In Traversal, Maria Popova (Figuring) crosses eras and continents to create a sweeping history of science and art, love and traversal.
This fascinating volume is ideal for fans of Popova's blog, "The Marginalian," and readers who wish to go deep; once again she reinforces her belief that science, art, and love all result from the instinctive urge to create. The title's "traversal" applies not simply to a sun, river, or ocean crossing but also the crossing of societal bounds. Popova posits that one's loves shape the course of one's life, discoveries, creations, ideas. Beginning with Captain James Cook embarking on the HMS Endeavour to witness the predicted 1769 transit of Venus across the sun, Popova hints that Cook perhaps served as a model for Mary Shelley's captain in Frankenstein (calling him a "Frankensteinian creature of disjointed character traits"), and astutely connecting science and art in the human quest for meaning. Furthermore, Frankenstein would not exist without Shelley being cast out by her father or her devotion to Percy Bysshe Shelley.
"Prometheus changed the world not by taking possession of fire but by sharing it with humankind," Popova writes. Antoine Lavoisier's widow, Marie-Anne, "worked tirelessly to ensure that Lavoisier's discoveries reached other minds." Her translations of his work helped standardize the scientific method.
While some readers may find the work a bit discursive, those who enjoy digressions will lap up this hefty work. Popova writes, "Each love we love and unlove alters the way we walk through life, alters the trajectory of our traversal along the shoreline of the self." Popova's well-researched, epic history makes this case over and over again. --Jennifer M. Brown