Technologists [Paperback]

Ordinarily, I am reluctant to read Literature-with-a-capital-L. Books that are (or are apt to be) reviewed by the New York Times tend to have self-conscious (if beautiful) prose, tortured characters, and unhappy endings. So years ago, when Matthew Pearl's The Dante Club was all the rage, I studiously ignored it, until a friend said, "You're coming to town? That night is my book club. Read this before you arrive." ...And I was hooked. Pearl writes beautifully _without_ torturing everybody in sight; he makes you savor each page.

So when I saw his new book among my Amazon Vine options, I reached for the SEND ME THIS BOOK button without hesitation.

This novel is set in Boston in 1868 -- the same era as The Dante Club, but down the street a few miles. Our heroes (including our primarily protagonist) are in the final few months at the newly founded Massachusetts Institute of Technology, whose fifteen-member inaugural class is about to graduate. Meanwhile someone is doing dastardly deeds, beginning with a disaster in the Boston Harbor that cannot be explained (such as compasses that go haywire). And there is ABSOLUTELY NO WAY anyone would ask the students from that weird Tech school to get involved, when there is the respectable Harvard University down the street whose assistance might be asked instead.

The MIT history is real. The science-based attacks in Boston, not so much. Which is just fine with me, because Pearl's story kept my mind whirring to separate the stuff I know (I've spent a lot of time in Boston) from the fiction. And because I learned so very much about what it meant to be a "technologist" in that era.

Today, we take the march of technology for granted. We may object to its overuse and its excesses and we may worry about automation taking away jobs, but it's part of our lives. In the late 1800s, when Darwinism was considered a cultish belief system that no self-respecting scientist would take seriously, the Institute of Technology was on very shaky ground. "When I was a student at Harvard," says an MIT professor in one scene, "My very interest in chemistry made me an outcast, and later Agassiz refused to allow me to teach it there. The Institute is on the verge of leading the way to a new age of scientific acceptance among the public, and we cannot risk delaying that."

The end result was a book that I didn't want to put down. Pearl drew me into the era completely... though perhaps my familiarity with present-day Boston gave the mental picture more depth. I liked the characters, and I was sometimes startled by the intersection of so many events; in 1868, Boston is still trying to come to terms with the end of the Civil War, for instance.

The Technologists is not absolutely perfect; some of the viewpoint-changing got on my nerves a teeny bit. And I wonder if a reader who is less scientifically-minded will follow some of the experiments.

I heartily recommend this book as a great historical mystery for techies. And probably for others, too (though they may give it 4 stars); Pearl is a good storyteller.

The book starts out with a good bit of action in regards to the Boston Harbor and a strange occurrence in a heavy fog that causes many boats to either collide or run into their piers. There is major damage, several boats sink but fortunately not a lot of loss of life. But what caused the magnetic flux that made all of their compasses go haywire?

Then in the downtown section during the day a strange occurrence as the glass in the windows of all the businesses on that street start to melt! That's right the glass windows become liquid. But then as they drain out of their frames they reconstitute into glass and shatter as they hit the ground, or in the case of one unfortunate person they are encased in liquid glass that then becomes a solid cone of death.

What is happening? The police are stumped? Can the Technologist from MIT step in and provide clues or answers as to what is happening? Yes they could, but unfortunately the police and the other universities in the city do not think that they are a valid institution of higher learning and they don't want to enlist their help. As a matter of fact their students are looked down on as being from the lower classes and not as well educated.

Thus the basic battle of higher intellectual pursuits verses 'science.' Not only that but the other institutes were founded on Biblical principles and this new institute has a bunch of people who believe in Darwinism. So they are even more suspect.

The first third of the book flows well and kept my attention. But then I felt that the writing slowed down, the story slowed down and the author takes too much time building a backstory for one of the characters. Or at least the building of this backstory was boring.

The pace will pick up again, but not quick enough. Usually I get through a book pretty quickly. But I will admit that I set this down and went to two other books and read them completely until I pushed myself to go back.

So, while the story is intriguing for whatever reason it didn't keep my interest well.

This is a typical Matthew Pearl novel- historical fiction revolving around a strange mystery that involves both real and fictional characters. In this case we are in 1868 Boston where the first graduating class of MIT needs to find out who is harnessing technology to destroy the city. It evokes a time when Darwin was new and very controversial and applied science was looked upon as almost magic, with the potential to upend society and corrupt public morality. And yet it was also the time, right after the Civil War, when the US was about to become a major industrial power because of those same forces, and this tension forms the backdrop for this whole narrative.

As others have noted, the first 150 pages can be slow reading, as the author introduces a wide range of characters and their back stories to substantiate the world he is creating and also to widen the pool of suspects. I thought some of it was unnecessary, but that is the writer's call. I did find myself liking the characters more as I continued, so a purpose was served.

Once the half way mark is passed, the action really increases, as do the twists in revealing the culprit's identity, though I honestly figured it out fairly early- if you read enough mysteries I guess you get good at these sort of things.

Pearl does an excellent job of depicting the times, and being a big fan of Boston I really enjoyed this historical incarnation. Additionally, MIT really is a major, if not THE major, character, and a long time ago I was accepted as a graduate student there, so needless to say I was fascinated in reading about its early years. It will be shocking to some to see how a mere 150 years ago much of what we take for granted was considered almost heretical.

Reading this book, I found it a little Dickensian, which I guess is understandable. However, it also reminded me of Harry Potter - a group of young people in a mysterious school who set out to save their world using their almost magical abilities. Engineering as necromancy- something Arthur C Clarke talked about years ago. I wonder if this was Pearl's intention, or just me subconsciously influenced by Rowling's success?

All in all this was an excellent novel by an author who is getting better with each work. You will find yourself slowly but inexorably drawn into the lives of the Technologists as they deal with both their everyday concerns and interests while at the same time being forced to solve a mystery which threatens the lives of the people of Boston and their school's future. And you will cheer at the climax when all these young people come together to demonstrate the qualities which will lead America into its exceptional future.