‘The Invention of Everything Else’ by Samantha Hunt
5 September 2008Five years ago we saw a great show at the Edinburgh Fringe called ‘Brilliant! The Blinding Enlightenment of Nikola Tesla’ by The Electric Company Theatre. This told the amazing story of the life of Serbian physicist, inventor, and electrical engineer, Nikola Tesla – the inventor of alternating current. Largely forgotten now, Tesla’s brilliance and vision was hampered by a combination of his altruistic attitude to wanting share his inventions with mankind and the more capitalist and self-serving approach of his rivals, particularly Thomas Edison. Tesla was a fascinatingly eccentric character with few close human relationships but a particular passion for pigeons. I’ve just been reading ‘The Invention of Everything Else’, a new novel by Samantha Hunt which fictionalises Tesla’s final days and tells the remarkable story of his life. It’s a wonderfully ‘inventive’ novel, eschewing linear narrative and piecing together Tesla’s story like a jigsaw puzzle. Hunt also creates a number of fictional characters whose lives overlap with the 86-year old Tesla at the Hotel New Yorker in 1943. These characters’ own stories echo the main themes of Tesla’s life and (unknowingly) visit various places that were significant to him. It’s great fun – a really enjoyable and unpredictable read. My only criticism was that, knowing a little about Tesla from the play, mixing his biography with fictional elements might lead you to believe Hunt has made it all up. But the true story of Nikola Tesla is truly incredible: in this case truth is stranger than fiction.
Labels: Books
posted by Robin Simpson @ 9:23 am
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home