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The pursuit of knowledge, from Genesis to GoogleMEANWHILE

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From: International Herald Tribune
Date: 20041222
Author:Alberto Manguel

Alberto Manguel
International Herald Tribune
12-22-2004
One warm afternoon in the late 19th century, two middle-aged office clerks met on the same bench of the Boulevard Bourdon in Paris and immediately became the best of friends. Bouvard and Pecuchet (the names Gustave Flaubert gave to his two comic heroes) discovered through their friendship a common purpose: the pursuit of universal knowledge. To achieve this ambitious goal, they attempted to read everything they could find on every branch of human endeavor and, from their readings, cull the most outstanding facts and ideas. Flaubert's ...

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