Horror Book Reviews

Compare at: $17.00 (New)
Buy Now: $11.56 (New)

You Save: $5.44 (32%)

Add to Cart

Title: Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith, and Love
Score:
Author: Dava Sobel
Rating: Not available
Hits: 86

Review of Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith, and Love

[ Back to Homepage | Back to Horror Book Reviews Index ]

HellHorror.com not responsible for reviews/comments and they may be removed at any time.

Comments for Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith, and Love

• Posted on 2009-11-03
  good
  
  Rather unremarkable, but fairly informative and enjoyable. It is sad that our approaches to religion and science don't seem to have progressed much over the last 4 centuries as there still are people debating creationism and evolution etc.
  
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 6
  • 7
  • 8
  • 9
  • 10
• Posted on 2009-06-27
  Gallileo's Daughter
  
  The book was just exactly as described, only in better condition. Arrived promptly at a very fair selling and shipping price. Absolutely the best way to buy books. My first experience buying used books. Except in exceptional circumstances, as gifts, I'd never pay the new price again when I can get almost new at a fractional price. Now that I've read it, I'd like to tell y'all about it.
  This is a fine book. The author researched it completely. The period literature about Galileo at the time of his problem with the pope was read and studied in the original Italian by the author. The book covers most of Galileo's life and accomplishments. As a court reporter, I was especially interested to find that a court reporter recorded his trial as well as depositions, what we would call "Discovery Depositions" now. The transcript is very, very similar to what I see today. A little stilted maybe, and in the third person. Question by Cardinal: "When did the accused first publish his book?" Answer: "He published it one book at a time as it could be copied, over a long time." And that was Galileo answering. The author read the actual documents in order to write about them. Read the book and you'll want to go to Firenze one more time, to see it through Galileo's eyes, and see bits of physical history that remain of his time. You'll want to go up to Siena, where he wintered while waiting the verdict on his church trial. The very thorough backbone of the book is the series of letters to Galileo by his daughter, she being placed in a convent with her sister because of their illegitimacy. No letters were ever found from father to daughter.
  
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 6
  • 7
  • 8
  • 9
  • 10
• Posted on 2009-06-23
  Galileo Deserves Better
  
  The title proclaims this to be something called an historical memoir. huh? What's that? Memoirs certainly are all the rage now. Would it be unfair to accuse the folks putting out this book of trying to force it into the "memoir" category to sell more copies? How fitting that a book featuring disagreements has in its very title a challenge to readers to start arguing. Here are some definitions snatched from a couple websites:
  ---------------------------------------------
  Biography, in general, is someone's life story, written by another person. It is usually supported by documentation (letters, legal papers, etc.) proving the facts that they present, unless they are unauthorized biographies, in which case, anything goes.
  
  Autobiography is the story of someone's life, written by themselves. It also is supported by documentation.
  
  Memoir is sometimes considered the same as autobiography, but it is less formal, less well-documented, and often, about only a segment of a person's life.
  A memoir is usually a more personal piece of writing than a biography or autobiography, which tends to give a "whole picture" of the person or family about whom the book is written. On the other hand, a memoir tends to have more of an overarching theme than most autobiographies; thus, it gives a "partial picture."
  ---------------------------------------------
  So this is best described as a biography because Galileo didn't write it and it's supported by both letters and legal papers. "Historical Memoir" indeed. I sneer at that. Sneer I do! Now what about what's between the covers?
  
  THE BAD: Too often this came across like a stretched out text book. It could have only have been helped if someone had cut it to one-third the length. Entire sections seem to repeat topics fully covered before.
  
  The daughter's letters were disappointing adding less humanity and human interest than you might expect, especially given that she's the title character. They felt like a flimsy excuse so Dava Sobel could restate the same tale of Galileo while pretending to approach it with a new angle. I wish Sobel had discovered themes within the letters and told us what she found. As it was, the letters were too mundane and failed to add enough to the story. The buffalo egg letter, however, was a hoot. It would have been nice if more of the letters had been entertaining like that.
  
  Somehow despite the letters, the daughters' lives never come into focus. I want to know more about the visits with their father. How did Suor Maria Celeste come to write so well that it was a special duty of hers at the convent? She read her father's letters and enjoyed frequent visits with him - was it through him she learned to write so well? Was it something taught in the convent? I would have enjoyed hearing about this and other aspects of the daughters lives.
  
  THE GOOD: The descriptions of Ptolemy's Earth-centered universe somehow lacked enough detail, yet are essentially complete. It was great to read the actual (translated) transcript of Galileo's heresy hearing. That's the most important part of the book and the part that will stay with me. He got all his points out and it's surprising that the council ruled against him. The book shined brightest when explaining science (telescopes, tides, bones and falling bodies), discussing Galileo arguing points of science (objects would not fall 100xs slower if they weighed 100xs less) and when discussing the plague. Thankfully, the book is too smart to argue some simplistic deep divide between science and religion. Galileo himself as well as many very pious, high-ranking holy men around him, did not see such a conflict.
  
