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A review by grubstlodger
The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science by Richard Holmes
4.0
I was expecting ‘The Age of Wonder’ to be rather like some of the other popular enlightenment-science history biographies I have read recently. I was expecting more stories about the Lunar Society and whasisname’s creepy experiment to create perfect wife.
I was wrong - this book is set a little later, in the Royal Society Presidencies of Joseph banks and Humphrey Davy. They were two of our main characters, as were William Herschel and his sister Caroline and there were a few other people also. The aim of the book is to record a time when science was not seen as the thing that kils wonder but the exploration that wakes wonder up - so we get a bunch of romantic poets in there as well (typical Richard Holmes).
First of all, this is a brilliantly written book, with an almost novel-like momentum and a really good grab at characters. I felt I knew the young libertine/smooth elder statesman of science, Banks. I loved Davy with his poetic sensibility, his receptive soul and his wide-eyed enjoyment at testing the natural world, and I could also see why he pissed so many people off. I completely fell for Caroline Herschel, ignored for much of her life but dedicated to her brother and to her personal mission of sweeping the night sky and tidying away nebulae and comets. I felt such a rush when seeing that telescope in the science museum.
I laughed out loud on the chapter on ballooning, particularly when the two rival/allies flew the channel and landed with no clothes but a life jacket and a pair of chamois gloves, having shat over the side.
My one issue with the piece is that because it is a group biography, it follows the usual line of a biography but many times. A person is born, they have early success, they become comfortable and famous and as they get old they get grumpier before dying with a feeling of not achieving enough. To have this play out once is a little sad, to have it play out five or six times in the course of the book does make the human life a very wearisome thing.
That said, the book wasn’t a wearisome thing, it was great and I even followed a great deal of the science in it.
I was wrong - this book is set a little later, in the Royal Society Presidencies of Joseph banks and Humphrey Davy. They were two of our main characters, as were William Herschel and his sister Caroline and there were a few other people also. The aim of the book is to record a time when science was not seen as the thing that kils wonder but the exploration that wakes wonder up - so we get a bunch of romantic poets in there as well (typical Richard Holmes).
First of all, this is a brilliantly written book, with an almost novel-like momentum and a really good grab at characters. I felt I knew the young libertine/smooth elder statesman of science, Banks. I loved Davy with his poetic sensibility, his receptive soul and his wide-eyed enjoyment at testing the natural world, and I could also see why he pissed so many people off. I completely fell for Caroline Herschel, ignored for much of her life but dedicated to her brother and to her personal mission of sweeping the night sky and tidying away nebulae and comets. I felt such a rush when seeing that telescope in the science museum.
I laughed out loud on the chapter on ballooning, particularly when the two rival/allies flew the channel and landed with no clothes but a life jacket and a pair of chamois gloves, having shat over the side.
My one issue with the piece is that because it is a group biography, it follows the usual line of a biography but many times. A person is born, they have early success, they become comfortable and famous and as they get old they get grumpier before dying with a feeling of not achieving enough. To have this play out once is a little sad, to have it play out five or six times in the course of the book does make the human life a very wearisome thing.
That said, the book wasn’t a wearisome thing, it was great and I even followed a great deal of the science in it.