TLS on Vollmann's latest book

excerpts from Around the sun by J. L. Heilbron

review of UNCENTERING THE EARTH. Copernicus and "On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres". William T. Vollmann. 302pp. Weidenfeld and Nicolson. Pounds 18.99. -
978 0 297 84568 3. US: Norton. $15.95. - 978 0 393 32918 6.

In The Postmodern Condition (1989), Jean-Francois Lyotard wrote: "The old principle that the acquisition of knowledge is indissociable from the training of minds . . . is becoming obsolete and will become ever more so". His prediction that knowledge acquisition and mind training would part company appears to be confirmed at Harvard, the world's leading university, where, according to its current President, Derek Bok, many of its seniors graduate without being able to write well or reason clearly. William T. Vollmann's Uncentering the Earth would fit perfectly into a curriculum for underachieving undergraduates. It conveys no worthwhile reliable information, assumes readers with no capacity for reasoning, and insinuates that a trained mind is a wasted one. The series in which Vollmann's book appears seems directed to such a readership. It rests on the postmodern premiss that books about science are all the better if written by non scientists.
...Why does his failure matter? Vollmann is an accomplished writer with a large and devoted following; Uncentering the Earth will be read. Harvard graduates and others unable to reason will come away mistakenly thinking that they have learned something worthwhile. Those who realize that they have gained nothing may lose more. They may conclude that science, even elementary astronomy, is too deep a mystery for ordinary minds.