The Observations of Professor Maturin

Professor Bedelar Maturin is a man who has refined the art of doing very little with tremendous deliberation. A bachelor of independent means and irrepressible curiosity, he drifts through life collecting observations the way others collect stamps: systematically, with quiet delight, and to the mild bewilderment of everyone around him. Through a series of wandering conversations at dinner tables, in railway carriages, and along country lanes, Maturin turns the mundane into the magnificent, dissecting a perfectly cooked egg with the same rigor another man might reserve for ancient philosophy. Written in the early twentieth century, this is a portrait of a man who has decided that the purpose of existence is to pay attention to it and found that decision more than sufficient. The prose moves with deliberate, gently comic unhurriedness, mirroring its subject's philosophy. For readers who cherish the pleasure of spending time with a singular character whose eccentricities reveal far more about life than conventional wisdom ever could.