What happens when a mind full of plans must face a body that can no longer keep pace?

In The Journal of a Disappointed Man, W. N. P. Barbellion begins as a boy watching animals, collecting insects and filling notebooks. Behind the pen name is Bruce Frederick Cummings, a young English naturalist hungry for knowledge. His love of living things grows into a pressing ambition: to earn a place among serious scientists.

Work at the Natural History Museum in London brings colleagues, superiors and rivals into his diary. Then illness threatens a future he still longs to build. Alongside his search for answers from doctors, Barbellion records friendship, love and shifting moods. He is funny, restless and sometimes vain, with little wish to hide the less flattering parts of himself.

この本で学べること

• A boy watching closely See the English countryside through a young collector's fascination with animals, insects and small discoveries.
• The hunger to belong Follow a self-taught naturalist as he seeks his place among professionals.
• Science and its rivalries Meet the colleagues and rivals who fill his working life with friction.
• Plans under threat Encounter an honest account of illness while ambition still presses forward.
• An unguarded inner life Find friendship, the search for love, and moods that refuse a cheerful disguise.

どのような方におすすめですか？

率直な日記、独学の科学者、戦時下のロンドン、音楽や自然についての文章が好きで、機知に富む落ち着かない心に付き合いたい方に向いています。