I don't usually "give away the ending" of a book I'm reviewing. However, it's very hard to review this book sensibly without touching on things that come up near the end, including some things that might be thought of as "spoilers" in a more conventional book. I honestly don't think they would spoil your enjoyment of the book. The plot is hardly the main point here, although it is in fact a gripping story.
Would it really spoil a James Bond movie for you if I leaned over and whispered in your ear, "Bond gets the villain in the end."? Of course not.
Still, if that sort of thing bothers you, if you hate reading any review that reveals anything other than stuff that happens in the first few pages, then you might want to skip the rest of this review and just take away would normally be the last paragraph, moved up here for your convenience:
Read this book! It's surprisingly engaging and enjoyable, despite being based on a subject matter that would put many people to sleep if handled conventionally. This most unconventional narrative with enthrall even the most anti-mathematical soul.
And now that we've had the ending, let's start at the beginning:
This book is about the fundamental quest for certainty, the nature of truth and how we can be sure that we know what it is that we think we know.
That sounds like a treatise, a philosophical essay of the time most would probably find boring, but this is in fact a fascinating story, presented through the lives of some of the foremost philosophers and mathematicians of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, focusing primarily on the late Bertrand Russell.
It's also a dialogue between the two writers and the artists who drew the pictures. Indeed, the book opens with Apostolos Doxiadis speaking directly to the audience. If you don't like that sort of thing, you probably won't like this book, because the whole thing goes back and forth like that. In fact, most of the book is presented as being told by Doxiadis to co-writer Christos Papadimitriou, with the artists occasionally entering into the conversation.
The heart of the book is a lecture by Russell at "an American University," supposedly given on September 4, 1939, the day after England declared war on Germany in response to Hitler's September 1 invasion of Poland.
(I say "supposedly: because it's pretty clear that this event is at least fictionalized, if not completely made up. In the course of it, Russell recalls meeting people that he never met, or meeting people decades earlier than he actually met them. However, the authors assure us that the *ideas* presented are faithfully presented as are those associated with them, and the way these ideas clashed and developed on each other is real.)
When Russell arrives the way to the lecture hall is blocked by protesters, who demand that Russell call off his lecture and join them in their protest against this new war, reminding him that he spent time in prison as a pacifist during World War I. Instead, Russell advises them that the theme of his lecture, "The Role of Logic in Human Affairs," will touch on their concerns and invites them all in to listen, and then make up their own minds.
After joking that a lecture on the role logic has actually played in determining human affairs in history would be very short, Russell makes it clear that his subject is the role logic should play, and as the lecture develops we see that it is also about the role logic can play, the extent to which human beings are even capable of acting logically, and finally, on the very existence of logic as a reality outside the abstractions of philosophers and mathematicians.
Russell proceeds to give his audience an autobiography, which means, of course, that Doxiadis is giving Papadimitriou a biography of Russell, which of course also means that the team of creators responsible for the book is telling us Russell's life story. This Russian doll structure of the story is, I think, an important part of what makes the story work, and also makes a subtle commentary on the subject matter.
Russell's account of his life focuses on his life-long quest for verifiable truth. At first, he was attracted to mathematics because it seemed so objective and absolute. Eventually, however, he discovered that it was built on a set of axioms, which were basically nothing more than assumptions, unsupported and unprovable. He began to search for something that would ground mathematics in a provable way, a search that led him to philosophy.
With A.N. Whitehead, he began to work on what would become a massive multi-volume Principia Mathematica, which ran to thousands of pages. In the first volume, the authors spent 362 pages proving that 1+1=1.
In the lecture, Russell is confessionally frank about his own failings, and also of those he encountered along his journey, which includes a veritable Who's Who of the most important mathematicians and philosophers of his time, a few of whom ended up in asylums. Indeed, the authors belabor this point perhaps too strongly, wondering if there may be some kind of link between logic and madness.
To me, the real point is not that geniuses are susceptible to madness -- that is so commonplace an observation as to be cliché, though some might find it surprising that geniuses of a logical and mathematical cast of mind may be just as susceptible to it as artists and poets. No, the truly meaningful insight provided by Russell's lecture is hinted at in his opening joke: even among those most devoted to it, logic doesn't guarantee actually making correct decisions in life. Not only do many of its most devoted advocates find it difficult to actually apply to their own lives, but even seemingly logical decisions can turn out to be disastrously wrong. Russell's decisions regarding the experimental upbringing of his son lead to bitter resentment on the son's part later in life.
