Synopses & Reviews
The young Austrian writer Daniel Kehlmann conjures a brilliant and gently comic novel from the lives of two geniuses of the Enlightenment.
Toward the end of the eighteenth century, two young Germans set out to measure the world. One of them, the Prussian aristocrat Alexander von Humboldt, negotiates savanna and jungle, travels down the Orinoco, tastes poisons, climbs the highest mountain known to man, counts head lice, and explores every hole in the ground. The other, the barely socialized mathematician and astronomer Carl Friedrich Gauss, does not even need to leave his home in Gottingen to prove that space is curved. He can run prime numbers in his head. He cannot imagine a life without women, yet he jumps out of bed on his wedding night to jot down a mathematical formula. Von Humboldt is known to history as the Second Columbus. Gauss is recognized as the greatest mathematical brain since Newton. Terrifyingly famous and more than eccentric in their old age, the two meet in Berlin in 1828. Gauss has hardly climbed out of his carriage before both men are embroiled in the political turmoil sweeping through Germany after Napoleon's fall.
Already a huge best seller in Germany, Measuring the World marks the debut of a glorious new talent on the international scene.
Review
"[H]eady historical novel, which may especially delight science-fiction connoisseurs." Booklist (Starred Review)
Review
"[A] wonderfully entertaining depiction of an era, but, more importantly, a warm, playful portrait of two delightfully improbable men. Brilliant." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"If Humboldt and Gauss are occasionally cartoonish, they are the creations of a very smart, deft artist." The New York Times
Review
"Measuring the World has proved to be nothing less than a literary sensation." The Guardian
Review
"Possibly this fall's The Name of the Rose." The Philadelphia Inquirer
Synopsis
At the end of the eighteenth century, two young Germans set out to measure the world, as Prussian aristocrat Alexander von Humboldt embarks on an odyssey to some of the most remote, unexplored regions on the planet, and astronomer-mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss uses his mathematical skills to solve some of the greatest puzzles of his age. 17,500 first printing.
Synopsis
Already a bestseller in Germany, this brilliant and gently comic novel chronicles the lives to two young geniuses who during the Enlightenment of the 18th century set out to measure the world.
About the Author
Daniel Kehlmann was born in 1975 in Munich, the son of a director and an actress. He attended a Jesuit college in Vienna, traveled widely, and has won several awards for previous novels and short stories, most recently the 2005 Candide Award. His works have been translated into more than twenty languages, and Measuring the World became an instant best seller in several European countries. Kehlmann is spending the fall of 2006 as writer-in-residence at New York University's Deutsches Haus. He lives in Vienna.