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Measuring the World: A Novel Hardcover – Import, 7 Nov. 2006

by Daniel Kehlmann (Author)

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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 Hum-boldt, 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 Göttingen 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.

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Print length

272 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Pantheon
Publication date

7 Nov. 2006
Dimensions

14.22 x 3.05 x 20.83 cm
ISBN-10

0375424466
ISBN-13

978-0375424465
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Product description

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 Universitys Deutsches Haus. He lives in Vienna.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Pantheon; Translation edition (7 Nov. 2006)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 272 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0375424466
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0375424465
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 14.22 x 3.05 x 20.83 cm

Best Sellers Rank: 1,961,932 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 96,449 in Historical Fiction (Books)

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854

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Daniel Kehlmann
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Daniel Kehlmann was born in Munich in 1975 and lives in Vienna, Berlin and New York. His works include Measuring the World, Me & Kaminski, Fame and F, and have won numerous prizes, including the Candide Prize, the Literature Prize for 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 postwar German literature.
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Carol Brown Janeway
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3.9 out of 5

854 global ratings

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Didier

Delightful book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 23 May 2009

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What is there still left to measure in the world today? Precious little, one might argue, except for things of infinitisemal size. How different the world must have seemed in the early 18th century, when the principles of Enlightenment were at their peak, and large parts of the map of the world were still black. European scientist had an almost unbound belief in the possibilities of scientific research, and there was plenty to research!

'Measuring the world' captures this era in a beautiful manner, by contrasting two of its giants: the explorer Alexander von Humboldt (1769 - 1859) and the mathematician Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777-1855). In many ways, two people couldn't be further apart: Gauss was a child prodigy of humble birth (his father wanted him to become a mason as he himself was), Humboldt the younger of two sons in a prominent Pomeranian family (his father was a major in the Prussian army). Gauss was by all accounts a difficult man to live with: a perfectionist, having difficulties establishing relations with other people (including his own children), impatient and restless. By contrast, Humboldt was ever sociable and friendly, the epitome of the gentleman-explorer, used to moving in the highest circles. Humboldt traversed the globe, Gauss explored the world (the universe rather) sitting behind his desk...

And yet, in a bizarre way, as Kehlmann demonstrates in this splendid book, both men (or rather: his fictionalized versions of them) are as different sides of the same coin, and are ultimately 'mere men', as we all are. Ambitious and confident as they may be when young and in the prime of their lives, and there hardly seemed to be limits to what they could do and achieve, as they grow older (and more and more lonely) they are confronted with the same ruminations, doubts and regrets we probably all are: did I make a difference? Have I done right by my children? Should I have been more caring towards my wife?

You've probably guessed by now that I enjoyed this book a lot. It's insightful, full of (dry) humour and irony, and utterly charming. Splendid!

14 people found this helpful

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Amazon Customer

Excellent historical recreation

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 14 April 2012

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This is a book about "parallel lives": a man who never went very far from home and a man who travelled far and wide. Both made astonishing discoveries, that helped shape our world and views.

This book also deals with those very exciting times wheh a man of means could travel the world and discover for the Europeans those corners of Earth that were still hidden. That was Humboldt's case. Appart from that, he was gifted with an iron determination and faith in himself.

On the other hand, stands a Genious, Gauss, prince of Matemathicians, who turned Maths upside down when hardly twenty, and went on working on other projects: probability, magnetism, languaje, etc.

The author makes their scientific enterprises the landscape for their developement as persons, a setting in which we can understand them better as men, with their whims, wishes, prejudices, miseries, intuition, inspiration, genius
...
Their society was very different from ours: stamental, rigid, surveiled... many things we take for granted, like freedom of speech, independent pursuits, free research were not casual, were sometimes only tolerated.

This book is a good primer to historical novels, and a good kit-kat for those scientists and interested in science.
Good buy.

One person found this helpful

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Philip C.

About genius or something. . .

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 23 December 2017

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It's hard to know what this book is about other than what it obviously seems to be, namely an account of the lives of two remarkable men: the mathematician Gauss and the explorer Humboldt. But if it is biography of a kind, the material is strangely dull, at least until the two actually meet, and establish a kind of intellectual, maybe even spiritual, bond, transcending their later physical separation. It is the second book I have read by the author. I enjoyed the first much more. I cannot really recommend this one.

One person found this helpful

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Timothy J Counihan

An hilarious take on what goes on in a scientist's head

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 6 December 2013

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Here is a book about two German scientists in the 19th century. While the names Gauss and Humboldt may be familiar to many, I for one would struggle to embellish the barest of detail on either. So why does a book on 2 relatively obscure relics of German endeavour deserve to be read? Firstly the book is hilariously funny; each character is meticulously drawn with a cartoonish swirl as their nerdish personalities emerge. Secondly, the reader (at least this one) is drawn into the world of scientific enquiry and mathematics as well as the melting pot of intellectual life of the time. There are Dickensian moments, with the dwarfish Kant sqeaking out from under the bed covers. The almost delusional parallel thinking of Gauss buzzes off the page as he desperately attempts to emerge from his world of numbers and polygony and cling onto reality. Both heroes of this story set out to measure the world with compulsive enthusiasm. Their eccentric voyage is punctuated by wonderful cameo scenes that force the protagonists back to the social world periodically. The book is ripe for stage adaptation. Absolutely no interest in mathematics, science or history is required to enjoy this gem.

