"Cold it had been that morning, the sky like a bruised gland and a taste of metal in the air, and everything holding its breath under an astonishment of fallen snow." I mean, 5 stars just for sentences like that. Banville is some writer. His fictionalised biography of 17th century astronomer Kepler is told, appropriately, somewhat elliptically. But he makes Kepler a complex, interesting, very human character - at times irritating, at times quite sympathetic - as he navigates the difficulties of scientific rivalry, politics, religion, conflict, family life, loss, and love. There are some interesting themes - for example, how to differentiate models that fit the data from those that are actually "true", and whether this matters. Immersive and intriguing. Recommended.

Inventive and lovingly wrought.

After being so impressed and moved by John Banville's Doctor Copernicus, I moved right on to Kepler. These books aren't really biographies. They're Banville's extrapolated explorations of the milieu of these men, their psychology, and the motivations that drove them to abandon security, intimacy and general well-being in obsessive pursuit of scientific discovery.

Although the Kepler book shares much of the medieval grit of its predecessor, there's a sense that at least a bit of the darkness has been lifted off of that gloomy world. Kepler is afforded a portion of joviality and whimsy, where Copernicus was depicted as unrelentingly dour. Like the previous volume, Banville indulges in a wild change of perspective part way through the book, shifting from a quasi-fictional narrative to a sequence of events told through a series of letters in correspondence with family, friends, and professional associates.

I've been very satisfied by both of these books. Although this one isn't a sequel per se, there is a sense of a handing of the baton between the two scientists when read in sequence. Banville is a virtuoso at metaphor and imagery, so there are many opportunities to just savor the verbal imagination. He can be audacious with words, but it always serves to add depth to the depictions and settings.

Parental suggestion: 12+. Some sexual content but not as much as in Doctor Copernicus.

3,5⭐️