Doctor Copernicus by John Banville
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

"'I believe in mathematics,' he muttered, 'nothing more."

What a beautiful statement! Nicolaus Copernicus, the sixteenth-century mathematician, astronomer, physician, and economist, one of the greatest revolutionaries in the history of science who formulated the heliocentric model of the then known Universe, utters the above phrase during a conversation that happened some time in the 1490s at the University of Bologna. At least according to John Banville, the author of Doctor Copernicus (1976), a book that is quite hard to categorize: is it a historical novel or perhaps a fictionalized biography? In some places it even reads like a history textbook.

While I like reading biographies I find it hard to review them: one would need to know almost as much as the author about the subject of the biography to provide a worthwhile critique; I know little about Copernicus even if he is a national hero in my native country, the most famous Pole in history. Here lies another problem. Throughout my education - and I even graduated from a high school in Warsaw named after Copernicus - I had been invariably assured about utter Polishness of Copernicus. From early childhood I had known him as Mikolaj Kopernik while in Banville's book the name is Nicolas Koppernigk. I am now risking an accusation of treason when I quote Banville who has Copernicus' uncle, bishop Lucas Waczelrodt (Watzenrode), tell young Copernicus the following:

"'You are not German, nephew, no, nor are you a Pole, nor even a Prussian. You are an Ermlander, simple. Remember it.'"

Ermland (in Polish 'Warmia') was an autonomous political entity during Copernicus time and only later became a part of the Polish crown. We will probably never know what language was spoken in the astronomer's childhood home. It is known that he was fluent in Polish, German, and Latin, which was also the language of most of his writings.

The first two parts of the book are written from the third-person omniscient point of view and events from Copernicus' life are recounted in basically chronological order on the historical, political, and social backdrop of his times. Two central themes that the biography revolves about are Copernicus' lifelong quest to understand the structure of the Universe and his reticence to publish his masterwork, De Revolutionibus de Orbium Celestium.

In Part III, entitled Cantus Mundi, the author switches to the first-person narration by Georg Joachim de Porris, called Rheticus, who was Copernicus' pupil and who is considered responsible for getting his master to agree to publish De Revolutionibus. To me, this is by far the best part of the book, one that speaks to me with the strong feeling of realism that I find possible only in very well-written fiction. Also - this is just my personal proclivity - the part reads most literary to me with great prose, which occasionally turns quite strong like in:

"Yes, Dantiscus was a brilliant, fearless and elegant man. And a swine. And a fraud. And a lying, vindictive cunt."

I think that the appeal of the third part is a result of the author's device of having us look at Copernicus not directly from Banville's point of view but filtered through Rheticus' view.

Readers who like plots in their books will likely enjoy the turbulent story of Koppernigk's relationship with his brother Andreas. I appreciate that Banville underemphasizes the story of Koppernigk's relations with Anna Schillings, his housekeeper: these things belong to popular literature. On a somewhat related note, I found the background motif of the Teutonic Knights Order fascinating. Banville imagines the Grand Master Albrecht's conversation with Koppernigk in a powerful monologue that begins with:

"'Ah. The common people. But they have suffered always, and always will. It is in a way what they are for. [...] The common people? -- pah. What are they to us?'"

An interesting read!

Three-and-a-half stars.


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