“Cogito ergo sum” – I think, therefore I am. Many of us recognize this famous phrase by the seventeenth-century philosopher, mathematician and scientist René Descartes. But most of us are less familiar with Descartes’ unusual life and mysterious death, the subject of The Irrationalist: The Tragic Murder of René Descartes, a new work of historical fiction that is also a gripping murder mystery.
Author, scholar and East Sider Andrew Pessin has been researching Descartes for the past ten years and was inspired to write The Irrationalist by Richard Watson’s biography of the renowned philosopher and mathematician. Despite his fame, Descartes was not well liked. In fact, German academic Theodor Ebert proposed in 2010 that Descartes’ death may not have been due to natural causes.
In the novel, Descartes’ prickly personality, reclusive nature and brilliant insights unfold against a richly detailed background. The story begins with his murder. We then meet the man investigating his death: Adrien Baillet, a Jesuit priest and real person who wrote the first biography of Descartes. A bumbling but likeable character, Baillet is ill suited for his assignment but easy to root for. The novel draws on Baillet’s and Watson’s biographies in addition to Ebert’s work and letters written by Descartes.
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