But here is Norvig's Python eval for a Lisp:
def eval(x, env=global_env):
"Evaluate an expression in an environment."
if isinstance(x, Symbol): # variable reference
return env.find(x)[x]
elif not isinstance(x, List):# constant
return x
op, *args = x
if op == 'quote': # quotation
return args[0]
elif op == 'if': # conditional
(test, conseq, alt) = args
exp = (conseq if eval(test, env) else alt)
return eval(exp, env)
elif op == 'define': # definition
(symbol, exp) = args
env[symbol] = eval(exp, env)
elif op == 'set!': # assignment
(symbol, exp) = args
env.find(symbol)[symbol] = eval(exp, env)
elif op == 'lambda': # procedure
(parms, body) = args
return Procedure(parms, body, env)
else: # procedure call
proc = eval(op, env)
vals = [eval(arg, env) for arg in args]
return proc(*vals)
So, the first thing is, what's the essential difficulty versus the noise: Lisp has two features which enable the evaluator to work. The first is quotation, which means that you can put a little apostrophe before some code and then it saves that code as a data structure, rather than implicitly evaluating it. The second goes by the overfancy name “homoiconicity”, that data structure is actually just singly linked list consumed by “car” (“first”) and “cdr” (“rest”) operations.
You can focus on understanding those two aspects pretty quickly, and then there are many tutorials about building your own Lisp that will get you there in an afternoon, if you'd like.
Or, you can take the royal road to this expression, in all of its cheesy 1980s glory:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLE18841CABEA24090
It's lecture 7A where this specific program gets explicitly dissected by Sussman, wearing a fez. If he seems familiar, you might have watched Strange Loop 2011’s “We Really Don't Know How To Compute”, https://youtu.be/HB5TrK7A4pI
Any recommendations on good resources for learning Lisp to a degree that this program is understandable?