Spoiler alert—-if you plan to read the novel Measuring the World what I say from here on might interfere with your pleasure in the book.
Daniel Kehlmann is a young German author who has made a splash in Europe. Today—two-thirds of the way into Measuring I found out one reason. This book retells the achievements of two great German scientists of the early 19th Century—Gauss, the mathematician, and Humboldt. Ok, great, the early heros of the nation.
Key scene with Humboldt is when he is in Mexico after having been the first man to climb the tallest peak in South America. He can’t believe the scale of the city. He sees the huge carved stone wheel and realizes it is a calendar. He meets the grandson of Moctezuma and hears about the conquest and especially about the twenty thousand or more killed by the Aztec priests to dedicate the huge temple that Cortes had destroyed. Under the last high priest, the viceroy explains, the kingdom has become addicted to blood. Humboldt is incredulous at the claim.
My good man, said Humboldt, don’t talk nonsense!
Twenty thousand in one place, in one day, was unthinkable. The victims would never tolerate it. The audience wouldn’t tolerate it. What was more, the world-order would not support it. If such a thing ever happened, the universe would come to an end.
The universe, said the worker, doesn’t give a shit.
A bit later Humboldt goes out to see the ruins of Teotihuacán. Again he is dumbfounded by the scale and using his scientific instruments figures out how the city was planned in relation to the stars as a calendar. He was the first person in a thousand years who could read the city plan correctly. Bonpland, his companion and assistant in these travels asks him why he seems so depressed.
So much civilization and so much horror, said Humboldt. What a combination! The exact opposite of everything that Germany stood for. (177)
