Age of Wonder / Holmes - great side reading for any Pynchon fan

Tue Mar 2 18:47:09 CST 2010

I have it ordered. Come back, Shane, come back...
--- On Tue, 3/2/10, grladams at teleport.com <grladams at teleport.com> wrote:

> From: grladams at teleport.com <grladams at teleport.com>
> Subject: Age of Wonder / Holmes - great side reading for any Pynchon fan
> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
> Date: Tuesday, March 2, 2010, 7:09 PM
> Hello old friends, I'm enjoying being
> unsubscribed, couldn't deal with
> having 100 tweet-sized emails from the same couple three
> people each day...
> but I still miss you!
> I resubscribed just now to tell you the book I'm
> reading--you probably
> would like it too. Until we meet again! bye!
> 
> Library Journal (05/15/2009):
> While Romanticism in Great Britain is known mostly as an
> artistic,
> literary, and intellectual movement, rapid and
> revolutionary scientific
> discoveries were an underlying catalyst to the era's
> vaunted sense of
> "wonder." It was also a period when remarkable individuals
> working alone
> could make major contributions to knowledge. Historian and
> biographer
> Holmes ("Dr. Johnson & Mr. Savage") conveys the history
> of Romantic-era
> science through vivid biographies of a few such
> individuals. Notable among
> them are Joseph Banks, a botanist whose experiences in
> Tahiti were
> life-changing; William Herschel, the eccentric astronomer
> who (aided
> invaluably by his devoted sister, Caroline) discovered the
> planet Uranus;
> and Humphrey Davy, an intrepid chemist who conducted gas
> inhalation
> experiments on himself. These and others are depicted
> against the cultural
> tapestry of an age of idealism, which was both fueled and
> threatened by the
> advances of science. The subject makes this book most
> relevant for readers
> of general science and history of science, but its engaging
> narratives of
> the period could appeal to a broader readership. [See
> Prepub Alert, "LJ"
> 3/1/09.]Gregg Sapp, Evergreen State Coll. Lib., Olympia, WA
> Copyright 2009
> Reed Business Information.
> 
> Publishers Weekly (06/01/2009):
> The Romantic imagination was inspired, not alienated, by
> scientific
> advances, argues this captivating history. Holmes, author
> of a much-admired
> biography of Coleridge, focuses on prominent British
> scientists of the late
> 18th and early 19th centuries, including the astronomer
> William Herschel
> and his accomplished assistant and sister, Caroline;
> Humphrey Davy, a
> leading chemist and amateur poet; and Joseph Banks, whose
> journal of a
> youthful voyage to Tahiti was a study in sexual
> libertinism. Holmes's
> biographical approach makes his obsessive protagonists
> (Davy's
> self-experimenting with laughing gas is an epic in itself)
> the prototypes
> of the Romantic genius absorbed in a Promethean quest for
> knowledge. Their
> discoveries, he argues, helped establish a new paradigm of
> Romantic science
> that saw the universe as vast, dynamic and full of marvels
> and celebrated
> mankind's power to not just describe but transform Nature.
> Holmes's
> treatment is sketchy on the actual science and heavy on the
> cultural
> impact, with wide-ranging discussions of the 1780s
> ballooning craze, Mary
> Shelley's "Frankenstein" and scientific metaphors in
> Romantic poetry. It's
> an engrossing portrait of scientists as passionate
> adventurers, boldly
> laying claim to the intellectual leadership of society.
> Illus. "(July 14)"
> Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information.
> 
> Kirkus Review - Adult (06/01/2009):
> Energetic analysis of the"Romantic Age of Science."
> 
> Romanticism, the deeply emotional artistic movement of the
> second half of
> the 18th century, was partly a reaction against the
> pragmatism of
> Enlightenment scientists. However, British historian Holmes
> (Sidetracks:
> Explorations of a Romantic Biographer, 2000, etc.) writes,
> the divide
> between scientific endeavors and artistic pursuits was not
> always so
> clearly delineated. The author focuses primarily on the
> lives of two men
> who straddled both worlds, who embraced"Romantic science"
> and pursued it
> with the passion of poets or painters. Astronomer William
> Herschel, who
> discovered the planet Uranus in 1781, started his career as
> a musician.
> That led to an interest in mathematics and then astronomy,
> which he pursued
> with the same emotional fervor as any classical music
> piece. He even
> compared his skill at seeing astronomical phenomena with
> the skill required
> to play Handel's fugues. Holmes also looks at the
> British chemist
> Humphry Davy, who, among other accomplishments, discovered
> that chlorine
> and iodine were elements. Early on, Davy wrote poetry, and
> later became
> friends with Samuel Taylor Coleridge. One of his poems
> celebrated"science,
> whose delicious water flows / From Nature's
> bosom." Davy's
> enthusiasm led to risky, self-destructive behavior—he
> often inhaled strange
> chemical gases as experiments, a practice that nearly
> killed him. While
> partaking of nitrous oxide with acquaintances, he extolled
> the glories of
> science:"I dream of Science restoring to Nature what
> Luxury, what
> Civilization have stolen from her—pure hearts, the forms
> of angels, bosoms
> beautiful, and panting with Joy& Hope." Davy may have
> had a brilliant
> scientist's brain, but he had the heart and soul
