Longitude: A Few of My Favorite Things

Reviews

I just finished watching the A&E miniseries of Longitude, based on the book of the same name by Dava Sobel. Mmmm, over three hours featuring a few of my favorite things — tall ships, clocks and pocketwatches, and eighteenth-century costumes and sets. Not to mention Jeremy Irons, who adds visual appeal to anything.

The quest to figure out how to measure longitude at sea was integral to the ability of ships to successfully navigate the open ocean. I love reading tall ship stories, and they’re full of ships lost at sea as a result of imprecise navigation. Even after John Harrison, the protagonist of this story, invented a chronometer that could accurately measure time at sea despite the pitching and yawing of the ship, navigation was no sure thing — the ocean is a large and dangerous place. The director of the A&E series added an element that wasn’t in Sobel’s book by interweaving Harrison’s story with that of Rupert Gould, a psychologically shaken WWI veteran who became obsessed with restoring Harrison’s four timepieces.The visual meshing of the stories is quite well-done, although I found Harrison’s story more compelling than Gould’s.

One thing that struck me as I watched the series — other than the thought that some of the crazier ideas for measuring longitude really need to be appropriated by a fantasy author — is how long it took for John Harrison to perfect his clock and finally wrest his award out of the prejudiced hands of the Board of Longitude. He worked on his project for over 43 years and fought hard to get it recognized, only succeeding after King George, who tested one of the timepieces himself, interceded with Parliament on Harrison’s behalf.

Forty-three years is longer than I’ve been alive! I hope I can remember Harrison’s example as I work to attain my own goals. He never gave up, not even in his seventies, not even faced with a Board that was clearly never going to grant a mere carpenter the equivalent of over $11 million today. And while Gould’s tale didn’t impress me quite as much, he was another man who was driven by a goal and overcame psychological problems and social scandal to achieve his dream. I hope I can remain as dedicated to my dreams as they were.

And all this thinking about longitude and chronometers gave me another idea to scribble on my whiteboard for a possible Clockwork Heart sequel. I mean, as long as Cristof is still tinkering around with gears and mainsprings….

drupagliassotti @ June 27, 2008