The Counterfeiters: An Historical Comedy
by Hugh Kenner
Category: Humor

Wide-ranging enough to encompass Buster Keaton, Charles Babbage, Jonathan Swift's hyper-civilized horses, and Alan Turing-a mathematician with a penchant for riding a bicycle while wearing a gas mask-The Counterfeiters is one of Hugh Kenner's greatest achievements. In this fascinating work of literary and cultural criticism, Kenner seeks the roots and results of mankind's quest to both reproduce and improve upon the natural world (a Victorian clockwork duck that can eat and quack), and even himself (a computer that can solve equations faster than we can). The intermingling of art and science, of man and machine, of machine and art, is the heart of this book. With his characteristically accessible style and wit, Kenner brings together history, literature, science, and art to find the personal in what is an increasingly counterfeit world. Book jacket.