THE TEMPTER

by Norbert Wiener ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 22, 1959

The Tempter is engineer-scientist Gregory James, educated in Switzerland, born in Russia, chief engineer of William Controls and a pioneer of control devices in marine engineering and automation. Combining to an unusual degree pure science with a love of business manipulations, James leads into temptation Diego Dominguez, a mediocre scientist with a big reputation, whom his company needs as a ""cover"" for their quasi-legal borrowing of ideas from an English eccentric self-taught engineering genius. James had little personal life (his one and only love died young); he considered his employer's children almost as his own; and the novel is written in the form of a letter to the eldest son. This fictional apologia pro vita sua, the first novel of one of the world's foremost mathematicians, is as might be expected from Wiener an interesting, authentic, quite definite and easily understandable picture of a part of the world of applied science over the past 40 years. All the more disappointing in contrast is the author's pedestrian use of language. An above average novel by virtue of its subject and the reputation of its author.

Pub Date: Oct. 22, 1959

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Random House

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1959

Categories: FICTION