiction in recent history; she is a winner of the Arthur C...
wrote, "The prose moves from the strictly informative to the lyrical to the charming to the amusing to the odd to the strangely moving without batting an eye." Another reviewer noted Dewdney "combined a deft lyric touch with a deep interest in science". The reviewer for Canadian Geographic
Canadian Geographic
Canadian Geographic is the bimonthly magazine of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society . It was first published in May 1930 under the name Canadian Geographical Journal. The society's objective was to produce a popular magazine dealing primarily with Canadian geography...
wrote that "the strength of the book is in its artful mix of science and poetry". Literary critic Sven Birkerts
Sven Birkerts
Sven Birkerts is an American essayist and literary critic of Latvian ancestry. He is best known for his book The Gutenberg Elegies, which posits a decline in reading due to the overwhelming advances of the Internet and other technologies of the "electronic culture."Birkerts was born in Pontiac,...
found Dewdney to be "an engaging enough narrator and solid, enthusiastic stylist". The book's structure received mixed reviews, some reviewers found Dewdney was able to effectively transition between various topics while other reviewers did not. Birkerts wrote the book has "a fun-facts-fished-from-the-data-ocean...[and] end-of-term crammer" sense to it. The Quill & Quire
Quill & Quire
Quill & Quire, a Canadian magazine about the book and publishing industry, was launched in 1935 and has an average circulation of 5,000 copies per issue, but its publisher claims a readership of 25,000...
and The Economist
The Economist
The Economist is an English-language weekly news and international affairs publication owned by The Economist Newspaper Ltd. and edited in offices in the City of Westminster, London, England. Continuous publication began under founder James Wilson in September 1843...
reviewers found the topics were too cursory, like "an encyclopedia entry". Birkerts concluded "that any one of Dewdney's excursions could earn its keep as a column in a popular science magazine" but assembled into one book the topics seemed random.
External links
- Harpercollins Book profile (Canada edition)
- Bloomsbury Book profile (US edition) (film inspired by the book)