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razishiri 's review for:
Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions
by Edwin A. Abbott
FLATLAND is a classic of math sci-fi written by a Shakespearean scholar, of all people--but the writing here most resembles Jonathan Swift. In the first half of the book, our narrator, a middle-class Square, describes the agressively misogynistic and anti-Marxist structure of his two-dimensional society. I wasn't expecting so much poli sci in a math book, but Abbott obviously has fun with it. Most of the math philosophy comes in the second half, when our Flatlander travels first to one-dimensional and then to three-dimensional and no-dimensional space.
Abbott shows that the contemplation of abstract mathematics requires both audacity and humility: the audacity to imagine dimensions we have never seen, and the humility to accept our own insignificance. I was struck by his vision of Pointland, whose lone inhabitant soliloquizes about the joy of existance, knowing nothing beyond itself. As our Flatlander traverses the dimensions, all the constructions of his own world fall away. The elegance of FLATLAND is that the author spends the first 50 pages constructing a complex, restrictive social heirarchy and the second 50 pages tearing it down.
FLATLAND is definitely worth a read for anyone who likes to think. Feel free to throw the book against the wall when the blatant sexism described therein gets too disgusting, but be sure to pick it up and finish it later.
Abbott shows that the contemplation of abstract mathematics requires both audacity and humility: the audacity to imagine dimensions we have never seen, and the humility to accept our own insignificance. I was struck by his vision of Pointland, whose lone inhabitant soliloquizes about the joy of existance, knowing nothing beyond itself. As our Flatlander traverses the dimensions, all the constructions of his own world fall away. The elegance of FLATLAND is that the author spends the first 50 pages constructing a complex, restrictive social heirarchy and the second 50 pages tearing it down.
FLATLAND is definitely worth a read for anyone who likes to think. Feel free to throw the book against the wall when the blatant sexism described therein gets too disgusting, but be sure to pick it up and finish it later.