Lucy Jago

The Vikings thought the northern lights were the unearthly spirits of Valkyries pointing the way to the warrior’s afterlife in Valhalla. Eskimos thought they were evil spirits who decapitated the heads of children for sport. A former BBC documentarian tells a true story no less strange and tragic in The Northern Lights . Turn of the century Norwegian scientist Kristian Birkeland was obsessed with unlocking the mystery of what causes the aurora borealis, believing (correctly, as it turned out) that it was the interaction of solar wind with the Earth’s magnetic field. It was a gifted deduction, but after that his career was guided by an unlucky star. Other scientists refused to accept his unorthodox theories, forcing him to scrounge for money as an inventor. Despite some spectacular successes, that backfired when his business partner attempted to cheat him out of his profits, and even scuttled Birkeland’s Nobel Prize nomination out of jealousy. Meanwhile, Birkeland became so fixated on scientific pursuits that he absentmindedly double-booked his own wedding, and began to spiral into drug abuse. Strung out and paranoid, he died alone in a Japanese hotel room, armed with a pistol to protect himself from the British spies he thought were out to steal his ideas. (A fear that may not have been entirely unfounded.) As is so often the case, his ideas were accepted only years later, long after it was too late to halt his downward spiral. Jago’s clear prose, quoting extensively from the letters of Birkeland and contemporaries, is a worthy attempt at posthumous vindication. It’s also a compelling portrait of an archetypal unheralded genius, destroyed by forces both external and internal. Ruminator Books, (651) 699-0587, www.ruminator.com