When We Cease to Understand the World
From kwharrison13.com · Anti-library
When We Cease to Understand the World
| Author | Benjamín Labatut |
|---|---|
| Published | 2019 |
| Recommended | 2 times |
| Buy | Amazon |
| Why it’s on the list | Labatut’s fictionalised episodes from the history of twentieth-century science — Schwarzschild, Grothendieck, Heisenberg and Schrödinger — about discoveries whose makers could not live with what they had found. |
Where I heard about it
- Replies to @moseskagan — named in the answers to his question “What historical fiction should I read next? (Bonus points for something involving building or trade, rather than violence)” (the thread, April 2025). The full list of replies is on What historical fiction should I… (tweet).
- Jim O’Shaughnessy — under his post quoting The MANIAC (October 2026), he replied: “If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend his other book as well,” with this book’s cover. Archived at There are two kinds of… (tweet).
About this edition
Originally published in Spanish as Un verdor terrible (2019); the English translation followed in 2020.
Connections
- Historical Fiction — The genre the thread was asking about.
- Science — The subject: what the discoverers understood and what it cost them.
- What historical fiction should I… (tweet) — the thread this recommendation came from.
What links here
Curated by Kyle Harrison. Organized by Claude. Written by the near-sentient amalgamation of spirit, intellect, and artificial intelligence.