A science historian writing a biography of Isaac Newton goes on a retreat to muse about his subject's breakdown and abandonment of science. The historian starts acting in ways he cannot explain in letters to presumably a lover where he discloses his affair with one woman (whom he treats badly) and his falling in love with another woman. He muses on how he can't really know these women parallels Newton's frustration that much of reality is a great mystery to him. I liked how the narrator documented his inner turmoil as his personal life crumbles, and he is really unable to explain himself, which is probably a more truthful reflection of human narratives than most other literature. ( )

Meh. Only made it to page 12. Boring and not the story for me. It's about a man going to Isaac Newton's final house to finish writing his book.

This is such a peculiar little book, not in and of itself, but because it is the third in a trilogy dealing with great historical scientists and their world-changing discoveries, and yet Isaac Newton barely features. The narrator is writing, and has abandoned near completion, a book about the physicist, but there is only one real direct exploration of Newton, via two letters written during or as a result of a nervous breakdown, and one of those letters is fictional. Instead, we have an odd little tale of an academic historian interloper who encounters a family, does questionable things and makes questionable assumptions only to have it all turned on its head. Perhaps there is some clever narrative conceit here, and the story mirrors or is informed by Newton's various laws, but rather it seems more like a microcosm of a world that believes one set of things to be true thrown into disarray when it turns out to be completely wrong. Having such a process re-enacted in a banal, sordid little family drama is more in keeping with the rest of the trilogy, where the great cosmic insights were set against the grinding frustrations of the prosaic everyday world. ( )

An author rents a cottage on an estate in Ireland to finish writing his book on Isaac Newton, and instead becomes obsessed with a family living in the big house. His obsession leads him to imagine lives for the members of the family that are a far cry from the truth.

It's a beautifully written narrative of a man's thoughts and the motivation that propels his actions and inaction. There were moments when I could not like the man, and moments when I sympathized with him. The ending was disquieting and I wonder if the author meant for the reader to come to their own conclusions. ( )

So a historian is writing on Newton and decides he should rent a cottage in the Irish country side to concentrate on writing and answering the question of what led to Newton’s break down in 1693 and his writing such a strange letter to his friend John Locke. Instead of writing he becomes obsessed with the family he rents the cottage from; the niece he sleeps with, the aunt holding the family together that he feels he is in love with, the friendly drunk uncle, and a young boy who doesn’t seem to belong to anyone. Instead of getting to know the family more than superficially, the unnamed narrator is content to judge their character and presume their story.

To call this a novel is generous, my edition weighed in at 81 pages, and I don’t think very good use was made of these scant pages. In a book where nothing much happens I always think that the characters need to make up the difference. Yet the author fixated on the superficial details of an unlikeable narrator instead of providing background or relationships that would make the story or characters interesting. The narrator is too wrapped up in trying to answer a pointless question about a man long dead, that he doesn’t even take the time to look at the lives of the people he is closest to. ( )