Review
When the solution came, it came, as always, through a back door of the mind, hesitating shyly, an announcing angel dazed by the immensity of its journey."

-- from Kepler

In a brilliant illumination of the Renaissance mind, the acclaimed Irish novelist John Banville re-creates the life of Johannes Kepler and his incredible drive to chart the orbits of the planets and the geometry of the universe.

Wars, witchcraft, and disease rage throughout Europe. And for this court mathematician, vexed by domestic strife, appalled by the religious upheavals that have driven him from exile to exile, and vulnerable to the whims of his eccentric patrons, astronomy is a quest for some form of divine order. For all of the mathematical precision of his exploration, though, it is a seemingly elusive quest until he makes one glorious and profoundly human discovery.

"Narrative art...at a positively symphonic level."

-- The Guardian

Book Description
Johannes Kepler, master mathematician and astronomer, developed his theories in 16th century pre-Renaissance Germany. His work laid the foundation on which his successors, notably Isaac Newton, built the modern picture of the universe that held until Einstein. The author shows us a Rabelaisian world...chaotic, muddled, and dirty. Kepler's famly mirrored this disorder, and he retreated into his own cerebrations for relief. Kepler took the theories of his time and stood them on their head. He extracted truth from superstition and the story, in Banville's hands, is a triumph, heroic and exuberant." (E.R.S. Reviews)

From the Publisher
8 1-hour cassettes

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Johannes Kepler, master mathematician and astronomer, developed his theories in 16th century pre-Renaissance Germany. His work laid the foundation on which his successors, notably Isaac Newton, built the modern picture of the universe that held until Einstein.

The author shows us a Rabelaisian world...chaotic, muddled, and dirty. Kepler's famly mirrored this disorder, and he retreated into his own cerebrations for relief.