The French mathematician - Softcover

Petsinis, Tom

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140264728 ISBN 13: 9780140264722

Publisher: Walker & Co., 1997

Synopsis

"....I am a child again, running happily toward Mother, eager to tell her that I have learnt to count backwards to zero." The French mathematician is Evariste Galois, brilliant and tragic, whose work was dismissed by his contemporaries. A ferventRepublican in post-Revolutionary France, Galois was imprisoned at the age of twenty and died a year later in a mysterious early-morning duel. A quasi-autobiographical novel recreating Galois' world which will be enjoyed by anyone who savoured the intellectual drama of FERMAT'S LAST THEOREM.

About this title

Review

The French Mathematician is a fictional memoir of Evariste Galois, the mathematical genius who made innovations in algebra before his untimely death in 1832. Galois narrates the book, describing how he sought solace in "the order and certainty of geometry" during the social and political upheaval in France at the time. The book chronicles his adolescence, his growth as a mathematician, his political awakening, and his death in a duel. Tom Petsinis teaches math at a university in Australia, and this is the first of his books to be published in the United States. The bare outline of Petsinis's book is interesting, but unfortunately The French Mathematician is somewhat overburdened with flowery language and hallucinatory dream sequences. When Galois works hard on a math problem, he tends to fall into a reverie, like this: "My heart was now beating faster than usual. No longer Evariste Galois, I am impersonal, at one with the eternal mind responsible for mathematics, impelled forward to discover the mystery at the center of the labyrinth. But just as the solution is within reach, I am distracted by the scent of chamomile." A scantily clad temptress interrupts the young genius's reverie during this hallucination and several others. Even though Galois struggles to separate himself from the distractions of the material world, a love affair ultimately brings on his demise. Evariste Galois was probably a fascinating, difficult person, but the budding mathematician Petsinis describes in this book is not a very likable or interesting character--he's a sort of humorless and bitter teen. --Jill Marquis

About the Author

Tom Petsinis is a novelist, poet and playwright. His play, THE DROUGHT, was shortlisted for the Victorian Premier's Literary Award and won the Wal Cherry Playscript of the Year. He lives in Melbourne and teaches pure mathematics at the Victoria University of Technology in Footscray.

Edition details

• Publisher: Walker & Co.
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0140264728
• ISBN 13: 9780140264722
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 425