Doctor Copernicus

A thing is pure and independent, the object and the idea of the object utterly united with no division and no corruption. Then comes language and the thing acquire a name and suddenly the idea of a tree and a tree itself are divided, and the idea becomes a separate thing to the thing it's supposed to describe. Thus Nicolas Copernicus, who has a bright vision of the motions of celestial bodies that will turn everything humanity has understood about the world on its head, that will eventually unmoor us from our conception of the world and from religion, soils this vision, destroys it and mars it with his efforts to express it in language. And yet it is the world itself that is diseased and corrupt and downright petty, and he himself fears show more and hates the world and its imperfections.

John Banville's Copernicus, brilliant but cowed and cringing, dominated by his uncle, savagely haunted by the deteriorating spectre of his brother, seared by the knowledge that he has failed before he has even begun his great work, so that even if he completes it, he almost cannot bring himself to release it to the world because of what his flawed ideas of planetary motion will set in motion. A novel of ideas and angst, fear and base cunning, failure and futility - though his success as an administrator to his war-torn province seems oddly at odds with Banville's portrayal of his internal life, and so gets glossed over a bit. show less

Banville paints an interesting picture of Copernicus: he is not physically brave, but he has a dignity about him, and as he ascends the Catholic hierarchy he stands up to nobility (Albert, Duke of Prussia rampaging with his Teutonic Knights) and bishops who want him to let go of his housekeeper/cousin. On the other hand, as he ages Copernicus becomes more reticent about publishing his heliocentric model of the solar system/universe--it is not clear if it is because he is worried about the blowback (although according to this novel, a lot of Catholic and Lutheran elites were receptive to the idea) or because he was worried about getting everything right.

Banville sets Copernicus in Renaissance-era Italy/Poland/Ermland, but it might as show more well just be medieval Europe as it seemed like a miserable place--although elites are becoming more receptive to overturning old dogmas about how the universe works, they really do not care at all about the suffering endured by the non-nobles. I suppose the Western world currently has a lot more in common with this milieu than we'd like to think. show less

John Banville's Doctor Copernicus is a fiercely interior historical novel about the Renaissance polymath and astronomer. It is divided into four parts, one about his childhood and youth, a second about his mature career, a third regarding the publication of his masterwork De revolutionibus, and a final section on his death. All but one of these are delivered in a third-person omniscient narration that includes glimpses of Copernicus' own perspective. The exception is part three, where the narrator is Copernicus' disciple and editor Rheticus (Georg Joachim von Lauchen). Banville makes Rheticus out to be a rather unsympathetic character, and certainly an unreliable narrator.

The novel does good work in exposing the intellectual and show more cultural backdrops of Copernicus' life: a Hermetic Renaissance in Italy, and Catholic Orders menaced by Reformation in Prussia. The achievement of his "system" is presented as ambivalent in his own regard, and he is repeatedly shown in the grips of epistemological despair.

The final section of the book, though brief, is very effective. It does not perpetuate the sanguine legend that Copernicus happily took in the first sight of the published and bound De revolutionibus on his deathbed. It does, however, fold his subjective impressions back onto the images and persons established in the earlier sections of the book, so that there is an awful symmetry to this last reckoning. show less

[Dr Copernicus] by John Banville
There have been many biographies of Nicolaus Copernicus, but Banville has chosen to write an historical novel based on his life and a fascinating portrait of both the man and his times emerges from this well written book. Copernicus (1473 - 1573) was a doctor, churchman and astronomer now famous as the man who first publicly refuted Ptolemy's idea of the universe. Copernicus placed the sun at the still centre the universe while the earth was one of a number of planets (7 at the time) revolving around it. Ptolemy had thought the earth was at the centre and his ideas had been supported and enhanced by theologians since the advent of Christianity.

Banville's book is in four sections three of which place show more Copernicus at the centre of the novel and are written in the third person, the third section is written in the first person from the point of view of Rheticus who was a pupil of Copernicus for two years and undertook to supervise the printing of his [On the Revolution of the Heavenly Spheres] This third section brilliantly pulls the book and the portrait of Copernicus together while giving the reader a first hand portrait of the astronomer. It also has an immediacy that drives the story along as it deals with issues around whether Copernicus would allow his masterwork to be printed in his lifetime.

Banville's depicts Copernicus as an able hard working yet diffident man. He could be morose and taciturn and for the most part privately lived in his own world. He was hesitant in getting his treatise published and because of his poor social skills had few friends and was treated with suspicion by fellow churchman, although they valued his dedication to his duties and his intelligence and ability. A man who therefore lends himself to a novelist getting inside his head and seeing the world through his eyes, which Banville does with his portrayal of Copernicus' early life and again in the final section with a moving depiction of his death. In the third section we see the man through the eyes of his pupil Rheticus which gives a well rounded portrait and gives us to understand a man who was not easy to get along with.

