This is a novel of great characters and even better atmosphere. Besides Tesla, who comes to life as a suitably mysterious elderly man pushing forward and looking back even as the end nears, there is Louisa, a curious chambermaid at the New Yorker hotel who works her way into Tesla’s life. The tendrils of the past, people lost, hold on to both of these characters tightly and we see some of that through various dips into history in addition to getting the sense of where both their lives are now. This introduces us to a host of fascinating secondary characters that hover over our main characters like ghosts.

But I think it is the atmosphere of the novel that will stay with me forever. New York of the 1940’s and the New Yorker hotel in particular, provide a setting for this novel that, though solid, seems to be shrouded in mist. This creates a world of reality constantly infiltrated by visions and dreams–of the past, of time machines, of bringing the dead to life–that are periodically pushed away by the ugly face of reality. It is very cleverly done.

Overall, I was tremendously impressed by this novel. Taking risks and occasionally coming close to hitting a sour note, it never did. This is one of the best novels I’ve read recently.

It’s also about a fictional chambermaid named Louisa, who is inclined towards being insatiably curious about the lives of the guests of the hotel. Louisa becomes obsessed with Tesla, his life and his inventions, and the two are drawn into a platonic friendship after discovering a mutual interest in homing pigeons. Louisa is also a part of another sub-story involving her widowed father, a family friend who claims to have invented a time machine, and a mysterious young man who may have come from the future.

Even though it’s a relatively small book, it includes a detailed account of the life of Tesla, his triumphs, his failures, his phobias and inventions, and the many times he snatched defeat from the jaws of success. The writing style is largely conversational, and it doesn’t get so bogged down in science that your eyes glaze over, but the overall structure of the story is sometimes hard to follow (and swallow).

The fact and the fiction don’t quite fit together in this historical work, but the rich descriptions of the architecture, social structure and ambience of early twentieth century New York make for interesting reading.

Recommended for inventors, science buffs and historians

Amanda Richards, April 10, 2008

Magical realism blends with scientific query and knowledge. It is 1943 at the New Yorker hotel, where Tesla lives in isolation and penury with his pigeons and his journal and his thoughts. He is fascinated by the mystery of homing pigeons, the fact that they consistently find their way home. He meets Louisa, an educated young chambermaid there, who shares his fascination with pigeons and has a coop she keeps at her home. They develop a fragile, compassionate, and intellectual relationship.

As the story unfolds, mysteries open to even larger mysteries, and time as a theme seems to have a current as charged as electricity. Louisa has an admirer, Arthur, who may be from the future. Her father, a melancholy and also isolated man still grieving for his dead wife, desires to enter a time machine (built by a friend of his) and reunite with his dead wife.

Hunt’s writing is sensuous and full of inner dialogue, blending aspects of psychology, philosophy, science, and science fiction. The characters are supple and vivid, but at times seem remote and stilted in relation to each other, even while their individual story lines overlap well and draw out the plot to its interesting conclusion.

The novel celebrates the luminous magic of science and nature and the inexplicable aspects of Time. The spirit of invention, in The Invention of Everything else, especially honors the life force itself. It does so with a bulging, beating heart.

I can tell you emphatically — absolutely — that there were no references to Jesus in the original. Whomever has inserted those passages in this book is grossly dishonest. I know that Matthews was a deeply spiritual man who did not believe in conventional religions. Period. I know this for a fact.

Instead, Matthews was taken to a place on Venus where he said he met with a group called “The Council of Nine.” This council could tell whether he was telling the truth. He was asked to describe the earth sciences as he understood them. He described biology, chemistry, all of the physical sciences as he knew them. When he described physics, the council objected that he was untruthful. Matthews said this was the earth’s understanding. This council told him this was completely wrong, and was vociferous in its objection to its basic principles.

As for the spiritual/religious stuff, the council told him that they were going to give him the secret to life at the end of his several meetings with them. The secret was love. Matthews noted in the original I read that this comported with the message of many of the earth religions. That was the extent of any reference to Jesus. This book makes Matthews sound like a born-again Christian, which he was decidedly NOT.

Further, the meetings with the Venusians have been dumbed down in this book. The original text was far more exciting. For example, Matthews described his initial meeting with a Venusian couple. The man was about 650+ years and the woman about 550+ years old. He extolled their beauty and serenity. They grilled him during meetings over two years about highly detailed aspects of Tesla’s work before ever going any further with him. Matthews made a point that there was no way anyone could have known about these highly technical aspects of Tesla’s work, because Tesla had not discussed them with anyone but Matthews in letters between the two. Those letters were in Matthews’ possession when Tesla died and not the US government, who declared all of Tesla’s private papers ‘classified’ within days of his death. The US government didn’t know about Tesla’s special relationship with Matthews at the time. How do I know this? Matthews tried to contact the US government to show them highly technical aspects of Tesla’s work during the 50s. The US govt. blew Matthews off as a Canadian kook. Matthews also contacted the Canadian government, who thought the same thing. So Matthews did the next logical step: he gave the information to the Russians.

As I wrote at the beginning of this review, I read this document in 1969. It made such an impression on me that I have never forgotten its contents. I can still see myself reading the original. I can still feel how I felt when I read it. I was shocked, actually, to see parts of it in “The Wall of Light,” 37 years later.

BTW, I cant review the ‘Tesla-written’ parts of this book. I have no way of knowing if they’ve been altered. The Matthews drawings appear somewhat genuine. The book is worth it for the Tesla part. Read the Matthews account with a jaundiced eye, and be suspect about about the sentimental parts of it. Matthews was not a sentimentalist.

I am giving three stars to what should be a five-star read because of the grossly inaccurate editing of Matthews writings in the book, obviously done after he died.

You can read this book in a weekend and it’s very interesting.
It’s his autobiography, his inventions.
It’s available free on the internet in pdf.
You should buy “A man out of Time” instead.

The introduction material in this book written by Ben Johnston is well prepared, informative, and brief. It is a good introduction to the rest of the book which is Tesla’s writing.

Tesla’s own words can be tedious, but hey the language has changed a bit in the last 100 years. He takes a few rabbit trails and talks much of his inventions not what he thinks and feels. I would really like to know why he liked pigeons so much but he never says. What Tesla doesn’t say, gives us insights to what is important to him. No serious study of Tesla can neglect this work.

For a more in-depth historical biography of the man see, Margaret Cheney’s “Tesla, Man out of Time”. ISBN 0-88029-419-1