Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
Vintage (1993), Paperback, 256 pages
Description
Sixteenth century Europe is teeming with change and controversy: wars are being waged by princes and bishops and the repercussions of Luther are being felt through a convulsing Germany. In a remote corner of Poland a modest canon is practicing medicine and studying the heavens, preparing a theory that will shatter the medieval view of the universe. In this astonishing work of historical imagination, John Banville offers a vivid portrait of a man of painful reticence, haunted by a malevolent brother and baffled by the conspiracies that rage around him and his ideas. For, in a world that is equal parts splendor and barbarism, an obscure cleric who seeks "the secret music of the universe" poses a most devastating threat.
User reviews
LibraryThing member baswood
[Dr Copernicus] by John Banville
There have been many biographies of Nicolaus Copernicus, but Banville has chosen to write an historical novel based on his life and a fascinating portrait of both the man and his times emerges from this well written book. Copernicus (1473 - 1573) was a doctor,
Banville's book is in four sections three of which place Copernicus at the centre of the novel and are written in the third person, the third section is written in the first person from the point of view of Rheticus who was a pupil of Copernicus for two years and undertook to supervise the printing of his [On the Revolution of the Heavenly Spheres] This third section brilliantly pulls the book and the portrait of Copernicus together while giving the reader a first hand portrait of the astronomer. It also has an immediacy that drives the story along as it deals with issues around whether Copernicus would allow his masterwork to be printed in his lifetime.
Banville's depicts Copernicus as an able hard working yet diffident man. He could be morose and taciturn and for the most part privately lived in his own world. He was hesitant in getting his treatise published and because of his poor social skills had few friends and was treated with suspicion by fellow churchman, although they valued his dedication to his duties and his intelligence and ability. A man who therefore lends himself to a novelist getting inside his head and seeing the world through his eyes, which Banville does with his portrayal of Copernicus' early life and again in the final section with a moving depiction of his death. In the third section we see the man through the eyes of his pupil Rheticus which gives a well rounded portrait and gives us to understand a man who was not easy to get along with.
The book also takes the reader convincingly back to a period where the middle ages were just giving way to the renaissance and the catholic church was feeling the first salvos from Luther and the protestant movement. Copernicus was well advised to be careful in a world seething with corruption and Banville's illustration of those times is convincing. He sticks closely to known facts but fleshes out two characters whose lives provide an insight into the society around a working churchman in Poland. Andreas the elder brother is seen as a roustabout contemptuous of his younger brothers careful dedication to duty and Banville adds spice to this portrait with a horrific description of a man in the final stages of syphilis. Anna is Copernicus's live in companion in his middle and later years and is a contentious figure because Catholic churchman were supposed to be celibate. Banville does not spare the reader the grotesqueness of the period from Andreas's half eaten face to Copernicus' bishops death from poisoning to Anna's need to go whoring to support her children when her husband goes off to war. Life was hard and cruel and it is all here in this novel.
While Banville fills in the necessary details of Copernicus's astronomy and it's revolutionary aspect this is not the main thrust of the novel. He is more interested in giving the reader an illustrative representation of the life and times of a churchman astronomer. A very good four star read.
There have been many biographies of Nicolaus Copernicus, but Banville has chosen to write an historical novel based on his life and a fascinating portrait of both the man and his times emerges from this well written book. Copernicus (1473 - 1573) was a doctor,
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churchman and astronomer now famous as the man who first publicly refuted Ptolemy's idea of the universe. Copernicus placed the sun at the still centre the universe while the earth was one of a number of planets (7 at the time) revolving around it. Ptolemy had thought the earth was at the centre and his ideas had been supported and enhanced by theologians since the advent of Christianity.Banville's book is in four sections three of which place Copernicus at the centre of the novel and are written in the third person, the third section is written in the first person from the point of view of Rheticus who was a pupil of Copernicus for two years and undertook to supervise the printing of his [On the Revolution of the Heavenly Spheres] This third section brilliantly pulls the book and the portrait of Copernicus together while giving the reader a first hand portrait of the astronomer. It also has an immediacy that drives the story along as it deals with issues around whether Copernicus would allow his masterwork to be printed in his lifetime.
