Customer Reviews

Beyond the Limit: The Dream of Sofya Kovalevskaya

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This is a true piece of art, a compelling love story wrapped into the trials and tribulations of humanity's pursuit of balance with being true to oneself and to those you love. This true story is beautifully told of the tribulations faced by a woman in pursuit of mathematics in a world unaccustomed or accepting of women. I couldn't put it down!

It is difficult to realize the nature of the contemporary world without the perspective of history. This book tells a story of what a talented woman had to go through to gain an education in 19th century Europe. Sofya Kovalevskaya engaged in a sham marriage to gain the education unavailable in Russia, and very difficult to obtain in Europe. The turbulent world, the vortex of politics, nihilism, the Paris Commune, all intervened to make her quest even more daunting. Her success as a mathematician was impressive, and one must remember the tremendous handicaps she labored under to fully appreciate them. Contrast her experience with what she might have obtained in the 20th century, and one feels a joy that in some ways we have stepped a bit forward.

Joan Spicci manages to tell the tale with skill, and she has the big advantage of telling an interesting love story as well, for the marriage, became a marriage in fact as well as name. No fairy tale romance, but a relationship filled with conflicting goals, and the constant intrusion of the world. It is a story of men and women trying to juggle science, politics and complex personal relationships. This book is well worth reading, but I suspect easily missed, so don't let it slip by.

We enjoyed this book immensely and recommend it to all readers who enjoy history. The book captures the struggles of women who persued higher education in a time of world governmental and social change. The romantic twists and turns of the characters are sure to keep the reader's interest from cover to cover.

I highly recommend this book! From the very first page, the story engages the reader and the writing dazzles. This true story is about the trials and struggles of a brilliant, Russian female mathematician, Sofya Kovalevskaya, in the late 1800s. This was not a popular time to be a woman in Russia, and certainly not popular to be a smart woman -- especially if you wanted to study mathematics! However, the development of mathematics and science in Europe at this time was on fire (as was the politics), and Sofya was right in the thick of it all.

This work of historical fiction is well researched, with information gathered from many sources (including translations of personal letters), and masterfully retold. It's romantic, exciting and fascinating. A true gift to be able to walk these years in Sofya's shoes.

If you've ever struggled against societial prejudices, or struggled to succeed in a field of work not intended for your race, sex or color, you'll find this book an inspiration.

I anxiously await the sequel!

Beyond The Limit
The Dream of Sofya Kovalevskaya
by Joan Spicci

"Beyond the Limit" is a romance novel about the life of mathematician Sofya Kovalevskaya. Indeed, Sofya Kovalevskaya's life lends itself to such a romance novel. Sofya and Vladimir, her husband in a fictitious marriage, are accurately portrayed from sources such as Sofya Kovalevskaya's novels about her childhood ("Recollections of Childhood", "A Russian Childhood", "Nihilist Girl"), including her complex but successful relationship with Vladimir, to her achievement in being awarded the first doctorate in mathematics "summa cum laude" to a woman appropriately the climax of the novel. It all ends "happily ever after" - a fallacy the reader may happily concede being the compulsory ending to all romantic novels.

Sofya Kovalevskaya (1850 - 1891) was the leading female mathematician prior to the twentieth century. For basic facts, not repeated here, refer to my Amazon review of "A Convergence of Lives: Sofia Kovalevskaia: Scientist, Writer, Revolutionary" by Ann Hibner Koblitz.

The novel is a ten-year labor of love by author Joan Spicci, mathematician and translator. She treats Vladimir more sympathetically ("Vladimir was a hopelessly loveable fellow") than Koblitz who seems to have it in for him. The truth is probably in between, although both give Vladimir historical credit for providing Sofya the means to achieve the freedom to study abroad. "To freedom. May we all one day just be free to follow our own dreams." Vladimir himself is a romantic character - graduate in law, political activist, publisher and translator, paleontologist and geologist, and later (not in the novel) unfortunate financial speculator. He was a colleague of Charles Darwin and translator of "On the Origin of the Species" into Russian. The 1860 - 70's academics were certainly a more polymath and a numerically smaller group than today. In the novel, Sofya visits the leading mathematicians of the day - Arthur Cayley, Charles Dodgson of "Alice in Wonderland" fame, Charles Babbage inventor of the computer, James More, Ernst Kummer, and of course studies as a disciple of Karl Weierstrass.

The novel includes passing comment on Sofya Kovalevskaya's work - the spinning top or Mathematical Mermaid, Saturn's rings, differential equations - but as you would expect, hardly an exposition. It covers the couples choice between science and politics; their almost boundless faith in the power of education to win out against superstition and backwardness; and their belief that natural sciences would, given free reign, conquer all of humanity's ills. Perhaps a little more revolutionary philosophy would have been possible, for example, debate about her group of young Russian intellectuals referred to offensively as `nihilists', a term they embraced for their own.

The title "Beyond the Limit" presumably means both the story of Sofya Kovalevskaya's life beyond her mathematical contributions, and the extremes necessary to counter the opposition to education for women. If so, the author's ten-year labor of love has been well worth it.

Malcolm Cameron
1 October 2011

Joan Spicci brought enough drama to this biography of Sofya Kovalevskaya to make the story of the first woman PhD in Math a compelling read. Kovalevskaya was not shy about writing her own story and documenting her life. Ms. Spicci clearly spent a lot of homework time studying these materials. Inspiring read for teachers and future mathemagicians.

I found the book a very quick read because I just couldn't put it down. The author definitely has done her research as I am a M.Sc. (Mathematics) graduate.