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Des éclairs (2010)

by Jean Echenoz(Favorite Author)

3.72 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

2707321265 (ISBN13: 9782707321268)

languge

English

genre

Historical Fiction

publisher

Les Éditions de Minuit

review 1: Gregor is quite a remarkable character. On the one hand he is a brilliant, beta scientist; so one would think he is exact; one the other hand he has all these general ideas which he doesn’t care to work out in more exact details before going ‘on the market’ and thus showing himself as a somewhat naive person. On the one hand he is a shy person, living by himself in hotels; on the other hand he wants to show off publicly his inventions.These contradictions, and more, are in good hands with Jean Echenoz. A narrator who has a helicopter view over Gregor’s life, approaches his subject with flair, wit and irony, and doesn’t get into melodrama. Nicely done. A very pleasant read. Like the other two parts of his biographic triptych – the other ones being ‘Ravel’ an... mored ‘Courir’ (about Emile Zatopek) – it’s a good character study with more than average literary qualities. JM
review 2: This elegant fable follows the rise and fall of Gregor, a brilliant inventor modeled on Nikolai Tesla.After he immigrates from Eastern Europe, Gregor befriends Thomas Edison, then becomes his rival in the burgeoning field of electricity and global communication. Like many great men, Gregor is alternately worshipped and ridiculed as a crackpot. And like many geniuses, his intellectual gifts outshine his social skills and business savvy. Echinoz is hardly the first writer to fictionalize Tesla, who has appeared everywhere from a Paul Auster novel to The Prestige, where he was played by David Bowie. Lightning is neither science fiction nor historical fiction, but rather the kind of allegory favored by Borges, Kafka, and Calvino. For all his flaws, Gregor is a sympathetic eccentric, with the ruthless determination of Steve Jobs and the child-like heart of Rain Man. less

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