> of a poet. How these
> two contradictory ideas not only coexisted, but flourished
> together during
> the Romantic era, makes for engrossing reading.
> 
> Enjoyable excavation of a time when science and art fed off
> each other, to
> the benefit of both communities.(COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS
> REVIEWS/NIELSEN
> BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)
> 
> Booklist (07/01/2009):
> As a researcher of British science during the Romantic
> period of English
> literature, Holmes suitably emphasizes the individual
> facing nature, so
> characteristic of the Romantic sensibility. Alighting on
> astronomer William
> Herschel (17381822) and chemist Humphrey Davy (17781829),
> both of whom were
> artistic (music and poetry, respectively), Holmes connects
> them via
> botanist Joseph Banks. In a precursor to a modern pattern,
> Banks moved from
> his youthful success as a naturalist on James Cooks voyages
> into
> administrationpresident of the Royal Societyand promoted
> bothHerschel and
> Davy.They came to Banks notice seemingly from nowhere, and
> their
> determination to discover is well told in Holmes
> biographical narratives.
> Elevated to societal notice, Herschel and especially Davy
> excited popular
> interest in ultimate questions their scientific findings
> seemed to open up,
> questions whose ripples into the literature of Byron and
> Mary and Percy
> Shelley Holmes elaborates. Readers interested in any of
> these figures, or
> in the lives of astronomer Caroline Herschelandexplorer
> Mungo Park, have in
> Holmes a fine guide to the arts and sciences, Romantic
> style.(Reprinted
> with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American
> Library Association.)
> 
> Choice (03/01/2010):
> Authored by well-known writer/biographer Holmes, this
> interesting
> description of the "second scientific revolution" or
> "Romantic science" is
> an excellent history of both the onset of the Romantic
> period and the
> account of scientific discoveries. The first scientific
> revolution, late in
> the 17th century, can be considered to have been "private,"
> practiced and
> known primarily by insiders. As the era's writers and
> artists (Romantics)
> became aware of these scientific discoveries, this second
> revolution became
> public, with writings often authored by women and shared
> with children. The
> primary actors in this scientific drama are
> astronomers/siblings William
> and Caroline Herschel and polymath Humphrey Davy. The
> period described is
> delineated by the voyages of Joseph Banks, who sailed
> around the world with
> Captain Cook in the 1760s, and of Charles Darwin on the
> Beagle in the
> 1830s. In Frankenstein, Mary Shelley sowed the seeds of
> future unrest
> between science and literature, the arts, and religion,
> relationships that
> were initially quite favorable to all. A "Cast List" at the
> end of the book
> briefly describes additional influential individuals during
> this period. Of
> interest to readers in a number of disciplines as well as
> general readers
> for pleasure. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All
> libraries. -- R. E.
> Buntrock, formerly, University of Maine (Reprinted with
> permission of
> Choice, copyright 2010, American Library Association)
> 
> 
> 
> Publisher Marketing:
> A riveting history of the men and women whose discoveries
> and inventions at
> the end of the eighteenth century gave birth to the
> Romantic Age of
> Science. 
> When young Joseph Banks stepped onto a Tahitian beach in
> 1769, he hoped to
> discover Paradise. Inspired by the scientific ferment
> sweeping through
> Britain, the botanist had sailed with Captain Cook on his
> first "Endeavour
> "voyage in search of new worlds. Other voyages of
> discovery--astronomical,
> chemical, poetical, philosophical--swiftly follow in
> Richard Holmes's
> original evocation of what truly emerges as an Age of
> Wonder. 
> Brilliantly conceived as a relay of scientific stories,
> "The Age of Wonder"
> investigates the earliest ideas of deep time and space, and
> the explorers
> of "dynamic science," of an infinite, mysterious Nature
> waiting to be
> discovered. Three lives dominate the book: William Herschel
> and his sister
> Caroline, whose dedication to the study of the stars
> forever changed the
> public conception of the solar system, the Milky Way, and
> the meaning of
> the universe; and Humphry Davy, who, with only a grammar
> school education
> stunned the scientific community with his near-suicidal gas
> experiments
> that led to the invention of the miners' lamp and
> established British
> chemistry as the leading professional science in Europe.
> This age of
> exploration extended to great writers and poets as well as
> scientists, all
> creators relishing in moments of high exhilaration,
> boundary-pushing and
> discovery. 
> Holmes's extraordinary evocation of this age of wonder
> shows how great
> ideas and experiments--both successes and failures--were
> born of singular
> and often lonely dedication, and how religious faith and
> scientific truth
> collide. He has written a book breathtaking in its
> originality, its
> storytelling energy, and its intellectual significance.
> 
> 
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> myhosting.com - Premium Microsoft® Windows® and Linux web
> and application
> hosting - http://link.myhosting.com/myhosting
> 
> 
>