“Prof: Alan Turing decoded” by Sir Dermot Turing
We already have a handful of book reviews about Turing’s life on the website and here is another to add to the list. Published last September “Prof: Alan Turing decoded” is written by Sir Dermot Turing, a nephew, Bletchley Park trustee and a kind of spokesperson for the Turing family. Compared to previous biographies his take on his uncle’s life and work shines a slightly more personal light, despite never having been fortunate enough to meet personally due to circumstances known to the greater public. Alan Turing’s remarkable achievements in a far too short lived lifetime catch many people’s interest in the first place because of the tragedy his family rarely brought up at the time of it happening. I, admittedly rubbish at maths, am no exception.
However, Dermot eloquently manages to balance both his uncle’s personal part-time rollercoaster and outstanding thinking in chapters of equal lengths – while giving lesser public known companions of influence and importance a confident, much deserved shoutout.
Though I have already been quite familiar with a certain amount of content thanks to a year-long research leading to and following “The Imitation Game”, I found this biography to be a wonderful, additional resource to deepen my understanding of what is fact and fiction. It certainly is well, accurately thought-through and researched. If you have a little time on your hands, it is also easily read including to date unpublished information and correspondence, photographs, mathematics, artificial intelligence and morphogenesis naturally. Personal eye-openers were the life-long friendship with the Morcom family, specific character trades, comments on American life, the subtle “Computable Numbers” hint of “puzzle” in Moore’s screenplay, neighbourly anecdotes and more jaw-dropping discoveries I do not want to spoil further at this point. The shocking disbelief never fails to set in when one finds Alan’s sudden, life-ending turn of events anew.
Being somewhat familiar with Dermot’s voice, it felt as if he tells a story of a good friend long lost but never really gone or forgotten. Alan’s story is after all part of his own family, one which especially the younger generations are quite proud and fond of. His nephew paints a picture of a relative who was indeed different to the likes of his time, of rare intellect but not as much of a victim as many want to minimize him to be. Ultimately, any Turing biography has to draw an end – a majority understandably, logically, a sad one. Following a mention of ex PM Gordon Brown’s 2009 apology Sir Dermot Turing notes: “This is not the place to debate the relative merits of apologies and pardons. Perhaps we should remember that Alan Turing’s life was not, except perhaps towards the end, governed by his sexuality. The dominant passion in his life was his ideas; it is those for which he should be remembered, and for them no apology is needed.”*
I recommend this biography to anyone interested like myself with advanced knowledge on the man looking for a reread of events and, without doubt, to everyone who has never held a book about Turing in his or her hand. It is an honour to own and have this one sit on a bookshelf.
*Speaking of pardons nevertheless, on the 23rd of February it will be precisely one year since Rachel Barnes, Alan Turing’s great-niece, alongside other family members delivered “Pardon49K” to Downing Street 10. It is a petition led by numerous celebrities and signed by thousands demanding to pardon over 49.000 homosexual men wrongly convicted under anti-gay laws in the United Kingdom much like Turing himself. Time is running out for many of these men. As far as it is public knowledge the current government in charge has still not acted upon the demand.
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