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4.02 AVERAGE
4.02 AVERAGE
Despite its critical hype, The Tenth Muse was a rather anticlimactic novel. The author, Catherine Chung, tried so hard to create a whirlwind saga about an amazing female mathematician, set across continents and spanning decades, and woven with mythology, feminism, and equations. The trouble was, I could feel her trying too hard the whole time. The first person narration, with too many passive reflections, prevented the plot from moving at the pace such a sweeping story should have warranted. And the first hundred pages could have been condensed to one succinct chapter. For a moment halfway through, the plot got riveting and I thought that perhaps the ending would make up for the beginning, but then the excitement quickly diminished again. I will say that the concept was unique (Asian American girl genius discovers secrets of WWII and groundbreaking mathematical proofs) and the lyrical descriptions of mathematics were enchanting. I also never considered abandoning the book and still enjoyed reading it. There was just nothing truly special about the novel. Perhaps the story would have been more successful without the looking-back-from-the-future framing device and melancholy (dare I say whiny) elderly narrator. For such a promising concept, the The Tenth Muse was disappointingly mediocre.
A beautifully crafted mystery about family, love, loss, and identity. So, so good.
LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE. I will always enjoy books about academia because in another life I would have been a college professor or a librarian or both. Also, there was WWII stuff in here, and interracial love, and so much family drama. Read this.
Something in my chest that had begun to uncoil days after I read this book seized up again while I wrote this review, as quickly as if someone had held a light to kindling.
There’s a wordless agony to reading stories about women who wanted more freedom than the world wished to give a woman. I often felt myself running with a swift, clear rage—the feeling like the blast of fire rising up a dragon’s throat, leaving my mouth tasting of ash. But a thrum of awe still fills me, along with an unexpectedly sweet surge of hope, in spite of all the coursing anger, knowing that—although cast out, ostracized and dispossessed—the bolt of these women’s triumph always slid home.
Forceful, cerebral and immaculately controlled, “The Tenth Muse” is a dazzling portrait of a young woman who refused to fit the shape of the small space the world left for her.
Katherine had shone brighter, by a great deal, than was normally permitted a woman. The Riemann hypothesis was the mystery that had opened her mind like a door, and she has never doubted that the path to it would one day open, stark and clear before her feet. Katherine’s desire to come out on top was born out of the conviction that she didn’t have to be her opponents’ equal to be considered a worthy contender—she had to be better. But in her obsession with cracking the uncrackable equation, an underlying crisis emerges: young and drifting, Katherine is searching for identity, and answers to the tragedy that had ruptured her family forever.
From its first sentence, “The Tenth Muse” grabs the reader with its directness and earnestness. “I suppose I should warn you that I tell a story like a woman,” Katherine begins, “looping into myself, interrupting.” Thus, standing knee-deep in the rubble of her life, Katherine starts delicately piecing it back together, losing her footing and slipping, but rising every time to scrabble forward—one last lamp shining down on the unmarred pages—toward the realization that only at the end of one’s life can one look back and see lucidly the prices they paid along the way.
Katherine chronicles her own tale, and the novel spasms with her remembrance like synapses firing in the dark. The novel spans a number of difficult decades and Katherine’s memories are seized up, measured and weighted: her mother’s face, glossy with joy, beaming through her haze, and her subsequent absence, like having a rib wrenched from her side; the lovers she naïvely refused to see anything about except their most engaging qualities which she then cultivated and magnified to the exclusion of all their less desirable ones; the male colleagues who had made the mistake of believing her discomfort would be like theirs; her works, validated and stolen in one fell swoop; the loss of her brilliance, the withering of her grace, all the things that had to be worked and learned through errors and trials, and above all, her indigence over inequality, the plight of women in the world, and the madness that rose from a new creeping certainty: that there is only so much forcing of the world a woman can do.
Katherine stains the page with herself, and the tone of her voice, urgent yet measured, gives the impression that she is unburdening herself to a patient and sympathetic interviewer. The result is a profoundly searching book—one that could potentially be frustrating for readers who require propulsive plots and clean resolutions, as it offers neither. Still, Chung makes it work beautifully by impeccably building a sense of inexorable apprehension as we begin to discern elements of self-deception and omission in Katherine’s narration, and secrets swell to bursting with world-shaking promise.
As the novel probes the secrets and lies that thrum beneath the surface of Katherine’s family, The Tenth Muse demonstrates, heartbreakingly, how acts of brutality—even those distant in time and geography—cast a dark shadow over relationships. Through Katherine’s voice, The Tenth Muse also explores the cold outer limits of ambition, and each word falls sharp, like a butcher cutting meat. (“Don’t you know the rule,” they said, “that the price of your dearest wish is always everything you have?”) Katherine’s want, hard and spare, took hold of her, driving out the fears, the ones people tried to give her, tried to put into her heart with dark looks and patronizing smiles. But Katherine not only navigates her gender in a male-dominated field—she navigates her mixed race as well. Ethnicity, gender—these things don’t matter until they do, and it’s as exquisitely articulated as anything this thoughtful author has put to the page.