Banville's depicts Copernicus as an able hard working yet diffident man. He could be morose and taciturn and for the most part privately lived in his own world. He was hesitant in getting his treatise published and because of his poor social skills had few friends and was treated with suspicion by fellow churchman, although they valued his dedication to his duties and his intelligence and ability. A man who therefore lends himself to a novelist getting inside his head and seeing the world through his eyes, which Banville does with his portrayal of Copernicus' early life and again in the final section with a moving depiction of his death. In the third section we see the man through the eyes of his pupil Rheticus which gives a well rounded portrait and gives us to understand a man who was not easy to get along with.
The book also takes the reader convincingly back to a period where the middle ages were just giving way to the renaissance and the catholic church was feeling the first salvos from Luther and the protestant movement. Copernicus was well advised to be careful in a world seething with corruption and Banville's illustration of those times is convincing. He sticks closely to known facts but fleshes out two characters whose lives provide an insight into the society around a working churchman in Poland. Andreas the elder brother is seen as a roustabout contemptuous of his younger brothers careful dedication to duty and Banville adds spice to this portrait with a horrific description of a man in the final stages of syphilis. Anna is Copernicus's live in companion in his middle and later years and is a contentious figure because Catholic churchman were supposed to be celibate. Banville does not spare the reader the grotesqueness of the period from Andreas's half eaten face to Copernicus' bishops death from poisoning to Anna's need to go whoring to support her children when her husband goes off to war. Life was hard and cruel and it is all here in this novel.
While Banville fills in the necessary details of Copernicus's astronomy and it's revolutionary aspect this is not the main thrust of the novel. He is more interested in giving the reader an illustrative representation of the life and times of a churchman astronomer. A very good four star read.
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LibraryThing member paradoxosalpha
John Banville's Doctor Copernicus is a fiercely interior historical novel about the Renaissance polymath and astronomer. It is divided into four parts, one about his childhood and youth, a second about his mature career, a third regarding the publication of his masterwork De revolutionibus, and a
The novel does good work in exposing the intellectual and cultural backdrops of Copernicus' life: a Hermetic Renaissance in Italy, and Catholic Orders menaced by Reformation in Prussia. The achievement of his "system" is presented as ambivalent in his own regard, and he is repeatedly shown in the grips of epistemological despair.
The final section of the book, though brief, is very effective. It does not perpetuate the sanguine legend that Copernicus happily took in the first sight of the published and bound De revolutionibus on his deathbed. It does, however, fold his subjective impressions back onto the images and persons established in the earlier sections of the book, so that there is an awful symmetry to this last reckoning.
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final section on his death. All but one of these are delivered in a third-person omniscient narration that includes glimpses of Copernicus' own perspective. The exception is part three, where the narrator is Copernicus' disciple and editor Rheticus (Georg Joachim von Lauchen). Banville makes Rheticus out to be a rather unsympathetic character, and certainly an unreliable narrator. The novel does good work in exposing the intellectual and cultural backdrops of Copernicus' life: a Hermetic Renaissance in Italy, and Catholic Orders menaced by Reformation in Prussia. The achievement of his "system" is presented as ambivalent in his own regard, and he is repeatedly shown in the grips of epistemological despair.
The final section of the book, though brief, is very effective. It does not perpetuate the sanguine legend that Copernicus happily took in the first sight of the published and bound De revolutionibus on his deathbed. It does, however, fold his subjective impressions back onto the images and persons established in the earlier sections of the book, so that there is an awful symmetry to this last reckoning.
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LibraryThing member Linus_Linus
John Banville in this leg of trilogy of Revolutions paints a detailed sketch of Nicolas Copernicus- from his childhood to his long feeble death; his conflict in being a disciple of both the science and the church during the testing medievia in astonishingly sublime prose that only Banville is
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capable of. Show Less
LibraryThing member gregfromgilbert
Interesting, but not a page turner for me. A historical novel that gave me a better understanding of the time and society that Copernicus lived in. The first part of the novel is from the perspective of Copernicus and details his youth, education, and life into his 60’s. This part was fairly dry.
There were many passages in this book that I found memorable, a few of the shorter one’s are given below. For those wanting a nonfiction introduction to the development of astronomy I highly recommend “Measuring the Universe" by Kitty Ferguson.
