Questioning Heavyweight Trivia

For those first-years and sophomores who have been anxiously waiting to find out who is the class of the new millennium, Stephen Jay Gould has written a book for you. Questioning the Millennium tackles some of the debate before veering into the history of apocalyptic movements and day-date calculating. Gould's discussion of the millennium question proper, by far the most interesting portion of this somewhat tedious book, is the shortest chapter.

In that chapter, Gould retraces the history of malfunctioning Christian calendars back to a monk named Dionysius Exigus who began the A.D. calendar at the year 1 rather than the year zero. From there sprang the simmering academic debate over whether the new millennium begins on Jan. 1, 2000, or one year later. Based on extensive research of fin de siecle newspapers and magazines, Gould observes that pop culture has generally favored the 1999 New Year's Day as the dawning of the new century. The other view "has always been over-whelmingly favored by scholars and by people in power (the press and business in particular), representing what we may call high culture." No big shock there.

Yet this is surprisingly the only moment in the book in which Gould addresses the cultural aspects of the millennial debate. Listing a few examples of pop culture favoritism for January 1, 2000 (which, yes, do include Prince's album 1999), Gould remarks on the diminishing influence of "high culture" since the last turn of the century. While 100 years ago every Ivy League president favored 1900-1901, Gould says, the sector of society who will be celebrating the big one on Jan. 1, 2001 is on the fringe. As Gould puts it, "Who can doubt that 2000 will win this time?" Harvard sophomores knew this all along.

The first half of the book would be most fascinating for anyone curious about apocalyptic movements and Christian history in general. Gould's research is thorough, and, considering the subject matter, he does a decent job of not sounding like a textbook. Focusing on material from both the Old and the New Testament, Gould charts the stories of various movements and how they dealt with their failures when the world stubbornly did not end on their prescribed date.

Gould includes a footnote on the Heaven's Gate cult, as he consciously disproves his theory that "the fusion of Christian millennialism with traditional beliefs of conquered (and despairing) peoples has often led to particularly incendiary, and tragic, results." After the Heaven's Gate tragedy, Gould realizes this 10-page critique of non-Western apocalyptic beliefs is not only "parochial," but "even a bit condescending." His confession is, to say the least, understated.

The third chapter, "Why?", is a combination of the history of the Julian, Gregorian and Jewish calendars. Gould details the mathematics behind the leap year system and explains calendrical curiosities from Hanukkah to George Washington's birthday. Gould attempts to expand into a commentary on the philosophical relationship between reality and scientific inquiry, but does not give himself the vocabulary, subject matter or space to say anything profound.

In the end, we are left with a collection of bizarrely interesting facts, not sure what to do with them: for example, that Easter falls on the Sunday following the first full moon after the vernal equinox. Trivial Pursuit, anyone?

The epilogue picks up on the story line of an autistic "subject" mentioned in Chapter Two. This person turns out to be the author's son, as Gould reveals in the last sentence of the book. Gould's loving account of his son's day-date calculating abilities is touching and tender, but does seem somewhat misplaced in this book on the millennium that could do with a binding conclusion.

In short, the questions Gould poses about the millennium are usually far more interesting than the answers. Instead of dealing with contemporary psychological and cultural reasons behind the millennial obsession-say, that New Year's Day 2000 may well become the next big conversation opener and common experience of our lifetimes, a Kennedy assassination equivalent for Generation X-Gould approaches the topic from a dry, historical perspective. The result is an eclectic combination of facts, history lecture, and 11th grade math project: an admittedly brilliant big-name scholar's erudition-on-parade.