Sunday Morning! “Rudin” by Ivan Turgenev

Rufus F.

Rufus is a likeable curmudgeon. He has a PhD in History, sang for a decade in a punk band, and recently moved to NYC after nearly two decades in Canada. He wrote the book "The Paris Bureau" from Dio Press (2021).

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5 Responses

  1. Doctor Jay says:

    I remember reading Dava Sobel’s Longitude, which is about a self-taught Englishman who solved the premier navigation problem of the day, which was how to determine the longitude of a ship at sea.

    Everyone thought the answer would be astronomical, but John Harrison figured out how to make a clock that was good enough it would keep time for months at sea. This time could be paired with observations of local noon to figure out Longitude.

    Now, The Royal Society had offered a substantial prize for this, and eventually (remember the astronomy part) told Harrison, “Well, ok, come get your money.” But Harrison said, “Wait, I have a better idea” and spent the next 18 years perfecting a clock that was, indeed, even better. I’m not sure he ever collected the money.

    This is that same guy. This is Rudin. This is so many engineers I know, and maybe to some extent its me.Report

    • He got the money in dribs and drabs, with a final appeal to the PM who convinced Parliament to pass a separate law and grant him the rest of the prize shortly before he died. I advise every young person I meet who’s going off to college to become a scientist or engineer to read Longitude. Everything you need to know about perseverance, inventing your way across gaps, and being stabbed in the back by politics is in there.Report

    • Rufus F. in reply to Doctor Jay says:

      I wanted to say that Rudin reminds me of this guy I know who played drums in my band and said he’d been diagnosed “bipolar,” but then explained “I’m very rarely depressed, but I’m pretty much manic all the time!!!” He *always* had three projects going and two more on the way. I think the longest-term one was being in our band, and he eventually quit to run his museum/tee-shirt/DJing/film distribution concerns, god bless him.Report

      • Doctor Jay in reply to Rufus F. says:

        That’s a bit different space than I had in mind. But I know that sort, too. Good at starting things, not so good at finishing them.Report

  2. Pinky says:

    I like Turgenev; he’s one of the underrated Russian stars. But I wish he’d been born at a different time. He got caught up in Hegelianism, and you can see how it imposed a structure on his novels. Everything’s thesis and antithesis.Report