As I Remember Him

Abstract

This book must be accounted a notable achievement when we consider that it is the parergon of one who spent a strenuous life devoted to researches in the fields of microbiology and immunology. The reader should keep clearly in mind that the author, Dr. Hans Zinsser, who was professor of these subjects in Harvard University until his recent death, adopted the fiction of narrating the events of his own life and experiences as if they had happened to “R. S.”, a mythical friend. The author wrote the last chapter, which describes the thoughts of “R. S.” during his fatal illness, when he himself was under the shadow of impending death. He did not use the device of anonymity in order to heighten his self-importance. On the contrary, he took pains to assure the reader that his objective counterpart was an ordinary intelligent person who was often not really competent to pronounce opinions on many of the topics that are discussed in the book. This modest attitude is stressed in the first chapter and also in the final sentence of the last chapter, which states that it seemed scarcely worth while to have written a book about his ‘friend’—a view which is unlikely to be shared by its readers. As I Remember Him: the Biography of R. S. By Hans Zinsser. Pp. x + 369. (London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1940.) 12s. 6d. net.