August 31, 2004

The Wild Numbers, Philibert Schogt

This is an academic midlife crisis novel and it isn't about adultery. It isn't even about literary theory. It's sort of about math, though not so much that that should scare anybody off. It's short. It's good.

Even short, it's remarkably immune to the telltale compression of the pages. The plot has many reverses but doesn't signal whether it's going to converge or diverge. Still, the story concerns ambition, madness, despair, and social competiton, with supporting rôles for father-son relationships, love, and the impossibility of human communication.

I can't find a translator's name in the Plume edition.

ISBN: 0452282470

So wrote clew in Fiction (21st c.). | TrackBack
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