Asya Kazantseva is one of the most well-known popularizers of science. Her first published book Who Would Have Thought! literally blew up the market — it was so unconventional, since Asya spoke about complicated things in fairly simple language, with plenty of good humor. I myself was wildly enthusiastic, and so I gladly went on to read her next two books. After that, Asya disappeared from the public sphere as a writer for a while, though she continued to give many live lectures. And in 2023 her fourth book was released, titled Where Do Children Come From?
Here Asya stepped away from her favorite topics, deciding to talk about the myths and realities of pregnancy and childbirth. All the more so since she had tested it not only in theory but also in practice, having given birth to a daughter. She approached the topic as thoroughly as always, having studied a large amount of material long before her pregnancy.
And although, as usual, I made many notes while reading, for a very long time I couldn’t bring myself to start writing a review of this book. Because Asya’s second and third books were already somewhat weaker than the first, but this fourth one seemed to me the dullest. And the first one that I have absolutely no desire to recommend.
Probably my main sense of rejection began at the point where it seemed to me that this book was written by a woman who had never really wanted to have children, but thought, “Well, I probably should,” and therefore is now going to spell out for you what it entails and how to do it scientifically. In other words, it feels not like a book about the joy of motherhood — even with explanations of how everything happens — but like a scientific work in which having one’s own child (an ugly wording, but fitting here) is an experiment by a naturalist on herself in order to advance science and its popularization. Something like injecting yourself with an unknown virus to study its effect on the body. Perhaps I’m exaggerating, but that is exactly how the book read to me.
Aside from that, the earlier books also were at times not very structured; certain sections were sometimes loosely connected. But in this book the presentation of the material seems even more chaotic and now directly tied to Asya’s personal experience. That is, she writes about exactly what she herself had to go through during this “experiment.” And the most unpleasant thing is that within the framework of such an experience, reflections on politics and the related move abroad crept into the book. No, I’m entirely in favor of talking about problems, about war, and not pretending that none of this exists around us. But why does this need to be done in a book about pregnancy and childbirth? There is no connection here, and so such digressions only provoke bewilderment.
Asya, as usual, provides a lot of interesting information, citing research in both genetics and biology in general. But when she talks about future motherhood, she seems to be constantly frightening the reader. Almost everywhere things can go wrong, whichever way you look. Of course, that is true. And Asya then points out that statistically it is still very unlikely. But she begins with descriptions of horrors and fears. And after reading about all the possible problems (even if their probability approaches zero), a future mother is hardly likely to want children after this book. Because she will almost certainly find in herself all the signs of these problems, even if she is not yet pregnant and they are supposed to appear in the eighth month. It’s like in Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog), where the main character found in himself the symptoms of absolutely every disease from a medical handbook, except the typically female ones.
The same goes for the description of the influence of genes on the child’s future, which somehow turns into a rather discouraging piece of advice — to choose the future “donor” for your child according to certain rules. Well, if you don’t want to have a steady relationship, that’s your business. But treating a partner as nothing more than a set of genes and, in essence, turning it into a “marriage of convenience” — that’s not much of a recommendation for those who actually want to have an ordinary family.
The active promotion of IVF here is not just a story about how these technologies help in our time and why infertility is no longer a final verdict. It is a push — go and freeze. Because later, who knows, and the clock is ticking, and you have almost no time left. And it doesn’t seem to matter that although this is indeed a remarkable achievement of modern science, it is still completely unaffordable for the majority of women.
Overall, the impressions from the book are very strange. It was a slog to read. And although the topic is interesting to me as the father of five children, in Asya’s interpretation it provoked rather a sense of rejection. And in general, the impression remained that this is a hymn to the emancipated woman, promoting the path of the single mother who has gone into parenthood purely for the sake of science. I have nothing against emancipation, but this is not what I expected from the book.
I myself regret that I could hardly find a good word to say about this book.
My rating: 3/5