The central message of Katherine’s character arc is one that I should’ve seen coming, but didn’t and felt fear in me, gleaming like water, when I finally realized the author’s goals for her. That said, The Tenth Muse isn't all grim. The heart is always able to beat with a new rhythm and this sentiment is core to the novel. I won’t dare spoil the context, but the final words spoken still shudder through my mind: “in the end, we can only unlock our own locks, we have only the gift of ourselves.”
Highly recommended!
There’s a wordless agony to reading stories about women who wanted more freedom than the world wished to give a woman. I often felt myself running with a swift, clear rage—the feeling like the blast of fire rising up a dragon’s throat, leaving my mouth tasting of ash. But a thrum of awe still fills me, along with an unexpectedly sweet surge of hope, in spite of all the coursing anger, knowing that—although cast out, ostracized and dispossessed—the bolt of these women’s triumph always slid home.
“All my life I’ve been told to let go as gracefully as possible. What’s worse, after all, than a hungry woman, greedy for all that isn’t meant to be hers? Still, I resist. In the end we relinquish everything: I think I’ll hold on, while I can.”
Forceful, cerebral and immaculately controlled, “The Tenth Muse” is a dazzling portrait of a young woman who refused to fit the shape of the small space the world left for her.
Katherine had shone brighter, by a great deal, than was normally permitted a woman. The Riemann hypothesis was the mystery that had opened her mind like a door, and she has never doubted that the path to it would one day open, stark and clear before her feet. Katherine’s desire to come out on top was born out of the conviction that she didn’t have to be her opponents’ equal to be considered a worthy contender—she had to be better. But in her obsession with cracking the uncrackable equation, an underlying crisis emerges: young and drifting, Katherine is searching for identity, and answers to the tragedy that had ruptured her family forever.
From its first sentence, “The Tenth Muse” grabs the reader with its directness and earnestness. “I suppose I should warn you that I tell a story like a woman,” Katherine begins, “looping into myself, interrupting.” Thus, standing knee-deep in the rubble of her life, Katherine starts delicately piecing it back together, losing her footing and slipping, but rising every time to scrabble forward—one last lamp shining down on the unmarred pages—toward the realization that only at the end of one’s life can one look back and see lucidly the prices they paid along the way.
Katherine chronicles her own tale, and the novel spasms with her remembrance like synapses firing in the dark. The novel spans a number of difficult decades and Katherine’s memories are seized up, measured and weighted: her mother’s face, glossy with joy, beaming through her haze, and her subsequent absence, like having a rib wrenched from her side; the lovers she naïvely refused to see anything about except their most engaging qualities which she then cultivated and magnified to the exclusion of all their less desirable ones; the male colleagues who had made the mistake of believing her discomfort would be like theirs; her works, validated and stolen in one fell swoop; the loss of her brilliance, the withering of her grace, all the things that had to be worked and learned through errors and trials, and above all, her indigence over inequality, the plight of women in the world, and the madness that rose from a new creeping certainty: that there is only so much forcing of the world a woman can do.
Katherine stains the page with herself, and the tone of her voice, urgent yet measured, gives the impression that she is unburdening herself to a patient and sympathetic interviewer. The result is a profoundly searching book—one that could potentially be frustrating for readers who require propulsive plots and clean resolutions, as it offers neither. Still, Chung makes it work beautifully by impeccably building a sense of inexorable apprehension as we begin to discern elements of self-deception and omission in Katherine’s narration, and secrets swell to bursting with world-shaking promise.
As the novel probes the secrets and lies that thrum beneath the surface of Katherine’s family, The Tenth Muse demonstrates, heartbreakingly, how acts of brutality—even those distant in time and geography—cast a dark shadow over relationships. Through Katherine’s voice, The Tenth Muse also explores the cold outer limits of ambition, and each word falls sharp, like a butcher cutting meat. (“Don’t you know the rule,” they said, “that the price of your dearest wish is always everything you have?”) Katherine’s want, hard and spare, took hold of her, driving out the fears, the ones people tried to give her, tried to put into her heart with dark looks and patronizing smiles. But Katherine not only navigates her gender in a male-dominated field—she navigates her mixed race as well. Ethnicity, gender—these things don’t matter until they do, and it’s as exquisitely articulated as anything this thoughtful author has put to the page.
