Stick with it, though, and there’s much to learn about a book little studied today—but one that inarguably changed the world.
Times may be tough for evolutionists, but consider: As recently as 400 years ago, folks were being burned at the stake for thinking that Earth revolved around Sol, and not the other way around.
Indeed, remarks the hyper-prolific Vollmann, author of Europe Central, winner of the 2005 National Book Award for Nonfiction, “Copernicus . . . was not only lucky, but canny to have died when he published.” The publication in question, The Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres, looks antique to us now. But, Vollmann argues, following other historians of science, Nicholas Copernicus’ treatise—which he rightly reckoned would scandalize the godly—was and remains remarkable on a number of fronts. Most important, by positing and then proving that the solar system is heliotropic, Copernicus removed humankind from the center of the universe at a time, Jacques Barzun notes, “when men thought of themselves as miserable sinners fearful of an angry God.” Revolutions, writes Vollmann, is neither empirical nor, strictly speaking, rational. It is based, he adds, on “what we would now consider a faulty premise.” Yet it is remarkably coherent, and even if it took two more centuries to prove him experimentally, Copernicus turned out to be right on many points. Copernicus did die soon after publishing his book, condemned by Protestant and Catholic clergy alike; infamously, his follower, Giordano Bruno, was burned to death for his heterodoxical views, taking the place of his comparatively lucky master. Though peppered with intrigue and conflict and even a little human interest, Vollmann’s close reading of Revolutions is not for the scientifically fainthearted, full of head-spinning sentences on the order of, “[I]t is more than remarkable that the deferent radii which Copernicus calculated for the planets, which translate into the mean radii of their actual elliptical orbits, will be fairly accurate for Mercury and Saturn . . .”
Stick with it, though, and there’s much to learn about a book little studied today—but one that inarguably changed the world.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2006
ISBN: 0-393-05969-3
Page Count: 240
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2005
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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