Reading 1001 discussion

Rating: 4 Stars


The author tells two parallel stories about two 18th century German historical figures - mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss and botanist Alexander von Humboldt. The two men eventually meet in 1828, but the book tells their about their lives and discoveries leading to that point.

The book started slow for me, but soon became engrossing. It was interesting to see the similarities and differences between both men and read about their adventures and mishaps.

Pre-2016 review:

*** 1/2

A semi-fictional account of the respective lives of Carl Friedrich Gauss, of the normal/bell curve fame (among other mathematical "discoveries", and Alexander von Humboldt, explorer/geologist/naturalist of the Amazon and Central America, until their meeting in 1828. A must-read for nerds, like myself, but also to understand how these two men have contributed to the development of scientific knowledge. It is well written, without being swamped with technical terms, and very easy to read. The ending kind of disappointed me, I was probably expecting more to come out of their meeting (well, Eugene's arrest provided meat to the bones I guess).

Interesting fictionalised account of the lives of two noted 18th century scientists - Alexander von Humboldt who travels down the Orinoco and climbs Chimborazo, and Carl Friedrich Gauss who stays in Germany and develops theories in mathematics, physics and astronomy.

This book reminded me a bit of Mason & Dixon by Pynchon - we have the contrasting characters (although here the two scientists do not meet till late in life) and a lot of measuring and surveying, and the narrative has a dry and irreverent tone that I found very amusing. It certainly brings out the eccentricity of the characters.

This was much more readable and engaging than I was expecting, and full of interesting detail about the history of scientific research, skilfully integrated into the story of two great figures.

Reason read: Reading 1001, word for September
I've had this book on the shelf since 2016. This book is by German author Daniel Kehlman. It is a work bbof historical fiction and he took great liberties when developing the characters of German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss and German geographer Alexander von Humboldt which is one of the criticisms that the book is not historically accurate. "Humboldt, an aristocratic and compulsive traveler, contrasts with Gauss, a provincial and homebound genius. Though they meet briefly, their journeys emphasize their fundamental opposition, with the novel suggesting their lives are defined not by a grand unified purpose, but by their distinct, separate ways of measuring the world." It's quite funny and I enjoyed how the author developed the sentences and thoughts. This is one of the main points, "It was both odd and unjust, said Gauss, a real example of the pitiful arbitrariness of existence, that you were born into a particular time and held prisoner there whether you wanted it or not. It gave you and indecent advantage over the past and made you a clown vis-a-vis the future." I read Mason and Dixon last year which this one reminded me. The two characters are developed mostly separate with only a brief meeting. Humboldt was the adventurer and Gauss was a solitary reticent character. The plot culminates in the characters' historical meeting in 1828 at a scientific congress in Berlin, which also served as the starting point before the narrative flashes back to their individual histories.

Quotes:
"True, said Gauss, he'd forgotten. He pointed to the post horses outside the window. It was actually quite funny that the rich needed twice as much time to make a journey as the poor. If you used post horses, you could change them after every section. If you had your own, you had to wait until they were fresh again."

"Gauss's conversation turned to chance, the enemy of all knowledge, and the thing he had always wished gto overcome. Viewed from up close, one could detect the infinite fineness of the web of causality behind every event. Step back and the larger patterns appeared: Freedom and Chance were a question of distance, a point of view. "

Besides the main characters there are references to Immanuel Kant, Marcus Herz, Freidrich Jahn, Julien Offray de La Mettrie, and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and many others.