If Tesla didn't exist, it would have been necessary to invent him

books:


	• The Invention of Everything Else Samantha Hunt Houghton Mifflin, 2008 - 272 pages average customer review:based on 12 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

highly recommended

If Tesla didn't exist, it would have been necessary to invent him

Incredible as it may seem, much of "The Invention of Everything Else" happens to be true. There is so much about the storytelling and invention in Samantha Hunt's second novel that appears to be whimsical fiction or magical realism. However, it's not. Nikola Tesla was a real person, and he really did experience all (all right, maybe 99%) of the things the novel credits him with.

Set in 1943, so flush in the middle of Manhattan's radio days that you keep expecting Woody Allen to show up, "The Invention of Everything Else" chronicles the last lonely week in the life of Tesla. Now an octogenarian inventor whose best days and best ideas were nearly a half century behind him, Tesla leads a lonely existence high up in the new Hotel New Yorker. Alternating chapters are told first-person by Tesla to an unseen figure, who we later come to realize is the ghost of one of America's great 19th century voices. Even more amusing than the conceit of "Sam" ghostwriting Tesla's biography, is the fact that in real life, these two were actually fast friends. The inventions and incidents Tesla describes, both in the book's present day (January 1943) and in its distant past, are mostly verifiable fact -- either devices Tesla actually created (alternating current, wireless communication), or that he'd claimed to have created (contact with Martians, the "death ray").

The balance of the book is devoted to the similarly lonely life of Louisa Dewell, a radio-obsessed chambermaid at the New Yorker. Louisa's world gradually opens up, thanks to the emergency of three unlikely strangers: a handsome stranger from her past of whom she has no memory; an eccentric friend of her father who claims to have invented time travel; and Tesla himself. Louisa's world opens at the same time that Tesla's is shutting down. Much like the radio programs she loves, her own sheltered life comes to feature chases, escapes, fantastical inventions, personal tragedy, and redeeming love.

Hunt's writing style is engaging. Like a Michael Chabon or a Jonathan Lethem, her novel seamlessly blends genres. We're never quite sure what's meant to be science fiction and what isn't. This cross-cutting is entirely appropriate, given that Tesla's own life blended reality with the fantastic and impossible (the man really did come to think he communicated with pigeons). The prose style is direct, and only occasionally gets confusing -- the first and last chapters required a little more attention and rereading than the rest of the book, I found.

Another important character in the novel is New York City itself. Institutions we now take for granted -- the subway, the Hotel New Yorker, Bryant Park and the Public Library -- are all new and otherworldly to the book's characters. A flashback by Louisa's dad to the library's opening day is hilarious. Two characters briefly glimpse New York City from high above the Earth, and the view is breathaking.

"The Invention of Everything Else" is surprisingly short, given how much material Hunt packs in. Even when the book seems to be going over the top (electrical light shows, intimidating G-men), it's only describing things that Tesla himself actually experienced (or claimed to experience) in his final days. It's definitely worth your time, and don't tell yourself that it's all too good to be true.

for more information click here

History sparks with concealed passions.

Sophomore author Samantha Hunt employs the little know life of an eccentric inventor to bring to life secretly passionate characters locked in commonplace.

While at times this novel darts too quickly from one direction to another, the characters are vivid. Story lines are emphasized through the use of well researched historical facts and figures.

A quick read, this novel is interesting and leaves an anticipation for her future work.

for more information click here

Enchanting!

The author is able to blend enchantment with realism and history in a book that is a pure delight to read. The story provides a rare, fascinating and highly entertaining glimpse into the life and times of someone who is perhaps the most misunderstood genius of all time. What more can I say? Hunt seems to be talented and wise beyond her years. I can only add a resounding 'Bravo' for such a small gem of a book.

for more information click here

Science, magic, and what lies between--or beyond

Skirting that edge of fantasy and fictionalized biography limned by Jane Mendelsohn in I Was Amelia Earhart, Hunt's slim novel traces the trajectory of Nikola Tesla's life and invention of alternating current electricity. Fantastic things happen, some real, some imagined, some happy, most tragic and profound.

