Meticulous and impressive portrait of an engineer's engineer
5 stars
The one thing that everyone comments on is how confusing it is that the chronology is in reverse, and I have to agree, although maybe it would work out better in a movie. But I don't want to criticize too much for trying something innovative, and maybe the author selected this structure because the childhood years, despite receiving less lengthy and meticulous treatment, were the most amazing, that a kid who was considered hopeless by his teachers and didn't last more than a few years in school (who knows what would have happened to his intellectual curiosity if his mother hadn't been so aggressively supportive and home-schooled him) and hit the railroad tracks as an itinerant telegraph operator in his early teens, lost most of his hearing at age twelve, and was broke until his self-taught inventing paid off. And even in the rest of his life, he spent as …
The one thing that everyone comments on is how confusing it is that the chronology is in reverse, and I have to agree, although maybe it would work out better in a movie. But I don't want to criticize too much for trying something innovative, and maybe the author selected this structure because the childhood years, despite receiving less lengthy and meticulous treatment, were the most amazing, that a kid who was considered hopeless by his teachers and didn't last more than a few years in school (who knows what would have happened to his intellectual curiosity if his mother hadn't been so aggressively supportive and home-schooled him) and hit the railroad tracks as an itinerant telegraph operator in his early teens, lost most of his hearing at age twelve, and was broke until his self-taught inventing paid off. And even in the rest of his life, he spent as much as he made, always investing not just his money but all his time in bringing his ideas to fruition, so really, the later years were as inspiring (notwithstanding the occasional union busting, but he was no Henry Ford). There are obvious comparisons to current day tech entrepreneurs, but really there is no comparison, and the same with this bio, it's meticulous treatment, not a hagiography, with the bibliography itself spanning thirty pages.
