Jennifer Szalai reviews for the NY Times (archived) a new biography of a remarkable man:
George Forster is one of the most fascinating figures you have probably never heard of. He was a naturalist, a humanist, an explorer and a revolutionary. His intellectual and emotional journey began in 1772, when he was still a teenager. For three years and 18 days, he sailed on Capt. James Cook’s second voyage to the South Seas, a young man both enthralled and horrified by what he saw.
The 17-year-old Forster had been recruited to the trip by his father, Reinhold, a Lutheran pastor with a bad temper and scientific ambitions. Reinhold and George collected shells, dried plants and animals preserved in alcohol. George made pencil sketches and watercolors. The journey was treacherous, but he delighted in the lush landscapes and the many islanders they encountered. What appalled him was the behavior of his fellow Europeans.
Forster is the vibrant subject of Andrea Wulf’s “The Traveler,” a lively new book that hums with her characteristic verve. Wulf first encountered Forster’s name while researching previous books on the naturalist Alexander von Humboldt and the early German Romantics. She was intrigued. Who was this 18th-century man who criticized an “unfair difference between the sexes” and promoted an early concept of human rights? A gifted linguist, Forster also noticed connections between the languages of the South Pacific, developing a theory of Polynesian migration that would be proved some 200 years later. He became enamored with the French Revolution and tried to bring it to Germany. “The Traveler” thrillingly revives the forgotten life of this “liberal thinker far ahead of his time.”
I have bolded the bit that makes it Hattic, but really, the whole thing is worth reading. Here’s another snippet:
When Cook’s men encountered resistance, they would speak of intransigent natives. Forster, however, not infrequently empathized with islanders who tried to defend themselves. Imagine that a bunch of strangers arrived on one’s shores and started waving guns around while making demands: “Surely from all appearances these people had a right to look at our men as a set of invaders.”
One of those people I wish I could meet. (His name, however, He was born George, but his name is now more appropriately often given as Georg Forster.)
His WP page (linked by Hat) is well worth reading too.
From his friend Lichtenberg:
Der Amerikaner, der den Kolumbus zuerst entdeckte, machte eine böse Entdeckung.
–the [native] American who first discovered Columbus, made a bad discovery
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
In 2007, an edition of his Reise um die Welt (original spelling) with a selection of color reproductions of his drawings was published by Eichborn as part of DIE ANDERE BIBLIOTHEK (initiated by Hans Magnus Enzensberger), with a biographical essay by Klaus Harpprecht. At the time it was unaffordable; a few laters I was able to buy a “Mängelexemplar” (without any actual “Mängel”) at a cheap price. It is a truly beautiful book.
According to Jenny Uglow’s NYR article, “he was baptized ‘George’–the spelling Wulf retains, although he varied it with ‘Georg’ in his later writings.”
Thanks, I’ve emended the post accordingly.
“with a bad temper and scientific ambitions” 🙂
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Chapter 1 subtitled “Childhood and Russia” can be read here.
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I wish Andrea Wulf gave more context for “diffirence between the sexes”. It does sound feministy, but I don’t even know what (what diference, that is) he’s talking about.
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I wish they gave more context for “diffirence between the sexes”. It does sound feministy, but I don’t even know what diference he’s talking about:(
“with a bad tempter and sceintific ambitions” (2)
Mente et malleo!
@drasvi
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‘So many men seem to be under the delusion that nothing is common sense but their own intuitions,’ he wrote during their courtship, ‘I don’t know this unfair difference between the sexes.’
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I would understand this to mean that Forster is saying that he rejects the dichotomy: men are rational (i.e., inclined to rational thought); women are emotional (i.e., not inclined to rational thought).
@PP, do you read the first part as “men too can be irrational”? (I took it to mean “what many men think about differences between the sexes is not really common sense, but their own intuitions”)
Anyway: yes, I think at the time this specific dichotomy was frequently mentioned (and sometimes rejected) in conversations between educated men and women. Not that it is forgotten.
@drasvi
It is hard for me to say anything more; even what I said was already speculative; all that Forster wrote there was (I think) that (a) men seemed to reject women’s intuitions as being incompatible with “common sense” unless the women’s intuitions matched those of the men and (b) he did not support this view. To be more sure of what he meant, you would need to know more about the correspondence and relationship, e.g., did these lines refer to an incident narrated by or a claim made by his correspondent (or even to something he himself had done, said, or written).
*high five*
Why do you call Andrea Wulf “he” — she’s a woman.
“Why do you call Andrea Wulf “he”
Possibly the influence of the Italian male given name Andrea or, less likely, the influence of the Albanian male given name so spelled.
PP, ага, thanks! So those men’s “common sense” in your interpretation is not the idea that women are [such and such] but some ideas different from some woman’s ideas.
I think all “he” on this page refer to Forster…
(however Albanian influence on us can’t be overestimated)