Friday, December 22, 2023

Short Book Reviews: An 18th Century Astronomer

 An Astronomer in Love, by Antoine Laurain (Gallic Books)


I loved this combination of the historical adventures of the 18th Century French astronomer, Guillaume Le Gentil de la Galaisière, and a modern-day love story. Le Gentil was part of an international effort (proposed by none other than Edmond Halley of Halley’s Comet) to measure the distance to the Sun, by observing the transit of Venus at different points on the Earth and triangulating the distance. The transit of Venus occurs when Venus passes between the Earth and the Sun and can be visualized against the brightness of the Sun. (I was fortunate enough to view this in 2012, using proper eye protection, of course.) Le Gentil’s expedition was  a saga of one disaster after another, including his ship being blown off-course (for the 1761 transit), after which he remained in India for 8 more years until overcast weather made observation of the 1769 transit impossible. By the time he returned to Paris, everyone believed he was dead, and he had quite a time recovering his property and position.

Two and a half centuries later, Parisian realtor Xavier Lemercier chances upon Guillaume’s telescope. It’s turned up in a locked closet in an apartment he had once sold, and the new owner wants nothing to do with it. When Xavier sets it up, he inadvertently spies the apartment across the way, inhabited by a zebra (taxidermied, he later finds out) and a beautiful woman. She walks into his office, much to his surprise, in search of new digs. In the process, romance blossoms, aided by their children, who have become best friends. Now he has to find a way to confess that he was spying on her without the whole affair blowing up.

The two stories alternate in an interwoven pattern as Xavier discovers the telescope and becomes intrigued by Guillaume’s story. Guillaume’s adventures are dramatic enough to fill volumes and he was apparently a prolific diarist. I like to think that if they ever met, they would have appreciated one another.


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