The book also takes the reader convincingly back to a period where the middle ages were just giving way to the renaissance and the catholic church was feeling the first salvos from Luther and the protestant movement. Copernicus was well advised to be careful in a world seething with corruption and Banville's illustration of those times is convincing. He sticks closely to known facts but fleshes out two characters whose lives provide an insight into the society around a working churchman in Poland. Andreas the elder brother is seen as a roustabout contemptuous of his younger brothers careful dedication to duty and Banville adds spice to this portrait with a horrific description of a man in the final stages of syphilis. Anna is Copernicus's live in companion in his middle and later years and is a contentious figure because Catholic churchman were supposed to be celibate. Banville does not spare the reader the grotesqueness of the period from Andreas's half eaten face to Copernicus' bishops death from poisoning to Anna's need to go whoring to support her children when her husband goes off to war. Life was hard and cruel and it is all here in this novel.

While Banville fills in the necessary details of Copernicus's astronomy and it's revolutionary aspect this is not the main thrust of the novel. He is more interested in giving the reader an illustrative representation of the life and times of a churchman astronomer. A very good four star read. show less

After reading Kepler", I was very eager to tackle "Doctor Copernicus" and "The Newton Letter".

This year I decided that I'd start with a bang with "Doctor Copernicus". I've always believed in strong starts...

Drawing a parallel between "Kepler" and "Doctor Copernicus", they both have a very strong sense of architecture and style. I like to compare them with a very dark baroque cathedral, filled with elaborate passages and sometimes overwhelming to the casual tourist (aka reader). For this, Banville makes no apologies—he's fully committed to language and to rhythm above plot, characterization, or pacing. So, when reading a Banville book don't go looking for a mainstream writer, which is something that he’s not...

The only show more part that I think seemed a little uneven was the “Cantus Mundi” chapter. Rheticus’ first person narrative was a bit off-putting. Maybe this device was necessary because it was vital to give the character Copernicus a more humane perspective, seen from outside. Given the fact that Rheticus was the person that in real life convinced Copernicus to publish his “On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres” makes it the more valuable in terms of narrative structure.

John Banville personifies the art of writing sentences in which we hear that wonderful harmonic chime that makes us believe that's possible to write the way he does.
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My copy of John Banville's Doctor Copernicus is a beautiful first American edition, which I bought for the princely sum of $25 back in 2014. I decided to read it for A Year with John Banville co-hosted by Kim at Reading Matters and Cathy from 746 Books because it's the oldest of books that I have on the Banville TBR.

My copy was almost pristine, so much so that the pages in the latter part of the book had to be gently prised apart, as if they had never been read. And I think I know why that might be...

I think that perhaps engagement with the text might fizzle out for some readers. It nearly did with me.

The book is written in four sections and the first two are lively enough. They focus on the childhood of Copernicus (1473-1543) and his show more life up to about his middle thirties. The most engaging part of these sections is the sibling rivalry between Copernicus and his brother Andreas. Copernicus is mild, bookish, clever, industrious and apparently celibate, and Andreas is handsome, lazy, irresponsible, profligate and promiscuous. At every opportunity, he torments Copernicus out of jealousy, following him across Europe to Italy and back, sponging off him while deriding his successes and creating embarrassment for him in church circles. The descriptions of his ultimate fate as he succumbs to the pox are truly grotesque and not for the faint-hearted.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2024/06/13/doctor-copernicus-1976-the-revolutions-trilo... show less

I’d only read one book by John Banville before: his celebrated novel The Sea, which I read on a balmy summer day, propped up against a grassy bank by the Serpentine in Hyde Park. It was an occasion when place and book complemented each other perfectly and I found myself lost in Banville’s heady, languid writing. When I stumbled across this book, I was delighted: not only because it gave me a chance to lose myself again, but because it’s always refreshing to find a book set in one of the less familiar periods of history. When you think of the ubiquity of Tudor, Roman or Victorian-set historical fiction, the first decades of the 16th century in Prussia, Poland and the Baltic states are relatively uncharted territory. I was also keen show more to find out a bit more about Copernicus, because I am aware of the Ptolemaic and Copernican systems only in the broadest sense and I hoped that the novel would make me better acquainted with the details of Copernicus’s theory...

For full details, please see my blog:
https://theidlewoman.net/2013/04/07/dr-copernicus-john-banville/ show less