Reviews

This should theoretically have been just the type of weird that I love - a fantasia on an imaginary conversation between Liebnitz and a blind astronomer that delves into the world of the Hapsburg dynasty, scientific exploration, and more than a dash of eccentric tinkering. But something about the work's pacing was lacking for me. For such a small novel, I found myself feeling like it was taking me a long time to get through it, as I just didn't find myself rushing to pick it back up again.

flaneuse's review against another edition

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4.0

i couldn't tell you what this book is about but I can tell you I loved it

lillulu's review against another edition

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2.0

I genuinely liked the start of this book. However, the further I got into the crux of the story, which is basically close to 200 pages of a blast from the past (mind you the book is roughly 230 pages), the more it felt like I was walking through sludge without the right gear.
If you like absurdism AND historical fiction you may appreciate it. The humor just didn't cut it for me I'm afraid. Given the rest of the story, it felt a little too high-brow.

blue_has_no_value's review against another edition

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5.0

You'll never read a funnier, more whimsical fake account of the invention of the telescope.

jnelsontwo's review

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challenging funny mysterious reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

umayrh's review against another edition

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4.0

"[A] mathematician, however great, without the help of a good drawing, is not only half a mathematician, but also a man without eyes" Lodovico Cigoli, in a 1611 letter to Galileo Galilei. (https://www.princeton.edu/~hos/Mahoney/articles/drawing/mpipaper.rev.v-1#N_4_)

Repetitively dense with layered narratives and nested stories, this a fascinating and refreshingly oblique book.

charvermont's review against another edition

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5.0

The Organs of Sense by Adam Ehrlich Sachs is a complex book that is full of what some might call "philosopher's" humor. It can be a bit confusing at times, but for the most part I enjoyed this book.

For some background context, it is based in 1666 and the protagonist is Gottfried Leibniz (the mathematician). The book focuses on Leibniz's visit to an old astronomer, who cannot see ("both of his eyes having been plucked out some time before under mysterious circumstances"), to investigate his prediction of an eclipse that will supposedly occur that same day. Almost the entire book is set in the few hours before the predicted eclipse, and Sachs fills the pages with over-the-top stories told by the astronomer about his own life.

One quote I found that might help explain the humor and confusion of this book: "Obviously I had to use my own head to observe my own head, so in a sense I was still using my head to observe, but what I was observing with my head was my head, rather than the new twinkling object in the heavens." (pg. 37)

Throughout the book, I couldn't help but wonder how much of Sachs' writing is fantasy and how much is fact. The plot was confusing at times because of this welding together of history and fairy tales.

Overall, I liked reading The Organs of Sense because it is an incredibly intriguing book that kept me wondering the entire time I read it.

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