Schopenhauer’s Telescope

Gerard Donovan (Scribner)

Schopenhauer’s Telescope is Gerard Donovan’s first novel.  Best keep your own ‘scope trained for more of this author’s work because it is burgeoning with promise.

 Schopenhauer’s Telescope presents a conversation between two men.  One is digging a large hole in the ground in the frozen Northern European ground. The other is watching him. The cold snow-laced wind intensifies as the afternoon wears on into dusk and the hole grows larger.  We learn that in actuality, Schopenhauers Telescope is the perspective of a telescope in reverse leaning backwards through time.  And also how the history of bread is the history of man. We learn too what shocking thing these men are doing and why.

Gerard Donovan has a sharp eye and the translation of his imagery to the page is articulate, even artistic.  I found one or two of his plot devices a little too clever, obliging me to stop and try to keep up with what was going on but this is quite minor in the context of the entire book.  Don’t let the comment stop you because what Schopenhauer’s Telescope does deliver is entirely thought provoking. A very good read.

 Published in Good Reading Magazine (www.goodreadingmagazine.com.au)