It's as great a part of the human adventure to invent things as to understand them. John Randall wasn't a great scientist, but he was a great inventor. There's been lots more like him, and it's a shame they don't get Nobel Prizes. ↗
One of the professors told me last week that he feels bad teaching with the way the economy is now. ‘What’s the point?’ he said. ‘Kids aren’t getting jobs.’ You never hear faculty talk that way. He did. ↗
Well, it's an adventure story, and a Bildungsroman, of course, but there was also the intention to describe a culture that had been seen in rather narrow terms. ↗