Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Eloquent imagery, but the characters aren't quite believable,
By A Customer
This review is from: William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition Problems and Solutions: 1938-1964 (Hardcover)
The language in this book is incredible-- the metaphors perfectly capture the essence of what they describe, and the melodic rise and fall of the sentences mirrors the tragic (but in the end uplifting) plot into which the reader is drawn. As I read the book, I felt I was becoming an active participant in it, taking part in the story and not just observing it, and it was so hard to put the book down when I didn't know how things would turn out!The elegant simplicity of the solutions presented to the seemingly complex problems that face the characters is a biting comment on our own society's predilection for grinding out the answer to everything, when in reality what we need when confronting humanity's great issues is a sense of perspective. However, I found the characters somewhat flat. Why, for example, does the set N choose to define himself in such narrow terms? Has he no dreams, no fantasies, no weaknesses, nothing but a recursive definition? Many of the characters had similar problems; I had difficulty relating to the motives behind some of their self-simplifying actions. Overall, though, this is a brilliant social commentary and a heartrending story. It is truly a new American classic in the tradition of Pynchon, Vonnegut, and Faulkner.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