Russell ends by challenging the audience to examine their own axioms and assumptions, to question their own certainty. He leaves no doubt about his own stance, but at the same time insists that it must be an individual decision.
Logicomix
By Apostolos Doxiadis
and Christos Papadimitriou
Art by Alecos Papadatos
Colors by Annie Di Donna
Published in the U.S. October 2009
Bloomsbury, 352 pp., $22.95, trade paperback
4 stars (out of 5)
Friday, May 21, 2010
Friday, May 14, 2010
World War II Is Background for Spy Tale
Evelyn is a ten-year-old girl with an active imagination and an artistic flair who is staying with her aunt in New York City in the summer of 1942. She spends much of her time writing and drawing in her notebook. She writes comic book stories about Zirconium Man and his sidekick Scooter. They always manage to save the day, even while being threatened by black tendrils that seem to grow out of everywhere and fill the panels.
Evelyn, who looks quite a bit like Scooter, wants to be a hero, too. "Maybe not yet," she says, "but one day."
Evelyn's aunt is not exactly the best choice for being responsible for a child. A rich girl who fancies herself an artist, she lives a hedonistic life and at first barely pays attention to her niece. Evelyn's father has sent her there so he can honeymoon with his new wife - the fifth or sixth, according to Evelyn, since her mother died. "The new one looks exactly like Lana Turner. And the one before that looked like Ginger Rogers. And the one before that looked like Veronica Lake ... and the one before *that* looked like -- "
Her litany is interrupted by the mother of her confidant and only friend - the only other kid, in fact, living in the building. Tony is the son of the building super, and she meets him when he comes to help his dad fix a leak in their bathroom.
Tony and Evelyn go to a movie, where they see a public service announcement warning about Nazi spies. "Citizens of New York City are being asked by the Federal Bureau of Investigation to keep an eye out for suspicious behavior. " Soon the two would-be spycatchers are prowling the streets looking for people with foreign accents - which are plentiful, since the apartment is in Germantown, where lots of German immigrants have recently renamed their stores things like "USA Meats" and "Uncle Sam Donut Shop." Tony sees a man who looks quite a bit like Adolf Hitler himself getting his shoes shined, but Evelyn is convinced he's a real American because his pants don't have cuffs. "Straight legs are American-style. Dope."
Evelyn and Tony finally decide that the doorman of their building is a Nazi spy. They see him take a ticking package out of his locker, and hear him on the phone with someone:
Evelyn decides that "the yards" must mean the Brooklyn Naval Yards, and they find a policeman, who happens to be with his friend a reporter, and they find the doorman still walking, and follow him to a building and bust into the room - to find him in bed with a woman for whom he has brought a cuckoo clock.
This actually makes the newspaper and both children - not to mention the cop - end up in serious trouble.
No, that's not the end of the story. Before long, the children do in fact get themselves involved with a real spy, and get themselves in even more serious trouble - and danger. It's a very entertaining tale with lots of angles and layers and some real psychological depth, all packed into less than 200 pages of words and pictures. A very fun read.
CITY OF SPIES
Published May 2010
Written by Suan Kim & Lawrence Klavan
Artwork by Pascal Dizin
First Second, 172 pp., $16.99 trade paperback
3.5 stars (out of 5)
Evelyn, who looks quite a bit like Scooter, wants to be a hero, too. "Maybe not yet," she says, "but one day."
Evelyn's aunt is not exactly the best choice for being responsible for a child. A rich girl who fancies herself an artist, she lives a hedonistic life and at first barely pays attention to her niece. Evelyn's father has sent her there so he can honeymoon with his new wife - the fifth or sixth, according to Evelyn, since her mother died. "The new one looks exactly like Lana Turner. And the one before that looked like Ginger Rogers. And the one before that looked like Veronica Lake ... and the one before *that* looked like -- "
Her litany is interrupted by the mother of her confidant and only friend - the only other kid, in fact, living in the building. Tony is the son of the building super, and she meets him when he comes to help his dad fix a leak in their bathroom.
