By John Stuart Clark AKA Brick (A BrickWorks Limited Edition Monograph)
No ISBN
Do you love a mystery? How about conspiracy theories? What about science, truth and common sense, all overwhelmed and overturned by venality, self-seeking scholarly self-aggrandizement and national pride? All that and more are on show in the witty, incisive and superbly engaging exposé of not just Fake News but actual Fake History from Nottingham-based investigative, political cartoonist and campaigning educator Brick.
The name might not be familiar but if you’re politically aware, socially active and can remember the real cost of Thatcherism, you will probably have seen John Stuart Clark’s excoriating artwork for decades-worth of trade unions, NGOs and pressure groups. You might also have seen his masterful graphic novel Depresso.
That’s still available online and digitally, whereas the subject of today’s lesson is not. A forensic deconstruction of the unethical nature of special interests (no matter how minor) and the sheer gullibility of humans in groups of more than one, The Strange Case of Leonardo’s Bicycle is a hefty paperback tome packed with detail, deliberations and deliciously confirmable data that you can – and should – only get direct from the publisher. Fret not: I’ll tell you how at the end…
Using humour as his scalpel, Brick peels back decades of nonsense generated by assorted factions with something to gain and corrects a bizarre blip in the history of knowledge which can be broken down thusly. Around 1820, minor German noble and inveterate inventor Karl Friedrich Christian Ludwig Freiherr Drais von Sauerbronn created the world’s first recognisable bicycle. In 1974, minor Italian historian Professor Augusto Marinoni discovered drawings by intellectual paragon Leonardo Da Vinci that “proved†the old master had perfected all the necessary mechanical principles – and provided a blueprint for the bicycle – 324 years previously. Cue global frenzy, intrigue in the highest levels of the Catholic Church, nationalist upsurges in Italy and a massively profitable boost in the ever-expanding Leonardo Industry…
Broken down into diligently researched, easily digested portions, the wide-ranging story unfolds after meeting our affable, scene-setting host on tour in the Vinci region for ‘The Introduction’. We observe the politically dangerous von Drais at the start of the 18th century as he unleashes ‘The Invention’ and, in 1974 Italy, ‘The Lecture’ by Marinoni that launched the miasma of misinformation…
Connecting dots far and wide, Brick explores the provenance of ‘The Notebooks’ Da Vinci’s bike was “found†in, as well as the parlous time of political unrest in 1960s Italy which led to ‘The Terror’ and a need for a patriotic distraction, before moving on to recount how ‘The Sceptics’ and ‘The Fakes’ thrown up by a prejudicial scan of history muddied the tracks even further…
Some cartoon time travel introduces us to ‘The Maestro’ in his heyday while ‘The Crazies’ he inspired and ‘The Industry’built around him in the 20th century show us how such preposterous notions can take on an unstoppable life of their own (can you say “Anti-Vaxxerâ€?) after which ‘The Godforsaken Years’ takes us back to 1815 and shows how geological catastrophe sparked the need for the German genius to devise a manpowered substitute for horses in the first place…
‘The Democrat’ Von Drais then gets his time in the sun before ‘The Reveal’ finally investigates who might actually have created Leonardo’s drawing – and why – before ‘The Epilogue’ engages outrage overload with a fresh revelation. Apparently 500 years before the birth of Christ, mythical Chinese artisan Lu Ban built a wooden velocipede. There are even photos…
Like all proper theses, this magnificent filleting of populist nonsense comes fully loaded with ‘The Appendix’: a weighty tract of annotations and acknowledgements adding even more punch to the arguments.
Sharp, smart and truly compelling, The Strange Case of Leonardo’s Bicycle is a rationalist triumph, comprehensively applying Occam’s Razor to the tyres of runaway fabulism and delivering a shockingly unforgettable joy ride along the way.
© John Stuart Clark (AKA Brick) 2019. All rights reserved.
Accepting cheques, BACS bank transfers or Paypal, the book is available from www.brickbats.co.uk/bookshop. You could also enquire about the Signed and Numbered limited edition, if you have a bike fanatic in your life you need to impress or mollify…