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Summary
Summary
Measuring the World recreates the parallel but contrasting lives of two geniuses of the German Enlightenment - the naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt and the mathematician and physicist Carl Friedrich Gauss. Towards the end of the 18th century, these two brilliant young Germans set out to measure the world.
Humboldt , a Prussian aristocrat schooled for greatness, negotiates savannah and jungle, climbs the highest mountain then known to man, counts head lice on the heads of the natives, and explores every hole in the ground.
Gauss , a man born in poverty who will be recognised as the greatest mathematician since Newton, does not even need to leave his home in Göttingen to know that space is curved. He can run prime numbers in his head, cannot imagine a life without women and yet jumps out of bed on his wedding night to jot down a mathematical formula.
Measuring the World is a novel of rare charm and readability, distinguished by its sly humour and unforgettable characterization. It brings the two eccentric geniuses to life, their longings and their weaknesses, their balancing act between loneliness and love, absurdity and greatness, failure and success.
Author Notes
Daniel Kehlmann was born on January 13, 1975 in Munich. He is a German language author. His work Die Vermessung der Welt (translated into English by Carol Brown Janeway as Measuring the World, 2006) is the best selling novel in the German language since Patrick Süskind's Perfume was released in 1985.
In 1997 Kehlmann completed his first novel, Beerholms Vorstellung, while still a student. He also wrote numerous reviews and essays while at university. In 2001, Kehlmann held the guest lectureship of poetics at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz. In the winter term of 2005/6 Kehlmann held the lectureship of poetics at the FH Wiesbaden, and in 2006/7 he held the lectureship for poetics at the university of Göttingen. Daniel Kehlmann is a member of the Mainzer Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur. In 2015 he made the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize shortlist with his title, F.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (1)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Strong stays out of the way of Kehlmann's dry, sardonic humor, letting the words tell the jokes, rather than their teller. The German author's debut novel, an enormous success in Europe, turns the scientific exploits of the legendary scientists Alexander von Humboldt and Carl Friedrich Gauss into a rollicking buddy picture framed by racing scientific and political change. Strong avoids German accents or overly broad characterizations in favor of the author's Enlightenment-fueled spirit of intellectual absorption and intense dedication, and a more modern sense of subtle humorous intent. Strong's voice, so modern and American in its flat, frictionless flow, balances the competing elements of Kehlmann's novel, offering a reading at once humorous and measured, sweet and filling. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved All rights reserved.