The Newton Letter

ISBN: 1567928498

Author: Banville, John

Condition: New

Powerful.-The New York Times, Notable Book of the YearAn unforgettably elegant tale of obsession and the fragile line between reason and desire.In this compact literary gem, an historian retreats to a quiet cottage in rural Ireland to complete a biography of Isaac Newton. Why, he must unravel, did Newton suffer a mental collapse in 1693, and why did he write such a strange letter to his friend John Locke-hinting at a personal and philosophical crisis?But as the summer days drift by, work is stalled as he becomes obsessed with the lives of the people around him-stranded Charlotte; doomed, drunken Edward; mysterious Ottilie. The more he tries to decipher the mysterious web of their lives-even while trying to decipher the central mystery of Newtons-he becomes undone by the murky, unmeasurable forces of the human heart.Banvilles prose is lyrical and precise, and The Newton Letter is both a meditation on genius and a portrait of quiet unraveling. A must-read for fans of psychological fiction and literary elegance.