The Discovery of Slowness

by Sten Nadolny, Ralph Freedman (Translator)

Overview

In The Discovery of Slowness, German novelist Sten Nadolny recounts the life of the nineteenth-century British explorer Sir John Franklin (1786-1847). The reader follows Franklin's development from awkward schoolboy and ridiculed teenager to expedition leader, governor of Tasmania, and icon of adventure. Everyone with whom he came into contact sensed that he was a rare man, one who was “out of his time” and who moved to a different, grander beat. That beat eventually led Franklin to sail once more—on his final, fateful voyage—into the Arctic in search of the Northwest Passage. The Discovery of Slowness is both a riveting account of a remarkable and varied life, and a profound and thought-provoking meditation on time.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780140265842
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	07/01/1997
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.70(h) x 0.85(d)

About the Author

Sten Nadolny is the author of several novels, including The Discovery of Slowness. He lives in Germany.

Ralph Freedman, Professor Emeritus of Comparative Literature at Princeton University, is acclaimed for his biographies Hermann Hesse: Pilgrim of Crisis, and Life of a Poet: Rainer Maria Rilke

Editorial Reviews

Brutal stuggleagainst Arctic ice, enveloping seas off the coast of Australia, the death ships of Napoleon's navyis etched here upon a canvas of the contemplative and methodically slow thought of John Franklin, whose brain sends no signals to speak or move until it has fully conceptualized a situation. From boyhood John's slowness has been phenomenal, allowing him to hold a rope taut for hours, his arm upright, and gather superhuman strength in the process. The sea, volatile but profoundly changeless, is his precise home; to be the captain of a ship is his goal from the time he is ten. He becomes an expert navigator and learns the function and capacity of every sail, spar and sheet. By age 14 Franklin is a midshipman, at 29 a captain at last. His progress is strewn with naval battles, exploration of unknown coasts and experiences of starvation and mutinyadventures that are conveyed with spellbinding skill. Finally his most compelling dream is realized and he leads a first and then a second expedition to the still and silent Arctic. Fame and riches follow; at age 60 he again sails to the Arctic, where he dies. This remarkable, superbly translated novel derives from the life of the real 19th century explorer John Franklin, who bestowed the name ``District of Franklin'' to the northern archipelago above Canada. (October)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

This fictionalized biography chronicles the life of 19th-century explorer Sir John Franklin (1786-1847), credited with discovering the Northwest Passage. A slow, deliberate, and strange child, Franklin joins the Navy at 14. After many years of seafaring, he becomes governor of Van Diemen's Land, later renamed, by him, Tasmania. Despite his much-needed prison reforms and remarkable humanitarian efforts, Franklin is eventually removed from office and returns to a life of adventure on the sea. Unfortunately, the Franklin that Nadolny gives us is an admirable but oddly colorless character. Constructed on the unoriginal premise that ``slow'' people can achieve great things, this tale is an endless narrative of stilted, stifling prose. Ronald L. Coombs, SUNY Downstate Medical Ctr. Lib., Brooklyn, N.Y.

Library Journal

Praise for Sten Nadolny and The Discovery of Slowness

"Absolutely stunning."—Times Literary Supplement

"This remarkable, superbly translated novel derives from the life of the real 19th century explorer John Franklin…[whose] adventures are conveyed with spellbinding skill."—Publishers Weekly

"Nadolny evinces remarkable empathy with his unlikely Odysseus and Ralph Freedman's translation captures the crystalline freshness of the author's imagery."—Washington Post Book World

"The Discovery of Slowness is a masterpiece of characterization, a portrait of inwardness in the most outward-thrusting of lives."—The New Republic

"Fluid and suspenseful, a thought-provoking reminder of contemporary society's tendency to speed through everyday life."—The Providence Journal-Bulletin

"Amazing…His book is a historical painting, a seafarer's novel, a love story, an outcast's story all in one. This variety appears very harmonious, just as it incidentally, almost secretly, reflects on our right to discover the world at our own, personal pace."—Frankfurter Allegemeine Zeitung

"Sir John Franklin is the embodied contrast to the frenetic agitation of the modern world. The discovery of slowness is the slowness of discovery."—New York Review of Books

"Nadolny's vision is conveyed with restraint and charm…He has written a Utopia of character."—New York Times Book Review

"Its appeal lies in its observation of the texture of life, seen by a character who has to work everything out from first principles. It needs to be read slowly, to be absorbed as much as understood."—Scotland On Sunday

"This is more than an adventure; it's a meditation on time and perception…Not to be rushed, or forgotten."—The Herald

"Nadolny brilliantly sets the narrative pace to the rhythms of the frozen landscape, and to the 'slowness which is bred by hunger.'"—Robert MacFarlane

"This is both a wonderful historical novel and a spell-binding individual portrait…This is a marvellous translation of a masterly work."—The Observer

From the Publisher