(Rheticus, as he reads De Revolutionibus Orbium Mundi for the first time):
“How to express my emotions, the strange jumble of feelings kindled within me, as I gazed upon the living myth which I held in my hands, the key to the secrets of the universe? This book for years had filled my dreams and obsessed my waking hours so completely that now I could hardly comprehend the reality, and the words in the crabbed script seemed not to speak, but to sing rather, so that the rolling grandeur of the title boomed like a flourish of celestial trumpets, to the ac¬companiment of the wordly fiddling of the motto with its cautious admonition, and I smiled, foolishly, helplessly, at the inexplicable miracle of this music of Heaven and Earth. But then I turned the pages, and chanced upon the diagram of a universe in the centre of which stands Sol in the splendour of eternal immobility, and the music was swept away, and my besotted smile with it, and a new and wholly unexpected sensation took hold of me. It was sorrow! sorrow that old Earth should be thus deposed, and cast out into the darkness of the fir¬mament, there to prance and spin at the behest of a tyrannical, mute god of fire”. (pg. 179)
(Copernicus in his last hours):
He had drifted down into a dreadful dark where all was silent and utterly still. He was frightened. He waited. After a long time, what seemed a long time, he saw at an immense distance a minute something in the darkness, it could not be called light, it was barely more than nothing, the absolute minimum imaginable, and he heard afar, faintly, O, faintly, a tiny shrieking, a grain of sound that was hardly anything in itself, that served only to define the infinite silence surrounding it. And then, it was strange, it was as if time had split somehow in two, as if the now and the not yet were both occurring at once, for he was con¬scious of watching something approaching through the dark distance while yet it had arrived, a huge steely shining bird it was, soaring on motionless outstretched great wings, terrible, O, terrible beyond words, and yet magnificent, carrying in its fearsome beak a fragment of blinding fire, and he tried to cry out, to utter the word, but in vain, for down the long arc of its flight the creature wheeled, already upon him even as it came, and branded the burning seal upon his brow. (pg. 229)
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I found Copernicus not very likable and the book didn’t go into much depth on his astronomical reasoning or discoveries. I suppose I expected something more interesting from the life of a man that changed the coarse of our thinking about the world. But the book is a work of historical fiction and probably portrayed the man and his time as realistically as possible. The second part is from the perspective of Rheticus, an admirer who spends much time with Copernicus in his last years and who helps to publish Copernicus’ book. I enjoyed this part more as the writing was lively and easier to follow. There were many passages in this book that I found memorable, a few of the shorter one’s are given below. For those wanting a nonfiction introduction to the development of astronomy I highly recommend “Measuring the Universe" by Kitty Ferguson.
(Rheticus, as he reads De Revolutionibus Orbium Mundi for the first time):
“How to express my emotions, the strange jumble of feelings kindled within me, as I gazed upon the living myth which I held in my hands, the key to the secrets of the universe? This book for years had filled my dreams and obsessed my waking hours so completely that now I could hardly comprehend the reality, and the words in the crabbed script seemed not to speak, but to sing rather, so that the rolling grandeur of the title boomed like a flourish of celestial trumpets, to the ac¬companiment of the wordly fiddling of the motto with its cautious admonition, and I smiled, foolishly, helplessly, at the inexplicable miracle of this music of Heaven and Earth. But then I turned the pages, and chanced upon the diagram of a universe in the centre of which stands Sol in the splendour of eternal immobility, and the music was swept away, and my besotted smile with it, and a new and wholly unexpected sensation took hold of me. It was sorrow! sorrow that old Earth should be thus deposed, and cast out into the darkness of the fir¬mament, there to prance and spin at the behest of a tyrannical, mute god of fire”. (pg. 179)
(Copernicus in his last hours):
He had drifted down into a dreadful dark where all was silent and utterly still. He was frightened. He waited. After a long time, what seemed a long time, he saw at an immense distance a minute something in the darkness, it could not be called light, it was barely more than nothing, the absolute minimum imaginable, and he heard afar, faintly, O, faintly, a tiny shrieking, a grain of sound that was hardly anything in itself, that served only to define the infinite silence surrounding it. And then, it was strange, it was as if time had split somehow in two, as if the now and the not yet were both occurring at once, for he was con¬scious of watching something approaching through the dark distance while yet it had arrived, a huge steely shining bird it was, soaring on motionless outstretched great wings, terrible, O, terrible beyond words, and yet magnificent, carrying in its fearsome beak a fragment of blinding fire, and he tried to cry out, to utter the word, but in vain, for down the long arc of its flight the creature wheeled, already upon him even as it came, and branded the burning seal upon his brow. (pg. 229)
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LibraryThing member royalwe
This is a stylish, dense and poetic novel that explores the intellectual and personal struggles of Nicholas Copernicus just prior to the emergence of scientific method in seventeenth century Europe. It is a beautiful and insightful book that manages to dramatize a philosophical debate.