Tony and Evelyn go to a movie, where they see a public service announcement warning about Nazi spies. "Citizens of New York City are being asked by the Federal Bureau of Investigation to keep an eye out for suspicious behavior. " Soon the two would-be spycatchers are prowling the streets looking for people with foreign accents - which are plentiful, since the apartment is in Germantown, where lots of German immigrants have recently renamed their stores things like "USA Meats" and "Uncle Sam Donut Shop." Tony sees a man who looks quite a bit like Adolf Hitler himself getting his shoes shined, but Evelyn is convinced he's a real American because his pants don't have cuffs. "Straight legs are American-style. Dope."
Evelyn and Tony finally decide that the doorman of their building is a Nazi spy. They see him take a ticking package out of his locker, and hear him on the phone with someone:
Hello? Ja, it's me. I've got something for you. Something I think you're gonna like. Where should we meet? All right ... half an hour, above the yards. Ya, gut. Bis bald. Seien Sie night spat."
Evelyn decides that "the yards" must mean the Brooklyn Naval Yards, and they find a policeman, who happens to be with his friend a reporter, and they find the doorman still walking, and follow him to a building and bust into the room - to find him in bed with a woman for whom he has brought a cuckoo clock.
This actually makes the newspaper and both children - not to mention the cop - end up in serious trouble.
No, that's not the end of the story. Before long, the children do in fact get themselves involved with a real spy, and get themselves in even more serious trouble - and danger. It's a very entertaining tale with lots of angles and layers and some real psychological depth, all packed into less than 200 pages of words and pictures. A very fun read.
CITY OF SPIES
Published May 2010
Written by Suan Kim & Lawrence Klavan
Artwork by Pascal Dizin
First Second, 172 pp., $16.99 trade paperback
3.5 stars (out of 5)
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Crazy/Stupid
Women Are Crazy, Men Are Stupid
By Howard J. Morris & Jenny Lee
246 pp., Simon Spotlight Entertainment, $22.99 (hardback)
At first glace, this book seems like a hipper, wittier version of "Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus." And indeed, that's basically what it is. But despite its slim size, it manages to be quite a bit more than just that.
First, the fact that the book is co-authored by an actual couple gives it greater depth and credibility than the original, and an ability to express itself and fresher and more honest language. If John Gray had said that women were "crazy," instead of just "from Venus" (whatever that means), he would have been pilloried as a misogynist. Yet Howard J. Morris can get away with it because his girlfriend Jenny Lee is standing right there beside him (figuratively speaking) saying the same thing.
I was first attracted to this book by that provocative title and the romance comic cover, but I stayed with it because it is funny, insightful, and compelling. The basic structure is a chapter written by Howard, followed by a response from Jenny, but both of them often quote conversations with each other and occasionally one or the other will intrude into the other's part of the book, so that the whole thing essentially plays out as a dialogue, which is appropriate, as both writers have done television comedy.
For TV comedy writers, they have a remarkable ability to confront serious matters head-on. Yes, they do it primarily through the lens of humor, but don't think this book is a series of Tim Allen one-liners (even though Howard did use to write for "Home Improvement"). Both writers seriously address problems they had in previous relationships, for instance (both are divorced).
The most refreshing thing is the relative even-handedness evident from the title. When I tried to read Gray's book (and I'll cop to never being able to finish it), it seemed that he was mostly reassuring "Venus" people that they were perfectly OK, that it was the flawed "Mars" people they had to learn to put up with -- or even better, learn to manipulate into being "better." Meanwhile, any men reading the book were generally exhorted to see things from the Venus point of view.
There is, to be truthful, a bit of that attitude here, that "stupid" is somehow worse than "crazy," that indeed to some extent it's men's stupidity that sometimes drives women crazy. But it's amazing, frankly, to see Jenny cop to being crazy, to say that women, or at least most women, are overemotional (what she sees as the source of the craziness) and to admit that she occasionally does things that she knows are crazy when she does them, like buying a hideously expensive pair of boots. Even more importantly, she describes an occasion where she was able to see her craziness for what it was while it was taking hold of her, and managed to clamp it down before the blowup it threatened could develop.
Sure, a lot of the book is coaching men how to put up with women's craziness and how to be less stupid, but a significant amount - maybe not half, but not just a smattering here and there, either - is telling women how to put up with men's stupidity and how to be less crazy. In an era when relationship books nearly always place almost all the blame on men, this is a breakthrough. Having a woman actually describe a conscious effort to change her own behavior in the process is almost a miracle.
