The Discovery of Slowness

About this book

In The Discovery of Slowness German novelist Sten Nadolny recounts the life of the nineteenth-century British explorer Sir John Franklin (1786-1847). The reader follows Franklins development from awkward schoolboy and ridiculed teenager to expedition leader governor of Tasmania and icon of adventure. Everyone with whom he came into contact sensed that he was a rare man one who was out of his time and who moved to a different grander beat. That beat eventually led Franklin to sail once moreon his final fateful voyageinto the Arctic in search of the Northwest Passage. The Discovery of Slowness is both a riveting account of a remarkable and varied life and a profound and thought-provoking meditation on time.