This month we will be reading

Measuring the World by Daniel Kehlmann
Translated by Carol Brown Janeway

Kehlmann draws from the literary tradition of German Romanticism and some of its
themes in this contemporary work. He cleverly uses historical figures to illuminate the
Romantic ideals of nature, science, and exploration in his narrative.
“Toward the end of the eighteenth century, two young Germans set out to measure
the world. One of them, the Prussian aristocrat Alexander von Humboldt, 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. Alexander
von Humboldt is known to history as the Second Columbus. Carl Friedrich 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.” (Good Reads)
Rowolt Verlag, published 2005, 259 pages.
We hope you will join us to discuss this subtle, intelligent, and witty novel of historical
fiction.