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BIOGRAPHY

Not quite immortals

It is difficult to comprehend why Measuring the World has become such a literary sensation until you place it in the context from where it has originated. Written originally in German by Daniel Kehlmann, the writing style is in mar ked contrast to other works that have emerged in the country in the last few decades.

Measuring the World is based on the lives of two exceptionally gifted individuals. But there is certain lightness to the narrative that lends the work energy and frothiness. The greatest service it renders to the readers is to treat th e two brilliant minds with a healthy irreverence. Kehlmann etches them with subtle strokes of irony and humour making them eminently human.

The naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt grows up in an affluent household. His birth does not shield him from the cruelties of childhood. His elder brother who is deeply jealous of him makes more than one attempt on his life in his formative years. But Humboldt grows up devoted to his brother. The seemingly incongruous piece of information comes in handy in the narrative to establish the character of a man who is not easily deterred by setbacks and later in life would actually swallow a form of poison in considerable quantities to prove to the world that it can only be fatal if injected into the blood stream.

The mathematician and physicist Carl Friedrich Gauss, on the other hand, is a product of deprivation. He attacks everything with ferocity and hunger. Despite his womanising, he runs out of the nuptial bed to write down a formula. This is one of numerous instances when the writer with one deft stroke fells two birds — he makes the reader chuckle and at the same time gives an insight into the protagonist’s uncompromising passion.

The two central figures in Kehlmann’s book appeal to the reader because the characterisation emerges through an episodic narrative and not because author falls into the trap of underlining their greatness. Although both of them are responsible for remarkable discoveries, their pettiness as human beings is repeatedly underlined. It is easy to respect them but the reader never develops any affection for them. This, in a way, is the novel’s greatest strength and its greatest weakness. The plot works when their personal as well as professional adventures acquire steam but often, the temptation to skip pages cannot be denied.

One of the most remarkable metaphors the author uses has to do with a fictional liberty he takes with a mathematical theorem. Gauss undertakes a balloon flight in which he deduces that all parallel lines meet at some point. It is much later the reader understands that this deduction that Gauss may or may not have made in the balloon is merely a euphemism for the two lives that ran parallel and met only towards the end in a conference.

Measuring the World is an interesting work attempting to track the lives of two very diverse geniuses with different backgrounds and different sensibilities.

Kehlmann is a writer with abilities. But they don’t appear to be exceptional. Similarly his book makes good reading but it is unlikely that the reader would go back to it in a hurry. Maybe the work has lost some of its charm in translation. Despite its impressive sale in Germany and the rest of Europe, it would be premature to confer the stamp of immortality on it.

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