Measuring the world, Or: A book review

I have just this evening finished "Measuring the World", Daniel Kehlmann's book about von Humboldt and Gauss - translated from the German, of course. Let me say from the outset that I enjoyed this book thoroughly, and even translated, it's writing is succinct, eloquent and very readable. It's a novel, told semi-biographially about the German explorer and scientist Alexander von Humboldt, and his explorations, and the German mathematician and scientist Carl Gauss.

These are 2 very different stories, one story centres on the wide-ranging explorations to South America, and Asia, that von Humboldt undertakes, discovering, naming, climbing and generally exploring his way around, compared to a more homely and less glamorous life that Gauss had, working on astronomy and of course, mathematics. In the end, of course, von Humboldt reflects on these differences and asks which, if either, of them, had the greater journey of discovery.

To be honest, I don't know enough about either man to know whether the book is highly fictionalised, or biographically accurate - it doesn't really matter though, I think there's enough truth in the book to make it believable. It evokes a wonderful sense of being in an age of constant discovery in all fields - geography, botany, anthropology, astronomy, mathematics, physics....you get the picture, and even as a translation it's brilliantly written and very very readable - I highly recommend it!