 |
|
Title: Galileo
ISBN: 0802130593
Author:
Bertolt Brecht
Publicate Date: 1994-01-11
Publish: 1994-01-11
List Price: $7.95
Average Customer Rating: 3.5
Format: Paperback
 |
|
|
|
|
Amazon Lowest New Price: $2.98
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $0.01
Amazon Merchant Price: $7.95
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Customer Review: |
|
1: "Any man who does what I have done must not be tolerated in the ranks of science" *
Recently, the American Psychological Association discovered, to its general embarrassment, that a good number its members had collaborated with Pentagon- and CIA-sponsored torturers--or practitioners of "enhanced interrogation." The psychologists had provided expert advice about levels of endurance, psychological techniques for cracking resistance, and so on.
To its credit, the APA formally condemned such collaboration. But the whole sordid incident reminds us (as if we need reminding) that when men and women of science allow their knowledge to be misused, either out of cowardice or misguided patriotism, science can become a horrible tool for exploitation and destruction. This, in a nutshell, is the central theme of Brecht's second version of "Galileo."
The play is one of Brecht's best. Written with a nondidactic hand, the play is anything but dreary socialist realism. At times funny and at other times incredibly sad, the sober message that it is the scientist's responsibility to make sure that his or her discoveries are used properly runs throughout. In abjuring his physics under threats from the Inquisition, Brecht's Galileo displays moral cowardice: first, because he allows established power to usurp his discoveries, and second because he lets down the people who could most profit from his specific discoveries as well as the spirit of unfettered inquiry that generated them. As Galileo says at one point in the play, "The practice of science would seem to call for valor."
Several reviewers have remarked that the introduction by Eric Bentley is long-winded and have accordingly reduced their rating for the book. This strikes me as odd for two reasons. First, presumably one purchases "Galileo" to read Brecht, not attached commentary. If the commentary is good, that's just a bonus. But the center of attention surely is the play itself. Second, for all his long-windedness, Bentley's thesis is cogent and, I think, important: that historical drama properly seeks to shed light on its own time by appealing to past events. It's not important that Brecht reinvents Galileo for his play. After all, he isn't writing history. What's significant is the way in which Galileo becomes a symbol that can shed light on our own understanding of science and moral responsibility. Truth ought never to be reduced simply to fact.
_________
* Galileo's final self-judgment, Scene 13 (p. 124).
|
2: The frailty of man
This book shows the scientific insights of Galileo and his stand againt the religious authorities, along with his collapse in the face of personal threat.
|
3: IN DEFENCE OF SCIENCE
The pressures that the established order can bring to bear on those who want to move outside the status quo are enormous. In the end those in charge can grind down the best of men with the most worthy knowledge to disseminate. That is the story that the master communist playwright Bertolt Brecht brings here about the pressures to recant brought on Galileo by the Catholic Church in the 1500's. And for what crime? For merely bringing out facts about the nature of the world and its place in the universe that are taken as commonplaces, even by children, today.
Brecht himself certainly knew about such pressures. Although in public, at least, Brecht was a fairly orthodox Stalinist he had his private moments of doubt. Certainly some of the themes in his plays stretch the limits of the orthodox `socialist realist' cultural program. Thus the strongest part of the play is the struggle between an individual who is onto something new about the world and an institution that saw that such a discovery would wreak havoc on its claims to centrality. Every once in a while a section of humankind turns inward on itself like that and here the Church was no exception. Damn, the fight against such obscurantism is the price that we pay for some sense of human progress. Except, as in the case of the Catholic Church, it should not have taken 300 years to admit the error. Know this. We have to defend the Galileos of the world against the rise of obscurantism. And in this play Brecht has done his part to honor that commitment.
|
4: ** 1/2 (**** for the play, zero for Bentley's comments)
Galileo is presented from the time of his first findings with which Mother Church took offense until twenty years after his recantation. While the play mainly focuses on Galileo and how his own views toward his work affect him and those around him, we're not allowed to go away without understanding how those views also affected the Italian society around him; as with all things, the subversion to be found in Galileo's discovery that the Earth revolves around the Sun instead of vice-versa seeps into the public mind, much to the Church's dismay. But at its heart, the play is about the man himself and those around him. Galileo himself, historically accurate or not, is a convincing character, and his family, friends, and supporters are also very well-drawn (with the arguable exception of his daughter, who never seems to really flesh out and become a believable human being; her actions and reactions are predictable and wooden). Whatever the message underlying, and whether the reader agrees with it or not, Galileo is first and foremost a decent piece of drama. Leave Bentley's preface until after you've drawn your own conclusions.
|
5: Galileo
So maybe it's not completely accurate. I just read this book for a class I have to take. I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed it. It wasn't the dry, boring piece of literature I had expected. It's really a book to read - maybe not multiple times, but at least once. It has an important message, and is presented in a reasonably interesting way.
|
|
|
|
|
