Customer Reviews

The Snowflake Man: A Biography of Wilson A. Bentley

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Author Blanchard brings humor, life, and compelling energy to an eccentric and an era previously hidden under a thick layer of (snow)dust. Bentley, generally considered an eccentric -- when considered at all -- was actually a dedicated scientist with an artist's eye and heart. What could have been dull scientific treatise actually reads with the smooth pull of a good novel.

It is said that no two snowflakes are alike; the same holds true for the obsessions that drive the human spirit. Some we control, others control us. Wilson A. Bentley, an eccentric Vermont farmer, gave in to his fascination with snowflakes and spent his entire life documenting their myriad forms. His unprecedented and starkly beautiful collection of literally thousands of photographs of snowflakes taught the world just how unique these ice crystals really are, and how one man could stubbornly pursue one microscopic slice of knowledge over the entire course of his life.

Bentley lived and died bewitched by atmospheric process. As a teenager, he built by hand the photographic equipment that would later gain him some measure of fame, often incorporating found materials - such as straws from a broom - into the rigors of his study. Dismissed by most as a harmless crank, his work was groundbreaking, leading to a revolution in understanding.

In The Snowflake Man, author Duncan S. Blanchard uses his professional training as a meteorologist and physicist to commemorate the labor of love that drove Bentley. The writing is, at best, of limited merit but in some odd way that only serves to make the images of Bentley - a confirmed bachelor - hunched over his photographic equipment all the more poignant. What is clear is that Mr. Blanchard knows his subject matter well and was no doubt inspired in his own career by the unwavering dedication, or obsession, of the odd and all but forgotten researcher.

Like Bentley's favorite subject matter, the book itself will quickly melt away - it is a slim effort that can be read in one sitting. The photographs, now almost a century old, are still remarkable though. Most compelling, however, is the insight it offers into obsession which will linger long after the last page. It is a worthy and recommended read if only to honor the fierce, undying commitment of the snow flake man.

Wilson A. Bentley rarely left Jericho, Vermont, but his contributions to meteorology and his extraordinary photomicrographs of snow crystals reach far and wide. In 1885, at the age of 19, Bentley became the first person to successfully photograph a snowflake. A lifetime of dedication -not to say obsession- to preserving the beauty of ephemeral snow crystals produced over 5,000 impressive snowflake images. Even now, Bentley's images are found on textiles, paper products, jewelry, and every sort of graphic art. Atmospheric scientist and author Duncan Blanchard has pieced together Bentley's story as best as possible with relatively little surviving documentation of his personal life. Of course, to Bentley, photographing snowflakes and studying atmospheric phenomena was his personal life. He was passionately devoted to it.

"The Snowflake Man" begins with a little Bentley family history, then follows Wilson's life and work from his birth in 1865 to his death in 1931 at age 66, shortly after the publication of his wonderful "Snow Crystals", which brought the best of his vast collection of snow crystal photos to book form. Bentley lived his entire life on his family's 4-generational farm and made his photographs in the barn, washing his glass plates in a brook, making copy negative with an oil lantern and contact prints by sunlight. He applied the same methodical perfectionism to recording the weather and studying the formation of raindrops and frost, among other atmospheric water phenomenon. Many of Bentley's contributions to meteorology were recognized at the time, but science took a few decades to catch up with his pioneering work in cloud physics.

Duncan Blanchard has written a sympathetic biography of Wilson Bentley, a man who suffered constant derision for his scientific obsession that was simply unproductive and out of place in a farming community. His spectacular photomicrographs opened the door to professional respect and, eventually, popular fame. This biography is more straightforward than eloquent, and Blanchard jumps to too many conclusions about Bentley's thoughts and his family. But the book is very readable and contains as much information on Wilson Bentley as anyone is going to find. There is an index in the back as well as a list of all of the known articles that Bentley authored in his lifetime.

I like when books (and movies) lead me to other books. I first heard about Wilson Bentley when my children were watching a Scholastic video featuring the book 'Snowflake Bentley' by Jacqueline Martin. I loved the story and thought it was fascinating. I later borrowed the book from the library and read it with my children.

At some point I discovered Snowflake Bentley's collection of snow crystals Snow Crystals (Dover Pictorial Archive) and the shorter collection of photographs Snowflakes in Photographs (Dover Pictorial Archive) and borrowed those from my local library as well.

Both books are beautiful collections of the actual photographs taken by Wilson Bentley, who took more than five thousand photos of snow crystals over the course of his life. My children and I were in awe of those photos. Looking at them made me want to learn more about the man who made creating and collecting their images his life's work. That's how I found this book.

I enjoyed learning about the life of Wilson Bentley. Duncan Blanchard has captured both the scientist and the man in this biography. Blanchard, an atmospheric scientist himself, includes a fair amount of information on meteorology, cloud physics and the phenomenon of undercooled droplets, noting that some of the questions Bentley pondered during his life were still unsolved mysteries at the time of publication of this book (1998). I have no idea if that is still the case or not but the point was made that Bentley was a genius and a man ahead of his time. The science of meteorology was not what drew me to this book.

What I enjoyed most about this book was getting a glimpse of Bentley as a man. His mother was the only person who encouraged his passion for snow, the rest of his family and most of the people in the small community of Jericho, Vermont thought he was "a bit cracked". He was mild mannered, some thought shy, he liked to play practical jokes and was a musician. Bentley did not make much of a living. When he applied to open a savings account at the Burlington Savings Bank he gave his occupation as "Snowflakes".

Later in life when he traveled to give lectures in the Burlington area he would take family friend Helen Shiner with him and during the intermission of his snow crystals slide show the two of them would perform for the audience, he would play the piano and she would sing. I enjoyed reading the many anecdotal stories, letters and quotes from Bentley's own writing. Blanchard has portrayed a man singular in obsession yet humble, with a sense of humor and a gift for poetry when writing about the snow he loved.

In 1904 Bentley wrote "The snow crystals...come to us not only to reveal the wondrous beauty of the minute in Nature, but to teach us that all earthly beauty is transient and must soon fade away. But though the beauty of the snow is evanescent, like the beauties of the autumn, as of the evening sky, it fades but to come again."

I'm glad I read this biography on "The Snowflake Man", I think readers who have an interest in meteorology, photography or the beauty of nature would appreciate the story of "Snowflake" Bentley's life.

This book, as is snowflakes, is very unique. Illustrations are fantastic and tell a story of their own!