Newton's Brain
(By Jakub Arbes)
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| Author | Jakub Arbes |
A weird tale of sleight-of-hand, of resurrection, of time travel, from the late 19th century. 'Newton's Brain' by Jakub Arbes, translated from the Czech by Josef Jiří Král, is an example of what the author called a 'romanetto', a very brief novel, often with fantastic elements. Published in English in 'Poet Lore' in 1892, the book tells the story of a young man of science, whose beliefs are tested when his childhood friend shows up unexpectedly—unexpected, because he had died when a sabre split his skull in two during the Austro-Prussian War some months earlier. Convinced that his friend is playing some kind of elaborate ruse, he accepts his invitation to a secretive lecture, at which his friend—who claims to have had his own damaged brain replaced with that of Isaac Newton—promises to reveal everything.
JAKUB ARBES (June 12, 1840-April 8, 1914) was a Czech writer. A disciple of Jan Neruda, Arbes would carve out his own niche in the rapidly changing world of European letters, creating the form he called the 'romanetto', brief, proto-detective novels often with Gothic elements, influenced strongly by Edgar Allan Poe. An opponent of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and publisher of political magazines, Arbes would spend 15 months in prison, leaving Prague shortly thereafter to join other expatriates in France.”
