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brigittesbookshelf 's review for:
The Tenth Muse
by Catherine Chung
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.