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Adult Books - Fiction - General Fiction
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Schopenhauer’s Telescope.
Donovan, Gerard (author).
June 2003. 288p. Counterpoint, hardcover, $25 (1-58243-223-6).
REVIEW.
First published June 1, 2003 (Booklist).
In the midst of a European civil war, two men stand in a field. One is a monster; the other tries desperately to understand him before time runs out. On opposite sides of the conflict, a baker digs a hole while a history teacher watches. As the mound of frozen dirt beside the hole grows higher, truckloads of villagers arrive to wait under the machine guns of soldiers, and we realize the terrible implications of the excavation. Throughout the day, the two men engage in intellectual combat, debating the true nature of evil. Bloodthirsty chapters of history form their battleground, from the ravages of Genghis Khan to the murder of 10 million Africans by Belgian rubber barons in the 1890s. As the men spar with surprising wit and verbal dexterity, Donovan employs the conventions of narrative to craft a stunning lesson about not choosing sides before all the evidence is in. Sociopaths, it seems, are the only people who can make sense of war and flower in its heat. — Frank Sennett
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