Benjamin Labatut's strange mix of fact and fiction is brought to you on the basis of a recommendation by the same esteemed colleague who suggested But Beautiful. The two share the same basic format -- fictionalized stories inspired by real events that happened to real people. In this case, instead of musicians, the heroes are scientists like Haber, Grothendiek, and Schrodinger. But Labatut's stories tell of the same sort of damage and madness as the price of creativity. The writing does a wonderful job of conveying something of the anguish specific to scientists whose genuine breakthroughs seem to paradoxically make the world less comprehensible on an intuitive level. Interestingly though, while I enjoyed the stories, I found that my emotional response was a bit blunted. It's hard for me not to feel that ultimately these men, possessed by the fever dream that their eight pound lump of mammalian cortex should be able to unlock all the secrets of the universe, are a bit like ... children.
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