jenniferdeguzman's reviews
318 reviews

Voltaire, a literary genius, and Emilie du Chatelet, a scientific genius, had a fascinating and complex relationship. David Bodanis depicts that interweaving of love, admiration, respect, insecurity, secrecy, betrayal and reconciliation. It is to his credit that he has written about an important relationship that has for some time not been given the attention it deserves. Bodanis's thesis is that Voltaire and Emilie provided models of thinking people in an unconventional relationship (she was a married aristocratic woman, he an unmarried writer known for making caustic remarks) for thinkers throughout France, greatly influencing the movement of the Enlightenment.

Most poignant to me was Voltaire's feelings of inferiority to Emilie's brilliance with mathematics and science. As a man who wanted to be a modern thinker, he wanted to prove his ability in scientific fields but always fell far short of her. But he soon learned to apply scientific methods to the field in which his genius lay -- literature. Emilie, for her part, did not want to feed his insecurity and did much of her experimentation in secret.

However -- and I don't want to sound to snooty about it -- the book was not as intellectually vigorous as I would like. Bodanis does not attempt any meaningful analysis or criticism of either Voltaire's or du Chatelet's work, especially in how they influenced each other. He makes reference to a play Voltaire wrote to impress Emilie without even properly summarizing its plot; Emilie's revelation having to do with Newton's work about conservation of energy is never properly explained.

This is a fine book as an introduction to both Voltaire and du Chatelet. But I longed to delve deeper into the psychology and work of both people -- I'll be looking at other sources for that.

This graphic novel is so compelling, but I must confess that I have misgivings about it that have nothing to do with its quality. Indeed, that I feel so uncomfortable seeing a woman betray her fiance, unideal man though he is, and even if for the sake of true love, speaks to the emotional intensity of the story. And no wonder -- it's based on a story that has been with us for a long time, Tristan and Isolde. I don't know, though, if my discomfort arises from the situation itself or from a feeling that the book does not treat it as I feel is appropriate -- I'm not getting enough sense that there is an ethical framework that realizes, even if the Tristan and Isobel do not, that what they are doing is wrong, or at least that they're not going about it in the right way. Isobel and Tristan seem to regard their situation as difficult emotionally, but not morally. It's an interesting tension, but I think there's also some nuance that might be lost. It seems that in romances one of the guys the heroine has to choose between is clearly undeserving of her.

But the story's not done yet! This is only the first volume of two (I think two) -- so I am anxious to see what kind of repercussions Isobel and Tristan have to experience, and what they will learn from them. I really did enjoy this, and I'm enjoying reading the rest in the three-chapter-length books that Oni publishes.

Marc Ellerby's art is a quirky choice for a romance comic, but it works, adding to the hipness of the setting, the world of indie rock music.

I didn't finish reading this -- I got about halfway through. My boss had a copy in the office that he was selling on eBay, and though I had it on my desk for some weeks, I wasn't compelled to finish it before it had to be sent out. I think this says a lot about the forward motion of the plot. I just wasn't interested in the characters, and the story was taking a bit too long to develop. The art was very nice, however.

After some thinking, I realized why I didn't finish this book (even as I racked up late fees from the library): I found the subject matter, the history of the region of England called Sunderland, interesting, but there was nothing about the way the subject is treated that made the medium it's in the best choice. The conceit, with a man giving a lecture in a theater to an idiot with a soda, doesn't work, and the comics elements that are scattered throughout did not appeal to me. The visual pun comics illustration of Henry V's speech at Agincourt fell flat for me, and, honestly, I found it ugly. Digitally manipulated photographs are not as helpful in a historical work as real photographs nor as aesthetically interesting as good illustrations.

Sunderland seems like a fascinating place, and clearly this is meant to be a tribute to it. It just didn't work for me.