  It's unfair to pretend the folks who continued to believe the Earth stood still were ignoring obvious fact. It wasn't that obvious. If we had never learned extra facts since the time of Galileo about how the heavens move, still today would be huge groups of educated people who believe the Earth is stationary. Truth is hard to pin down. What is the truth behind such modern claims as a) there being 10-20 pounds of sludge stuck to our colon walls which can be cleansed if you buy some product or b) boy-part enlargement pills or pumps? By now shouldn't we have proven or disproven whether ghosts or aliens are walking around with the rest of us? ESP? Such ideas linger on as unanswered questions. How about time travel as described by Albert Einstein? Spontaneous combustion? Has anyone yet figured out how bees are able to fly since that's supposedly impossible? There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
  
  THE MAN: Galileo himself, a pioneer of experimentation and observation, was truly amazing. His influence is enormous. The book, though, is not very good. People rave about it and I wonder if their opinions aren't being colored by their affection for Galileo himself. I was surprised that his belief in circular orbits never came up. Now I wonder if he really espoused that orbits were perfect circles while many others argued that they were ellipses.
  
  It's funny but trying to imagine the Earth as stationary makes me dizzy.
  
  
  
  
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 6
  • 7
  • 8
  • 9
  • 10
• Posted on 2009-06-07
  Exquisite
  
  Galileo suffers from no neglect in the biography literature, and approaching him from the angle of his daughter might seem a little opportunistic. But I was completely won over by GALILEO'S DAUGHTER. For three reasons:
  
  The story of Virginia Galilei, who entered a convent and took the name Suor Maria Celeste, is both heart warming and heart breaking. In 124 surviving letters she wrote to her famous father we learn of her devotion to him (she addressed him as "Sire"), her abject poverty (she relied on him for basic necessities), and her bottomless generosity (she prepared care packages for him and assisted her fellow nuns as best she could). Though history surely would have forgotten her, had her lineage been more ordinary, she's an enduring example of kindness and integrity.
  
  GALILEO'S DAUGHTER is the best biography of Galileo I've ever read. Yes, I've read Stillman Drake and others, and yes, this book emphasizes Galileo's personal relationships rather than his scientific achievements. But you can't dissect the man; you can't describe only the personal side or only the scientific side. Or only his torment at the hands of the Inquisition. To tell the story of Galileo's daughter you have to tell the story of Galileo, and you have to do it concisely. Ms. Sobel nails it.
  
  Finally, science writing is challenging enough, but science writing that aspires to literature deserves to be singled out. Nobody writes better than Dava Sobel. The last page of GALILEO'S DAUGHTER is worth all that preceed it; I never would have guessed I'd end up with a lump in my throat.
  
  
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 6
  • 7
  • 8
  • 9
  • 10
• Posted on 2008-11-16
  Brings 17th Century to Life
  
  This remarkable book compactly and comprehensively ties together many threads: Galileo's life, Galileo's scientific breakthroughs, Catholic Church theology and superstition, life in Italy, and the relationship of Galileo to his favorite child. The author weaves these together through the device of the 124 surviving letters that Galileo's eldest daughter Virginia sent to him from the convent near Florence where she lived from the age of 15 to her early death.
  
  It's a singular story, starting with the man who revolutionized scientific inquiry by emphasizing observable experience to support theory. That this principle was developed by a person who believed unquestioningly in all of the superstitions of the Catholic Church of his time makes it even more remarkable. The author takes the reader into both the church and scientific worlds, showing when they collided, as well as the mental gymnastics that Galileo and others engaged in to try to reconcile irreconcilable views of nature and the physical world.
  
  As Galileo's fame peaks and then was shattered by the Church's censure, his relationship with Virginia was a source of comfort and practical support. The letters from Virginia (Galileo's letters were burned at the convent) show her intellect, love for her father, and religious fervor. The letters read almost as parodies of religious belief -- though, apparently, it's how people thought at the time.
  
  Example: Virginia lived in an exceedingly strict convent near Florence. She entered the convent as a teenager and literally never left the property ever again. One of the convent's proud principles was that its claustrophic stone walls were the equivalent of Jesus' tomb. The girls entering the convent were told: "You are, therefore, already now in your sepulchre of stone, that is, your vowed enclosure."
  
  One can only shake one's head and say, "What might have been..." if people such as Galileo and his daughter were able to pursue their visions more fully.
  
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 6
  • 7
  • 8
  • 9
  • 10