The Hindu Business Line : Capsuled genius

WHAT is `genius'? It is the trait of standing both of and above its age, the gift of breathing life into what is best in every living person. That's the definition offered by Harold Bloom in his book Genius — a mosaic of one hundred exemplary creative minds such as Milton, Tolstoy, Socrates, and so on. A sampler:

We all learn to distinguish between genius and talent. A talent classically was a weight or sum of money, and as such, however large, was necessarily limited. But genius, even in its linguistic origins, has no limits.

So original is Don Quixote that nearly four centuries later, it remains the most advanced work of prose fiction that we have. It is at once the most readable and yet ultimately the most difficult of all novels.

Though the two man (and warring) branches of Islam, Sunni and Shiah, both assert their Koranic orthodoxy, and regard the other as heresy, no non-Muslim reader could hope to decide which is truer to the Koran, Cairo or Teheran.

In old days books were written by men of letters and read by the public. Nowadays books are written by the public and read by nobody. (Oscar Wilde)

Genius, so frequently adaptable, rarely has been so uncompromising as it was in Emily Bronte. Morality, of any sort, has little to do with Wuthering Heights, a savage romance that retains its capacity to shock the common reader.

Spend some time with the geniuses.

Book of facts

AUTHORITATIVE, comprehensive, easy-to-use, completely revised and updated for 2003. Thus reads the sales pitch of Time Almanac 2003, with more than one million facts. Such as?

The number and rate of twin births in the US continued to climb for 2000, rising to 29.3 per 1000 total births. The twinning rate has risen 55 per cent from 18.9 per 1000 since 1980.

Although many people are convinced that a cold results from exposure to cold weather, or from getting chilled or overheated, these conditions in fact have little or no effect on the development or severity of a cold.

The partition of Pakistan and India led to the largest migration in human history, with 17 million people fleeing across the borders in both directions to escape the bloody riots occurring across sectarian groups. In 1956, the Indian republic absorbed former French settlements. Five years later, the republic forcibly annexed the Portuguese enclaves of Goa, Damao and Diu.

1793: Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette executed. Reign of Terror begins in France. Eli Whitney invents the cotton gin, spurring the growth of the cotton industry and helping to institutionalise slavery in the US South.

Because hurricanes often occur at the same time, officials assign short, distinctive names to the storms to avoid confusion among weather stations, coastal bases, and ships at sea. Only women's names were used till 1979, when men's and women's names were alternated. Six lists are used in rotation. Thus, the 2002 list will be used again in 2008. A storm is given a name once its winds reach an intensity of 39 mph.

Keep it at hand, though the external boundaries of India as indicated in the maps are `neither correct nor authentic'.

World records

ASTONISHING facts and unparalleled human achievements.

Here is a whole bunch of them in Guinness World Records 2003, with over a thousand new records, new chapters on modern society and buildings, elephant polo in sports section, and an intro that ends with a teaser "What could you break... ?" Read on:

Largest currency introduction: On January 1, 2002, 15 billion euro banknotes and 50 billion euro coins were put into circulation. Put end to end, the new euro banknotes would stretch to the Moon and back two and half times.

Most nationalities in a sauna: On March 8, 2002, in Halmstad, Sweden, 29 male participants from 29 different countries crammed into the same sauna and shut the door for 10 minutes.

Longest river: The Nile and the Amazon both have a claim to the title of the world's longest river. The Nile is officially 6,695 km long, but lost a few after the formation of Lake Nasser behind the Aswan Dam, Egypt. The end point of the Amazon remains uncertain. It is approximately 6,750 km long.

With a male population of 66 per cent, men most outnumber women in Qatar. In Ukraine, 53.7 per cent of the population is female. Worldwide, the ratio is 1,015 males for every 1,000 females.

Most capacious building: Boeing's (USA) assembly plant at Everett, Washington, USA, has an indoor floor area of 39.8 hectares and a total volume of 13.4 million m3.

Longest test match:

The lengthiest recorded cricket match was the `timeless' test between England and South Africa at Durban, South Africa, which lasted from March 3-14, 1939.

It was abandoned after 10 days because England's ship home was due to leave — 1,981 runs were scored.

Try to find a place... for the book in your shelf.

(Books courtesy: Fountainhead, Chennai. E-mail: fhbooks@satyam.net.in)

Tailpiece

"I think our auditor took a performance-enhancing drug

"Why?"

"To give a clean report."

hindubusinessline@hotmail.com

D. Murali

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Capsuled genius