The Indian Clerk - Hardcover

Leavitt, David

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1596910402 ISBN 13: 9781596910409

Publisher: Bloomsbury Pub Plc USA, 2007

Synopsis

In 1913, the eccentric and charismatic G. H. Hardy, Britain's leading mathematician, receives a letter from a self-professed mathematical genius, Indian clerk Srinivasa Ramanujan, who claims to be on the verge of solving the most important unsolved mathematical puzzle of the age, and sets out to persuade the enigmatic Ramanujan to come to Cambridge, in a novel based on a real-life incident.

About this title

Review:

"Mathematics and its paradoxes provide a deep vein of metaphor that Leavitt uses to superb effect, demonstrating how the most meaningful relationships can defy both logic and imagination." -- "The New Yorker""Leavitt, a fine writer, has captured not just the complex nature of their partnership, but also a sense of the context: In his telling, England at the turn of the 20th century fits the phrase he uses to describe a particular boarding house, as "a room grown stale from its own protection." But beneath the surface of this story lurk issues that feel as fresh as today's news. Most importantly, the novel addresses the clash of cultures as Britain's empire-building came home to roost. "--"Seattle Times" "Ambitious, meaty, extensively researched...[a] richly layered, rueful portrait...Leavitt has tapped into marvelous material...stimulating and refreshingly original." -- "San Francisco Chronicle""This novel is brilliant. It is a beautiful and creative work that manages to portray a melange of the literary, historical, romantic and academic, with breathtaking prose and deeply nuanced characters."--"Pittsburg Post-Gazette""Fascinating...Leavitt makes the math of prime numbers surprisingly palatable. But we learn more about the complexities of love and work, and their interaction. In Hardy, Leavitt has created a rich character for the reader to care about." -- "Boston Globe""[E]rudite and well researched, and Leavitt writes about pure mathematics in a way that won't utterly baffle those of us who didn't get beyond pre-calculus in high school ." --"Christian Science Monitor""In the most common type of historical novel, invented characters inhabit a real place at a particular point in time...The second type, rarer in so-called literary fiction, is a novel about people who really existed, recreated by an author who plays with the facts, and especially the intriguing lacunae, of their lives. "The Indian Clerk," David Leavitt's richly imagined seventh no

About the Author:

David Leavitt is the author of several novels, including The Body of Jonah Boyd,While England Sleeps, and Equal Affections. A recipient of fellowships from both the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, he teaches at the University of Florida in Gainesville.

About this edition

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Pub Plc USA
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 1596910402
• ISBN 13: 9781596910409
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 485