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On February 12, 1809, two men were born an ocean apart: Abraham Lincoln in a one-room Kentucky log cabin; Charles Darwin on an English country estate. Each would see his life's work inspire a stark change in mankind's understanding of itself. In this bicentennial twin portrait, Adam Gopnik shows how these two giants, who never met, altered the way we think about death and time--about the very nature of earthly existence.… (altro)
Very nice book. I care a lot more about Darwin than Lincoln, but I learned about both and it was interesting to see them compared. The last summary chapter was a little too abstract and hand-wavy for me, but overall a fine book. ( )
Starts out poorly, gets more and more interesting, and then concludes fatuously. I listened to an audiobook, the author reads his own work. He makes Darwin sound very pert, and as far as I can remember, gives Lincoln no special voice at all. I think he is trying to sneak up on his thesis just like Darwin did in the "Origin of Species", but, because his thesis is pretty much empty, that does not work so well. The parallels that are drawn between the two famous contemporaries are not nearly as forced as one would expect them to be. ( )
The thesis of this book seems to be that both Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin contributed to modern life in ways beyond the obvious. This book reads like an essay...no footnotes...and pursues various related ideas about religion, war, masterful use of language and society.
This is the kind of book that frustrates me because it appears to be written to show what the writer knows rather than to engage the reader. I'm an expert neither in Lincoln/American History nor Darwin/science. I had trouble following the author's points because he dropped in names or other references without explaining them or giving any context. ( )
This is a great read, especially on Lincoln. Gopnik understands what Lincoln's view of life was, and how important the law and Shakespeare was to his rhetoric. This is a splendid read for me who has visited the Soldiers Home in Washington,where Lincoln spent the summer months, and Springfield Illinois, where the parks service has a great tour of the man's house and outbuildings. As far as Darwin is concerned, I knew nothing of him or his works, and now will read some, influenced by Gopnik. The author seems to argue that the individual religious experience can control life, while science goes its merry way. He does not like fundamentalists, nor do I, and he argues persuasively that they are crazy. ( )
This is two for two on Adam Gopnik's books for me. Having started this one so close on the heels of Paris to the Moon, I see now that it's not just the subject that's presenting a problem. In general, I find Lincoln and Darwin far more interesting subjects than I do Paris, but author's style at times stands between his ideas and his reader (this reader, anyway). Without being especially ornate or flowery, Gopnik still managed to construct sentences that elude ready understanding, and I can't understand why. His points are not so difficult or subtle as to require that ponderous style. I admit that they are interesting, but they don't quite rise to the level of compelling.
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For my mother and father—onlie begetters and first professors
Incipit
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We are all pebbles dropped in the sea of history, where the splash strikes one way and the big tides run another, and though what we feel is the splash, the splash takes place only within those tides.
Citazioni
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Subsequent editions of the first Epistle [of the Essay on Man] exhibited two memorable corrections. At first, the poet and his friend "Expatiate freely o'er this scene of man, A mighty maze of walks without a plan." For which he wrote afterwards "A mighty maze, but not without a plan": for, if there were no plan, it was in vain to describe or to trace the maze. -Samuel Johnson, "Life of Pope"
"Yes!" said the fairy, solemnly, half to herself, as she closed the wonderful book. "Folks say now that I can make beasts into men, by circumstance, and selection, and competition, and so forth. Well, perhaps they are right; and perhaps, again, they are wrong. That is one of the seven things which I am forbidden to tell, till the coming of the Cocqcigrues; and, at all events, it is no concern of theirs. Whatever their ancestors were, men they are; and I advise them to behave as such, and act accordingly." - Charles Kingsley, The Water-Babies
Science - scientific reasoning - seems to me an instrument that will lag far, far behind. For look here, the earth has been thought to be flat. It was true, so it still is today, for instance, between Paris and Asnieres. Which however does not prevent science from proving that the earth is principally round. Which no one contradicts nowadays. But notwithstanding this they persist nowadays in believing that life is flat and runs from birth to death. However, life too is probably round, and very superior in expanse and capacity to the hemisphere we know at present. - Vincent van Gogh, June 1888
Whoever put on a tallis when he was young will never forget: taking it out of the soft velvet bag, opening the folded shawl, spreading it out, kissing the length of the neckband (embroidered or trimmed in gold). Then swinging it in a great swoop overhead like a sky, a wedding canopy, a parachute. And then winding it around his head as in hide-and-seek, wrapping his whole body in it, close and slow, snuggling into it like the cocoon of a butterfly, then opening would-be wings to fly. - Yehuda Amichai
Americans seemed to fascinate Picasso. Once, in Paris, he invited the Murphys to his apartment, on the Rue de la Boetie, for an aperitif, and, after showing them through the place, in every room of which were pictures in various stages of completion, he led Gerald rather ceremoniously to an alcove that contained a rather tall cardboard box. "It was full of illustrations, photographs, engravings, and reproductions clipped from newspapers. All of them dealt with a single person - Abraham Lincoln. 'I've been collecting them since I was a child,' Picasso said, 'I have thousands, thousands!' He held up one of Brady's photographs of Lincoln, and said with great feeling, 'There is the real American elegance!' " - Calvin Tomkins, Living Well is the Best Revenge
The middleweight champion [of the early twentieth century, Stanley Ketchel] was stunned by [Wilson] Mizner's recitation of the Langdon Smith classic that starts "When you were a tadpole and I was a fish, In the Palaeozoic time" and follows the romance of two lovers from one geological age to another, until they wind up in Delmonico's. Ketchel had a thousand questions about the tadpole and the fish, and Mizner, a pedagogue at heart, took immense pleasure in wedging the whole theory of evolution into the fighter's untutored head. Ketchel became silent and thoughtful. He declined an invitation to see the town that night with Mizner and [Willus] Britt. When they rolled in at 5 a.m., Ketchel was sitting up with his eyes glued on a bowl of goldfish. "That evolution is all bunk!" he shouted angrily, "I've been watching those fish nine hours and they haven't changed a bit." Mizner had to talk fast; one thing Ketchel couldn't bear was to have anybody cross him. Alva Johnston, The Legendary Mizners
Ultime parole
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There is more to man than the breath in his body, if only the hat on his head, and the hope in his heart.
On February 12, 1809, two men were born an ocean apart: Abraham Lincoln in a one-room Kentucky log cabin; Charles Darwin on an English country estate. Each would see his life's work inspire a stark change in mankind's understanding of itself. In this bicentennial twin portrait, Adam Gopnik shows how these two giants, who never met, altered the way we think about death and time--about the very nature of earthly existence.
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