Measuring the World - Softcover

Kehlmann, Daniel

Softcover

ISBN 10: 184724114X ISBN 13: 9781847241146

Publisher: riverrun, 2007

Synopsis

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.

About this title

About the Author

Daniel Kehlmann was born in Munich in 1975 and lives in Vienna, Berlin and New York. He has published six novels: Measuring the World, Me & Kaminski, Fame, F, You Should Have Left and Tyll and has won numerous prizes, including the Candide Prize, the Literature Prize of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, the Doderer Prize, The Kleist Prize, the WELT Literature Prize, and the Thomas Mann Prize. Measuring the World was translated into more than forty languages and is one of the biggest successes in post-war German literature.

From the Back Cover

"Pulsing with fictional energy ... Here for once is a popular hit as sophisticated as it is engaging" Sunday Times
At the en dot he eighteenth century, two brilliant and eccentric young scientists set out to measure the world. Alexander von Humboldt swashbuckled his way across the globe, navigating ocean and jungle, eating with cannibals, swimming with electric eels, lowering himself into volcanoes and scaling the highest mountain known to man.
Carl Friedrich Gauss, on the other hand, stayed at home, using the power of thought to battle his way into exotic mathematical realms and the landmark realization that space is curved.
Addictively readable and slyly humorous, Measuring the World bends time and space to bring these two enlightenment geniuses to life, their longings and their weaknesses, their balancing act between loneliness and love, absurdity and greatness, failure and success.
"A dazzling success ... fantastically imagined" Daily Telegraph
"Nothing less than a literary sensation" Guardian
"A rare gem of a novel ... a virtuoso entertainment" Independent

Edition details

• Publisher: riverrun
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 184724114X
• ISBN 13: 9781847241146
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272