The central message of Katherine’s character arc is one that I should’ve seen coming, but didn’t and felt fear in me, gleaming like water, when I finally realized the author’s goals for her. That said, The Tenth Muse isn't all grim. The heart is always able to beat with a new rhythm and this sentiment is core to the novel. I won’t dare spoil the context, but the final words spoken still shudder through my mind: “in the end, we can only unlock our own locks, we have only the gift of ourselves.”
Highly recommended!
reflective
slow-paced
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
This was a really enjoyable read, featuring some accessible maths talk, historical drama, romance, betrayal and a neatly structured plot. Things fell together a bit neatly in a few places, but I had a lot of fun with this.
The Tenth Muse is a beautifully-written novel about a mathematician named Katherine, spanning from her childhood growing up as one of few Asian-Americans in a small Midwest town in the 1940s to the struggles she faces as a woman to be taken seriously in her field. The story weaves together fairytales, wistful memories, and mathematical concepts as Katherine learns new truths about her family and searches for the feeling of belonging. Written from the perspective of Katherine later in life, the novel looks back on the events of the past with the wisdom of hindsight. There's a lot it's left me thinking about.
Thanks to NetGalley and The Publisher for this eARC in exchange for an honest review.
4.5 stars rounded up.
I was asked to consider reading this by the publishers via NetGalley. I didn't really read the blurb properly but picked up it was about maths and I like maths and numbers in general so I thought maybe but didn't give it much priority. It also started popping up in other places so I decided to see what all the fuss was about.
I'm so glad I did.
This is a phenomenal book. I couldn't put it down. Beautifully written.
It's about the life of an eventually extremely successful Chinese-American Female Mathematician on a quest to find her true identity but deals with her struggles to be taken seriously in a male dominated field and what she has to give up in order to reach the top. It it has added layers and depth by exploring the history and pioneers of Mathematician and how they were treated because of their gender. And the effects of World War Two and the legacies left behind. My description doesn't do it justice.
As a scientist myself, what was most interesting for me was although this book was set in the past many of these issues are still rife. The author really brought the essence of this to the forefront.
So thought provoking and relatable in so many ways. This was a pleasure to read.
4.5 stars rounded up.
I was asked to consider reading this by the publishers via NetGalley. I didn't really read the blurb properly but picked up it was about maths and I like maths and numbers in general so I thought maybe but didn't give it much priority. It also started popping up in other places so I decided to see what all the fuss was about.
I'm so glad I did.
This is a phenomenal book. I couldn't put it down. Beautifully written.
It's about the life of an eventually extremely successful Chinese-American Female Mathematician on a quest to find her true identity but deals with her struggles to be taken seriously in a male dominated field and what she has to give up in order to reach the top. It it has added layers and depth by exploring the history and pioneers of Mathematician and how they were treated because of their gender. And the effects of World War Two and the legacies left behind. My description doesn't do it justice.
As a scientist myself, what was most interesting for me was although this book was set in the past many of these issues are still rife. The author really brought the essence of this to the forefront.
So thought provoking and relatable in so many ways. This was a pleasure to read.
I almost gave up on The Tenth Muse because of the muse-y prologue. I'm glad I went back to it because it's perfectly compelling almost from the start, the reveals keep coming. It's a first-person narrative by a mathematician, Katherine, one who reached great heights despite the men who helped her along the way lol.
Katherine isn't involved in feminist movements, but she is a woman who is aware of the forces conspiring against her success.
Katherine isn't involved in feminist movements, but she is a woman who is aware of the forces conspiring against her success.
...when I stood in front of the hallowed buildings of Harvard grown over with ivy, I thought--What beautiful places men have built for each other with the intention of keeping women out..
In my mind I see Hypatia sculpted in marble: she was flesh and blood, mind and spirit. The book she wrote has been lost. None of her papers remain. But reports of what that mob did to her have endured.The Hypatia quotation resonates with me in the wake of an event at work that was Zoom bombed. The panelists, Black women, ended up having to process the violence that took place, rather than give their presentations. The event will always be remembered for the interruption, not for the content. Hypatia becomes an object of pity or even fetish, rather than the author of a work of brilliance.
...folktales were mostly told and passed along orally by women, but that the written versions have universally been set down and altered by men, that in the women's version the girl gets away by her wits, and in the men's version she's saved by a hero."That's from a PhD student named Henry working on fairy tales, and the Grimm brothers in particular.
Spoiler
Henry is disappointingly heterosexual, despite her chosen name and how she dresses.
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I was immediately captivated by the main character and what I would say was her search for identity. The story was intriguing and fascinating while holding the struggles of making decisions that we find in the the life we lead. The story is packed without being especially long--there is not extra fluff or any need for something to grab the reader's attention. No gimmicks here. It felt like reading a biography-very real and touching.