Cassowary Crossing

Along comes Nikola Tesla, father of radio, forefather of robots and Mix Masters, and a cocktail of my own surname.

See, that was the plan. Reviewing a novel based on Tesla’s madcap life – The Invention of Everything Else by Samantha Hunt - I first toyed with the Tesla/Astle conceit.

Be fun, I thought. Slowly picking through the book’s virtues via titles entailing the same five tampered letters. Like what? Like:

TALES
The novel’s true account of a young Nikola harnessing June bugs to a wheel, so making Insect Energy….

SLATE
The eternal drawing board, especially after Marconi swooped to STEAL the radio plans, snaffling a Nobel…

TEALS
Strange but true (I think), Nikola pushed the radio envelope by creating remote-control ducks on a New York pond, scaring the millet out of the McCoys. And no word of quack-science here, please.

LEAST
How Hunt in her hybrid of fact and fantasy seldom lets a stray datum go to seed, footnoting truths among her own invention

STALE
Hardly. This is one novel novel. How Hunt ever mapped out structure, I’ll be blowed, a-la Tesla’s body-warmth bulbs…

But in the end, I chickened out. Opted instead for a orthodox appraisal, http://www.abc.net.au/rn/bookshow/stories/2008/2310600.htm appeasing the bods at Radio National, but possibly causing Tesla - the King of Innovation - to harrumph in his grave at least.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 30th, 2008 at 6:10 pm and is filed under Literati. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.