(no subject)
This book, The Indian Clerk, is very strange. I can not decide whether I like it or not, and so I keep on reading. On one hand he does something that I thought would have been incredibly difficult, if not impossible: he not only conveys to the lay reader a basic understanding of an extreme obscure area of mathematics, but in addition the joy that a mathematician feels. And he does this not in general way, but in a very intimate and specific fashion which sheds light on both the mathematics and the people studying it. In this he achieves something which none of the books about mathematician have ever managed to do. All the other books I have read the writer can only make the mathematician sympathetic and human by talking about what he did outside of mathematics. In this book Hardy and Ramanujan are interesting because of their mathematics.
On the other hand his descriptions of Cambridge, the vanishing world of dons and secret societies, all feel just a little off. It reminds me of Memoir of a Geisha -- all the props are right, but somehow it just didn't feel quite right.
On the other hand his descriptions of Cambridge, the vanishing world of dons and secret societies, all feel just a little off. It reminds me of Memoir of a Geisha -- all the props are right, but somehow it just didn't feel quite right.