About this title: This remarkable work of fiction reimagines the lives of two of the most important and influential minds of our time: Kurt G]del, the greatest logician of many centuries; and Alan Turing, the extraordinary mathematician and breaker of the Enigma Code during World War II.
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Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Knopf
Date Published: 2006
ISBN-13:9781400040308ISBN:1400040302
Description: Good. A copy that has been read, but remains in clean condition. All pages are intact, and the cover is intact (including dustcover, if applicable). The spine may show signs of wear. Pages can include limited notes and highlighting, and the copy can include "from the library of" labels. ******PLEASE NOTE****** Orders placed after Dec. 7 cannot be guaranteed delivery before Christmas unless you select EXPEDITED shipping! Thank you & Happy Holidays! read more
Description: Good. Purchasing this DVD supports the North Central Regional Library. Thriftbooks and NCRL have partnered to help raise additional funds for the library system. Library ID found on DVD and case. Ex-Library book-will contain library markings. Light shelf wear and minimal interior marks. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Very Good. Great condition for a used book! Minimal wear. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Anchor
Date Published: 2007
ISBN-13:9781400032402ISBN:1400032407
Description: New. Brand New! Buy with confidence-your satisfaction is guaranteed at B-Logistics! Due to the large scale of our operation, we do not have access to the specific contents/condition of our items. Please note that Expedited shipping is not available at this time. read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Anchor Books
Date Published: 2007-09-04
ISBN-13:9781400032402ISBN:1400032407
Description: NEW. Softcover. From an inventory that is 100% brand-new, 100% direct from the publishers' distribution channel. We carry NO pre-owned, NO remaindered. We pack in CARDBOARD to ensure the pristine quality is maintained. (Bubble-wrap alone is NOT sufficient to protect from USPS equipment. ) Guaranteed brand-NEW, protected with CARDBOARD, your satisfaction is guaranteed. BKLUVID: 9781400032402. read more
Binding: Soft Binding
Publisher: Orion, London
Date Published: 2008
Description: Very Good +/No Jacket. Top right front corner is slightly bent, leading to a light crease in the cover. Pages are clean and unmarked. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Anchor
Date Published: 2007
ISBN-13:9781400032402ISBN:1400032407
Description: Good. Cover and pages may have some wear or writing. Binding is tight. We ship daily Monday-Friday. Delivery Confirmation included on all domestic orders. read more
Edition: Reprint
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Random House Inc
Date Published: 2007
ISBN-13:9781400032402ISBN:1400032407
Description: New. Kurt Godel's Incompleteness Theorems sent shivers through Vienna's intellectual circles and directly challenged Ludwig Wittgenstein's dominant philosophy. Alan Turing's mathematical genius helped him break the Nazi Enigma Code during WWII. Though the... read more
"Levin bills this book as a novel, but it is a double biography written in novel form so as to escape the sometime tedious structure of a biography. She explores the lives and deaths of Kurt Godel, a math genius who came up with the incompleteness theorems, and Alan Turing, another genius who broke the German enigma code during WWII. Levin also inserts a couple of her own experiences into the book."
"How very, very bleak. And angst! Lots and lots of angst. There is no denying that Kurt and Alan were extremely unfortunate in the hand each were dealt, and that their intellectual gifts came with a high price tag; one I would not be willing to pay. But this fictionalized account is of a grim and joyless existence more in keeping with a gothic romance novel than insight into the lives of two very troubled and, at times, unlucky men.
"In the end, she wasn't able to float free of the weight of the earth or her class."
or
"He noted the uselessness of his earlier scholarship against the crudest artillery. Faith, metaphysics, theology-- impotent rhymes in the face of atrocity."
Out of their novel, these sentences seem as morose and troubled as a teenager. In context they do better, but still seem heavy in a story that does not involve a character named Heathcliff. It does not surprise me that the chapter describing the Vienna Circle or the one focused on a conversation between Alan and Jane over a chess game are the best two in this peculiar gothic tale. A gothic romance centered around two uber geeks I find a bit hard to wrap my mind around.
The misfortunes of Godel and Turing are pretty brutal, but were their lives really that miserable 24/7? It seems a fictionalization could have included at least a particle of happiness here or there. The level of angst is cloying, and could even be too much for a novel like Twilight. But this is a slim book, and it is an interesting perspective, so might be worth reading (I suppose troubled geeks with real problems could be a nice change from teenage-vampire woes).
I just wish the tone hadn't been quite so heavy all the time (though, sadly, there are times it is perfectly appropriate). Alan Turing and Kurt Godel had some horrible things happen to them, and probably weren't quite on the same frequency as other people, but they don't seem to be gloomy individuals! Paranoid, delusional, at times bizarre-- sure. But a novel that is trying to channel its inner Bronte might want to "create" characters that are more Byronic than these two in order to match the mood, or ease up a bit! The desolate tone of the novel couldn't quite make the two characters seem like troubled artists. The tone and the characters seem like two different novels stuffed together, and the contrast was too jarring for me. And I can't help wondering if the author prefers crushing on mathematicians rather than poets and vampires (if so, she has my sympathy)"
"Agree with the reviewer who wrote that the idea of this book was more interesting than the book turned out to be. I wanted more detail, written for the philosophical/mathematical layman, on Gödel's and Turing's work and discoveries than I got. I wish there had been more scenes in the book like the discussion between Alan Turing and Joan about his opinion on the determinism of the machine-like mind, and less of the scenes that felt sort of irrelevant, like, say, the story of Turing hiding some silver bars in the woods during the war and then failing to find them years later.
But the novel does still present us with two interesting characters, some philosophical nuggets, and not a bad writing style. I'm left with the knowledge that Turing and Gödel were mostly miserable geniuses who had great difficulty with human interaction, and perhaps a greater motivation to seek out a well-written biography or two."
"This book was way outside the box for me, and yet also, not. I don't know anything about mathematics or physical science. I'm all into the "soft stuff." Looked Kurt Godel and Alan Turing up on Wickipedia and then began. The author is a physicist and she brings her understanding of the works of these two great geniuses and her compassion into the book. Both men killed themselves. Both were so brilliant that most people probably never understood what they were doing or thinking or talking about. This is a novel, but I'm shelving it under biography, especially since in the end notes, the author tells us where she got the incidents in the book, what she condensed, what she left out. Her writing syle is unique, and did take getting used to, but I got used to it and started enjoying it. This is mostly a book about being miserable and brilliant and not fitting in and being lonely and oblivious and brilliant and suicidal and delusional and brilliant. It's a very sad book that makes me wonder, as I have so many times, about the link between madness and genius."
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