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Bobbie

Start with chapter 2 and read it aloud - it will hook you.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 5 February 2017

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The life stories of two late-18th-century, eccentric-genius scientists dramatised as a novel: Alexander von Humboldt, explorer, and Carl Friedrich Gauss, astronomer and mathematician.
At first I didn’t take to it. Though plainly witty and interesting, it was flowing past me, just one thing after another. But then I tried reading it aloud and became much more involved with the characters and entertained by the wry, throwaway humour. So all in all, great fun and fascinating, lots to enjoy, and with something to say about the human condition.
Three minor quibbles. The lack of speech quotation marks. The ‘he’s and ‘him’s I had to pause to attribute. And the first chapter, which would have worked much better coming in its chronological order in the narrative. My advice is start with chapter 2 and read chapter 1 after the one called ‘The Capital’.

4 people found this helpful

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Ursula Tillmann

Interesting Austrian writer

Reviewed in Canada on 8 November 2018

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Von Humboldt and Gauss biographies in an entertaining and unusual writing style. This Austrian writer is outstanding, the translation quite good. But still, I purchased also the German version of his book to enjoy his native language. By the way, the movie made from this book is equally good.

aaron

Outstanding!

Reviewed in Australia on 27 September 2021

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This book will take you far away from wherever you are stuck in lockdown. A well written adventure story really, reminding us of what a life can be.

ఏమి?

Historical Fiction meets Tom Sharpe.

Reviewed in India on 30 July 2016

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A darkly funny, surreal, jounrey into the world of science blended with a tastefully accurate historical fiction. This book was recommended by a friend, and it did not disappoint.

It is a book that can be read multiple times. The references to people, places, and inventions is brilliantly done, and it opens the hitherto closed doors into the scientific past of Germany in particular and Europe in general.

Definitely worth a read.

One person found this helpful

Erik Michel

Meisterhaft

Reviewed in Germany on 15 September 2013

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Schon auf Deutsch ein Meisterwerk, gerade auch sprachlich. Man kann sich jeden Satz auf der Zunge zergehen lassen. Erstaunlich, wie man diesen besonderen sprachlichen Ausdruck so geistreich in das Englische übertragen kann (natürlich ist das Englisch "holperig", aber das ist doch gerade der Trick!). Für mich als Liebhaber englischer Romane fast noch besser als das Original. Gönnen Sie sich mal was Gutes!

One person found this helpful

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Roger Brunyate

The Recluse and the Traveler

Reviewed in the United States on 10 December 2008

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As others have pointed out, this is an interleaved biography of Carl Friedrich Gauss and Alexander von Humboldt, two of the greatest German men of science at the start of the nineteenth century. Despite being contemporaries, they are as different as could be in background and methods: Gauss, from a modest family, is a stay-at-home thinker; the aristocratic Humboldt finds fame as a world explorer. For two-thirds of the book, Kehlmann tells their separate stories in alternating chapters. He is particularly entertaining when describing the intrepid but rather naif Humboldt, who climbs Mount Chimborazo in Ecuador, and tastes curare to prove it is not poisonous when ingested, but is shocked to discover than women have body hair just like men. Kehlmann narrates all this in a deadpan style that is often very funny. He has a harder time conveying the importance of Gauss to mathematics; unlike other recent novels about mathematicians such as David Leavitt's THE INDIAN CLERK or Yoko Ogawa's THE HOUSEKEEPER AND THE PROFESSOR , he avoids anything technical, making it difficult to show the man as much more than a misanthrope at first. More comes through towards the end when Gauss turns his mind to more practical matters such as chemistry, physics, and technology.

Indeed, this seems to be the main thrust of the book, that Gauss becomes more practical whereas Humboldt, who started as the supreme man of action, ends virtually emasculated by his own fame. But since there is really very little to connect the two men other than the author's demonstration of their differences, the final sections of the book, when the two men finally meet, seem narratively contrived and tail off into confusion. In some respects the novel is reminiscent of ARTHUR AND GEORGE by Julian Barnes, which also starts with two separate historical characters, and also ends in deliberate anticlimax. But whereas Barnes focuses on a real encounter that changed the lives of both protagonists, Kehlmann's great scientists pass like ships in the night. All the same, Humboldt's realization as he is returning from an exhausting and fruitless tour of Russia is apropos and poignant: "But as the first suburbs of Berlin flew past and Humboldt imagined Gauss at that very moment staring through his telescope at heavenly bodies, whose paths he could sum up in simple formulas, all of a sudden he could no longer have said which of them had traveled afar and which of them had always stayed at home."

Over and above the story of these two men, the book offers a fascinating glimpse of the intellectual climate in Germany in the early 1800s, an interesting pendant to the more delicate portrait of early German romanticism painted by Penelope Fitzgerald in THE BLUE FLOWER , her novel about the poet Novalis.

16 people found this helpful

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Measuring the World: A Novel Hardcover – Import, 7 Nov. 2006

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