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mattburris's review against another edition
3.0
Smart and funny. Maybe a little full of itself but it’s all worth it in the end.
megwhiteford's review
challenging
funny
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Joy to read, meditation on logic, language, reality, the cosmos, and sanity. I was overcome at the end.
lancakes's review against another edition
I... really didn't like this a lot. So I won't rate it. Because it's not necessarily a bad book, I think for its audience it's probably pretty exciting. But I 1) don't know a lot about the history of philosophy, 2) have a bit of a personal hatred for philosophers and much of the discipline, 3) didn't really get into this book. I forced myself to get through it, which I don't normally do anymore, and this has reminded me WHY I don't do that anymore. Also, the ending was so terribly unsatisfying. A friend told me what Leibniz's deal was as a philosopher and that possibly made me slightly less enraged at the ending than I would've been without the context, but all in all I wasn't a huge fan. Parts were quite funny tho. It's not an objectively bad book, it's just not for me.
michellehogmire's review
challenging
funny
lighthearted
slow-paced
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Thanks to FSG for sending me a finished copy of Adam Ehrlich Sachs' The Organs of Sense when it came out in 2019 (expected pbk pub date Aug 18, 2020)--
Oh my, this book is very silly. But silly in a dry humor Kafkaesque way? Definitely akin to the rambling narrators and long comma-filled sentences of Thomas Bernhard novels. Many of the jokes rely on repetition until something becomes ridiculous, or on placing characters in blatantly absurdist situations. I found this quite funny, but it's definitely not for everyone.
So, plot: the year is 1666 (nice), and a lone astronomer makes a prediction about a solar eclipse. On June 30 at 12 noon, Europe will be plunged into darkness for...wait for it...four seconds. But that's not even the weirdest part, which is that this astronomer is blind. But not only blind--this dude doesn't even have eyes.
You know who's intrigued by this? Teenage Gottfried Leibniz, of course! Yes, that real historical Leibniz--that founder of calculus. Leibniz sets out to find this astronomer, record his story, and see whether or not the eclipse comes to fruition. A majority of the book involves Leibniz listening to the astronomer's completely wackadoo autobiographical stories. Like how his dad was obsessed with constructing a robot head, how he gradually built a ridiculously long telescope, and how he was once forced to teach a mad prince about the logic of triangles. Will Leibniz ever find out how this guy lost his eyeballs? Read to find out! (Spoiler, er not really: the ending is a joke.)
All laughing aside, this book has some truly striking ruminations about everything from an artist's culpability when creating beautiful works about the horrors of war, to the nightmare of realizing that you can never literally know the thoughts of your loved ones--no matter how much you feel like you "know" them. Also lots of fun lines about how great cats (and cat owners) are: I concur. I really enjoyed reading this one.
Oh my, this book is very silly. But silly in a dry humor Kafkaesque way? Definitely akin to the rambling narrators and long comma-filled sentences of Thomas Bernhard novels. Many of the jokes rely on repetition until something becomes ridiculous, or on placing characters in blatantly absurdist situations. I found this quite funny, but it's definitely not for everyone.
So, plot: the year is 1666 (nice), and a lone astronomer makes a prediction about a solar eclipse. On June 30 at 12 noon, Europe will be plunged into darkness for...wait for it...four seconds. But that's not even the weirdest part, which is that this astronomer is blind. But not only blind--this dude doesn't even have eyes.
You know who's intrigued by this? Teenage Gottfried Leibniz, of course! Yes, that real historical Leibniz--that founder of calculus. Leibniz sets out to find this astronomer, record his story, and see whether or not the eclipse comes to fruition. A majority of the book involves Leibniz listening to the astronomer's completely wackadoo autobiographical stories. Like how his dad was obsessed with constructing a robot head, how he gradually built a ridiculously long telescope, and how he was once forced to teach a mad prince about the logic of triangles. Will Leibniz ever find out how this guy lost his eyeballs? Read to find out! (Spoiler, er not really: the ending is a joke.)
All laughing aside, this book has some truly striking ruminations about everything from an artist's culpability when creating beautiful works about the horrors of war, to the nightmare of realizing that you can never literally know the thoughts of your loved ones--no matter how much you feel like you "know" them. Also lots of fun lines about how great cats (and cat owners) are: I concur. I really enjoyed reading this one.