LibraryThing member antao
After reading Kepler", I was very eager to tackle "Doctor Copernicus" and "The Newton Letter".
This year I decided that I'd start with a bang with "Doctor Copernicus". I've always believed in strong starts...
Drawing a parallel between "Kepler" and "Doctor Copernicus", they both have a very strong
The only part that I think seemed a little uneven was the “Cantus Mundi†chapter. Rheticus’ first person narrative was a bit off-putting. Maybe this device was necessary because it was vital to give the character Copernicus a more humane perspective, seen from outside. Given the fact that Rheticus was the person that in real life convinced Copernicus to publish his “On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres†makes it the more valuable in terms of narrative structure.
John Banville personifies the art of writing sentences in which we hear that wonderful harmonic chime that makes us believe that's possible to write the way he does.
"
This year I decided that I'd start with a bang with "Doctor Copernicus". I've always believed in strong starts...
Drawing a parallel between "Kepler" and "Doctor Copernicus", they both have a very strong
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sense of architecture and style. I like to compare them with a very dark baroque cathedral, filled with elaborate passages and sometimes overwhelming to the casual tourist (aka reader). For this, Banville makes no apologies—he's fully committed to language and to rhythm above plot, characterization, or pacing. So, when reading a Banville book don't go looking for a mainstream writer, which is something that he’s not... The only part that I think seemed a little uneven was the “Cantus Mundi†chapter. Rheticus’ first person narrative was a bit off-putting. Maybe this device was necessary because it was vital to give the character Copernicus a more humane perspective, seen from outside. Given the fact that Rheticus was the person that in real life convinced Copernicus to publish his “On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres†makes it the more valuable in terms of narrative structure.
John Banville personifies the art of writing sentences in which we hear that wonderful harmonic chime that makes us believe that's possible to write the way he does.
"
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LibraryThing member Steve_Walker
A Rating of 4.6. Weaving what little is known about his life, John Banville tells the story of the life of the man who gave re-birth to
the heliocentric theory. Banville gives us a Copernicus who lived a
hard scrabble life right till his death. Looking forward to reading the
other two books in the
the heliocentric theory. Banville gives us a Copernicus who lived a
hard scrabble life right till his death. Looking forward to reading the
other two books in the
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trilogy. Show Less
LibraryThing member jklugman
Banville paints an interesting picture of Copernicus: he is not physically brave, but he has a dignity about him, and as he ascends the Catholic hierarchy he stands up to nobility (Albert, Duke of Prussia rampaging with his Teutonic Knights) and bishops who want him to let go of his
Banville sets Copernicus in Renaissance-era Italy/Poland/Ermland, but it might as well just be medieval Europe as it seemed like a miserable place--although elites are becoming more receptive to overturning old dogmas about how the universe works, they really do not care at all about the suffering endured by the non-nobles. I suppose the Western world currently has a lot more in common with this milieu than we'd like to think.
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housekeeper/cousin. On the other hand, as he ages Copernicus becomes more reticent about publishing his heliocentric model of the solar system/universe--it is not clear if it is because he is worried about the blowback (although according to this novel, a lot of Catholic and Lutheran elites were receptive to the idea) or because he was worried about getting everything right. Banville sets Copernicus in Renaissance-era Italy/Poland/Ermland, but it might as well just be medieval Europe as it seemed like a miserable place--although elites are becoming more receptive to overturning old dogmas about how the universe works, they really do not care at all about the suffering endured by the non-nobles. I suppose the Western world currently has a lot more in common with this milieu than we'd like to think.
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Subjects
Awards
James Tait Black Memorial Prize (Winner — Fiction — 1976)
Language
Original publication date
1976
Physical description
256 p.; 5.24 inches
ISBN
0679737995 / 9780679737995