"Die Vermessung der Welt" von Daniel Kehlmann

I've just closed this excellent book and i must say i'm nearly tempted to start reading it again, it so exciting and pleasant to read. This novel offers us two apparently very distinct voyages : a static voyage ( the mathematician Gauss 's) and an intrepid one (Sir Humbolt's). And more than two voyages, it offers to discover two lives, two detinies, carved in the history of science and of the world at large. We meet our heroes when they are kids and we will follow them to the end, but careful, it is not a true biography, but rather a reinvention of of the myth of these two giants...

Kehlmann shows extraordinary talent in the creation of this game of hide and seek between the adventures of these two men that everything seem to oppose and who nevertheless seem utterly alike. Their temperaments are way differnt, their goaols and methods oppose them, but in the two you will find the same stubborned intelligence, the same immense will. Whether you follow Gauss in his measuring work, or Humboldt in the jungle of South America, it fells it is the same man we follow, or at least the same idea of the man of science, rationnal and hard-headed that speared the XIX° century course for knowledge.

I found truly exciting the way Kelhmann slowly erases the limits of reality to organize the meeting and even the litterary fusion of his characters. At first dedicating a chapter per charcter, Kehlmann will erode the solid architecture of his novel to let borders blend, having Gauss and Humboldt meeting in the same chapter, then in the same paragraph, , and then the same sentence, the same thought. The process is as clever to read as it is beautiful.

Beyond the scientific and mundane destiny of these two men (very nice pages towards the end about this damned fame that annoys them), beyon dthe extensive biographical research, the book also moves us through the tenderness the author shows for his characters, a concern hardly damaged by the ferocious portrayal of Gauss and his incapacity to love.

This books tells us about feelings, family and friendship, and is not a dry account of the achievements of great men. One reads it as a human adventure, rich and ironical and also as an hymn to intelligence and inner voyage. I recommend !