In Search of Klingsor

The plot of this novel is as dark as the history of 20th century. It is hard to classify its genre (historical fiction? suspense? thriller?), for it presents many genres rolled into one story.It is a novel for thinking people. The narration moves fast, but it does not prevent the novel from being quite philosophical. The main idea sounds like this: there is no absolutely accurate History, for History is subjective. Any major historical event, if examined closely, is no more than a sum of selfish acts, committed by ordinary and extraodinary people. The most of people are motivated by weakness, fear, love, loyalty, ambition, insecurity or power. The participants in History can never remember the past in dispassionate, completely honest way. That's why there is no objective History: it all depends who tells it.The book is a true gift for curious people, for it contains a very lively story of the 20th century science with its major players (Einstein, Von Neumann, Godel, Bohr, Plank, Schrodinger, Heisenberg, etc) and its major discoveries (quantum theory, theorem of incompleteness, game theory, etc). The book is a one of those rare cases, when reader can learn many mind-puckering things with pleasure.I reread some pages two, three times - for pure joy of reading difficult things written with unique grace and lucidity.First-rate novel, no doubt.

Some of the great Nobel Prize winners of the early 20th century--Erwin Schrodinger, Werner Heisenberg, Max Planck, Johannes Stark, and Nils Bohr--play roles in this fascinating novel about the effort to unmask Klingsor, codename for the prominent scientist believed to have overseen and approved Nazi Germany's research into an atomic weapon. Gustav Links, a German physicist, is co-operating with Francis Bacon, a young scientist and OSS officer, just after the Nuremberg Trials, as he tries to identify Klingsor. The novel, supposedly Links's journal about the search, is both intelligent and unusual. Links applies scientific laws and their corollaries to the art of fiction, suggests scientific hypotheses which might be applicable to espionage, and reveals "autobiographical disquisitions: from set theory to totalitarianism," along with discussions of parallel universes, game theory, and even the quest for the Holy Grail as described in Wagner's Parsifal. The scientific discoveries of Schrodinger, Heisenberg, Planck, et. al., are presented clearly, so that even someone like me, who is neither a mathematician nor a scientist, can understand enough of the material to make the book and the search for Klingsor both tension-filled and exciting. Two love stories--that of Links in the mid-1930's and of Bacon in 1946--provide breaks from the sometimes textbook-like disquisitions on physics. Volpi's language is rich in metaphor and often playful--an electron is described as a criminal who commits atrocities and slips away, and quantum mechanics as a police chief who wants to nab him during that "one brief instant, when someone is able to make out his silhouette." And this simile may be unique: "He had behaved like a subatomic particle, subjecting himself to the imperious forces of bodies far more powerful than he." Despite its cleverness, however, the book has some clumsy plotting and some dead-giveaway moments, which marred the narrative for me. Links often sets up meetings with German scientists and then meets with Bacon to talk about the scientist's "file," an artificial device which gives information to the reader but acts as a brake on the narrative. At one point, Volpi even introduces a new character, who, at just the right moment, and "by pure coincidence...is transcribing Nazi party archives that were used during the Nuremberg Trials," a report which is then analyzed, another narrative-slowing episode. Cliches are sometimes a problem. One of the female characters, who, incidentally, will meet her lover only at night, says, "If you really love me, you have to promise me...that you'll always trust me," then asks about the search for Klingsor and the scientists her lover has interviewed. Amazingly, the "intelligent" lover never gets suspicious, even when warned about her "Slavic accent," and tells her everything, even bringing her into his interviews with Schrodinger and Bohr. The unmasking of a "new" Klingsor in the conclusion does n

An excellent, fascinating book of the genre "science in fiction"with only little fiction and a lot of science and history. Volpi, a 33 years old Mexican, is not a natural scientist (he is a philologist and a lawyer). Yet he delves with complicated scientific matters and presents them to the general public almost without objectionable errors. He must have done a lot of research and talked to a lot of physicists, especially in Germany. One of the few deplorable errors I found is his introduction of Lise Meitner as Otto Hahn's assistant. He was actually a colleague co-director of the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institute. He had to leave Germany in 1938 as an Austrian ethnic Jew (actually a Christian) and had a very rough time. She bitterly complained several times from the exile as to the fact that she was presented as an assistant (even by Hahn). This error should be corrected asap. Otherwise, scientists as well as nonscientists. Some juicy sex, often not much to the point, is well written and can be forgiven.The book is now available in German. Why not in English?

En este libro el autor explora los grandes descubrimientos científicos de la primera mitad del siglo XX y su trascendencia en la vida del hombre común, en este caso el protagonista de la novela. Al mismo tiempo el autor nos revela rasgos de la personalidad de los grandes hombres de ciencia (la melancolía de Gödel, la peculiar pasión científica de von Neumann, la arrogancia de Heisenberg, etc.) Muy bien documentado y mejor escrito.

ES SORPRENDENETE LA PROFUNDA CALIDAD DE UN ESCRITOR TAN JOVEN COMO JORGE VOLPI. EL LIBRO ES NOTABLEMENTE INTELIGENTE Y MANTIENE AL LECTOR EN UN CONSTANTE CAMBIO DE VARIABLES QUE TRAEN UN FINAL DIGNO DEL CAMINO RECORRIDO. LA CONVERGENCIA INTELIGENTE ENTRE LA CIENCIA Y LA DINAMICA DE ESTA, CREANDO UN RESULTADO RELATIVO AL TIEMPO Y LAS CIRCUNSATNCIAS DE ESTE, NOS OBLIGAN A PENSAR QUE NUNCA EN ESTE MUNDO HA EXISTIDO UNA VERDAD DICTADA POR EL HOMBRE QUE MANTENGA SU ABSOLUTISMO AL PASAR DEL TIEMPO HUMANO. ES UN DIGNO ANALISIS ENTRE EL DESARROLLO CIENTIFICO DEL SER HUMANO Y LA CRUDA REALIDAD HUMANA DEL DESCUBRIDOR. LA ENSENANZA DE ESTA LECTURA NO NOS PERMITIRA SER LOS MIMOS DESPUES DE DIGERIRLA CON GRAN PLACER. VOLPI SE CONVERTIRA EN UN DESTACADO Y BRILLANTE ESCRITOR LATINOAMERICANO Y ORGULLOSAMANTE MEXICANO. EL LIBRO FINALMENTE ES DE COMPRENSIBLE LECTURA LO QUE ELEVA SU VALOR LITERARIO. RECOMENDABLE 100% PARA CUALQUIERA QUE PRETENDA EXCARVAR SOBRE LA NATURALEZA HUMANA.