Throughout, Tesla is (almost) unremittingly eccentric, continually inventive, and painfully unadapted to any understanding of human psychology and society, outliving his big invention and its earnings, into elderly uselessness.

In the meantime, he may have invented everything else, or everything else may be an invention, as the title resonates ambiguously throughout. How much is fact and fiction, I don't know, beyond the basic framework: Tesla and Thomas Edison in the late 1800s were engaged in a furious inventive battle to harness electricity into a practical and profitable generation, transmission, and distribution system so that people could plug in their laptops and not have to know why or where the power came from. At the time, Edison was the media superhero and genius inventor, and he backed DC (direct current) electricity. Tesla invented and proved (despite Edison's slander) that AC (Alternating Current) was safer, cheaper, and better. Tesla won out on the technology front, but never made much money from it, unlike Edison.

I do know that this book has spurred me to want to read a biography of Tesla; Hunt lists the authors of several that guided her in the acknowledgments of this book. See my review of Tesla: Man Out of Time by Margaret Cheney which I read after I read this novel.

I found the theme for the novel, or perhaps of Tesla's own life in this quote from Tesla on p. 177-178:

"No, I'm not from outer space or the future. And this is not magic, just science, pure engineering. Magic, religion, the occult--all of it--they are all excuses to not believe that wonders are possible here on Earth. I don't want magic. I want people to understand that things they never even dreamed of are possible. Automobiles that run on water. Surgery that never even punctures the skin. Wireless transmission of intelligence and energy. I want to be believed, Louisa."

This statement works whether they are Tesla's actual prophecies proven factual by history , or they are Hunt's reporting of 2008 technology placed in Tesla's time as magic or occult as a caution against rejection of the visionaries among us today.

Hunt has a good touch of pacing, at times pushing the story forward with urgency, at other times panning a descriptive eye around the scenes inside and surrounding the characters, the times, and the places. She also walks the knife edge of believable fiction and unpleasantly unbelievable fantasy quite well, leading memorably to a scene that suggests that Louisa--the young woman who has befriended Tesla--and Arthur--her present (or future?) lover--can fly. Hunt has the reader teetering on the edge of incredulity (of course humans can't fly) before she brings the lovers crashing down a small hill onto a sandy beach bruised but exhilarated and closer in love than ever. And on the other hand, Tesla's friend (or lab assistant?) Sam is someone entirely other, as we find out later in the book.

Nicely done.

for more information click here

Wonderful Atmosphere

The fact that Nikola Tesla--one of the great, neglected scientific geniuses--is a major character in this novel is what first brought me to it. That, and the fact that it is comparatively brief. Not knowing anything of Ms. Hunt, I wasn't sure what I would be getting myself into and this seemed like a relatively minor risk. Turns out, this novel greatly exceeded my expectations.

This is a novel of great characters and even better atmosphere. Besides Tesla, who comes to life as a suitably mysterious elderly man pushing forward and looking back even as the end nears, there is Louisa, a curious chambermaid at the New Yorker hotel who works her way into Tesla's life. The tendrils of the past, people lost, hold on to both of these characters tightly and we see some of that through various dips into history in addition to getting the sense of where both their lives are now. This introduces us to a host of fascinating secondary characters that hover over our main characters like ghosts.

But I think it is the atmosphere of the novel that will stay with me forever. New York of the 1940's and the New Yorker hotel in particular, provide a setting for this novel that, though solid, seems to be shrouded in mist. This creates a world of reality constantly infiltrated by visions and dreams--of the past, of time machines, of bringing the dead to life--that are periodically pushed away by the ugly face of reality. It is very cleverly done.

Overall, I was tremendously impressed by this novel. Taking risks and occasionally coming close to hitting a sour note, it never did. This is one of the best novels I've read recently.

for more information click here

reviews: 1, page 2, 3

hot

not?

What's your opinion?

Write a review and share your thoughts!

recommendations

Some Super Fiction to Enjoy on Your Vacation.
Some Delectable Fiction
Some Heavenly Fiction
Some Blissful Fiction
Some Splendid Fiction

search for books
invention of everything, else, everything, invention

Impressum / about us