The book ends with a defense of both women's craziness and men's stupidity, arguing that what makes us attracted to each other in the first place is inextricably linked with what sometimes tears us apart. Women are magical, says Howard, and their magic is bound up with what men see as craziness. Jenny says that what women think of as "stupidity" in their men is in fact one of the sources of their strength, their ability to be the rock of stability that women need. We complain about each other, but in fact we wouldn't want it any other way.
I've saved the best for last. Although presented as a series of essays that becomes a dialogue, despite being a incisive analysis of one of the most serious and important subjects we can discuss, by the time you reach the end of the book you realize it's actually a story, the love story of Howard and Jenny, and if it's not quite "happily ever after" (because both of these people are grownups who recognize that nobody can ever know the future), it's definitely "happy for now and as far into the future as we can see clearly." Which is pretty damned happy, for my money, and about as good an ending as you can expect from a love story that is intellectual, realistic, and ruthlessly honest, as well as being romantic and, yes, magical.
By Howard J. Morris & Jenny Lee
246 pp., Simon Spotlight Entertainment, $22.99 (hardback)
At first glace, this book seems like a hipper, wittier version of "Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus." And indeed, that's basically what it is. But despite its slim size, it manages to be quite a bit more than just that.
First, the fact that the book is co-authored by an actual couple gives it greater depth and credibility than the original, and an ability to express itself and fresher and more honest language. If John Gray had said that women were "crazy," instead of just "from Venus" (whatever that means), he would have been pilloried as a misogynist. Yet Howard J. Morris can get away with it because his girlfriend Jenny Lee is standing right there beside him (figuratively speaking) saying the same thing.
I was first attracted to this book by that provocative title and the romance comic cover, but I stayed with it because it is funny, insightful, and compelling. The basic structure is a chapter written by Howard, followed by a response from Jenny, but both of them often quote conversations with each other and occasionally one or the other will intrude into the other's part of the book, so that the whole thing essentially plays out as a dialogue, which is appropriate, as both writers have done television comedy.
For TV comedy writers, they have a remarkable ability to confront serious matters head-on. Yes, they do it primarily through the lens of humor, but don't think this book is a series of Tim Allen one-liners (even though Howard did use to write for "Home Improvement"). Both writers seriously address problems they had in previous relationships, for instance (both are divorced).
The most refreshing thing is the relative even-handedness evident from the title. When I tried to read Gray's book (and I'll cop to never being able to finish it), it seemed that he was mostly reassuring "Venus" people that they were perfectly OK, that it was the flawed "Mars" people they had to learn to put up with -- or even better, learn to manipulate into being "better." Meanwhile, any men reading the book were generally exhorted to see things from the Venus point of view.
There is, to be truthful, a bit of that attitude here, that "stupid" is somehow worse than "crazy," that indeed to some extent it's men's stupidity that sometimes drives women crazy. But it's amazing, frankly, to see Jenny cop to being crazy, to say that women, or at least most women, are overemotional (what she sees as the source of the craziness) and to admit that she occasionally does things that she knows are crazy when she does them, like buying a hideously expensive pair of boots. Even more importantly, she describes an occasion where she was able to see her craziness for what it was while it was taking hold of her, and managed to clamp it down before the blowup it threatened could develop.
Sure, a lot of the book is coaching men how to put up with women's craziness and how to be less stupid, but a significant amount - maybe not half, but not just a smattering here and there, either - is telling women how to put up with men's stupidity and how to be less crazy. In an era when relationship books nearly always place almost all the blame on men, this is a breakthrough. Having a woman actually describe a conscious effort to change her own behavior in the process is almost a miracle.
The book ends with a defense of both women's craziness and men's stupidity, arguing that what makes us attracted to each other in the first place is inextricably linked with what sometimes tears us apart. Women are magical, says Howard, and their magic is bound up with what men see as craziness. Jenny says that what women think of as "stupidity" in their men is in fact one of the sources of their strength, their ability to be the rock of stability that women need. We complain about each other, but in fact we wouldn't want it any other way.
I've saved the best for last. Although presented as a series of essays that becomes a dialogue, despite being a incisive analysis of one of the most serious and important subjects we can discuss, by the time you reach the end of the book you realize it's actually a story, the love story of Howard and Jenny, and if it's not quite "happily ever after" (because both of these people are grownups who recognize that nobody can ever know the future), it's definitely "happy for now and as far into the future as we can see clearly." Which is pretty damned happy, for my money, and about as good an ending as you can expect from a love story that is intellectual, realistic, and ruthlessly honest, as well as being romantic and, yes, magical.
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