Mr. Mee: A Novel by Andrew Crumey  (8)
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Music, in a Foreign Language by Andrew Crumey  (6)
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Pfitz: A Novel by Andrew Crumey (11)
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
The senseless passion of 18th-century French mathematician Jean le Rond D'Alembert for his friend Julie de L'Espinasse (hinted at in Diderot's satire D'Alembert's Dream) is the subject of the strongest of the three interrelated novellas that make up this volume from Scottish author Crumey. Diderot implied that they were lovers; tragically, for D'Alembert, L'Espinasse never returned his passion. Instead, she fell for a number of other, physically imposing men. D'Alembert learns this from her letters after her death, and the claims of reason come tumbling down as he probes the logic of his passions. Crumey deftly outlines D'Alembert's life and times, albeit in broad, rather prim strokes. In his less compelling, oddly humorless second novella, a series of variations on the paradoxes of solipsism, Crumey follows the windings of an 18th-century author who appears and disappears in the text of his semifabulous book. The third, fortunately, goes for less heavily theoretical territory, returning to the characters of his acclaimed previous novel, Pfitz. A jeweler named Goldman in the city of Rrheinstadt gets thrown into prison with a beggar named Pfitz, and the beggar tells him a series of improbably scabrous tales. The loopy dialogue between Pfitz and Goldman is reminiscent of the Tortoise and Achilles sections in Douglas Hofstadter's Godel, Escher, Bach. Crumey is described as a postmodernist, but he isn't anything so terrifying: he's simply reviving that old Enlightenment pastime, the philosophical jeu d'esprit. (Nov.) FYI: Crumey's first work, Music, in a Foreign Language, won England's Saltire Prize for Best First Novel.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
D'Alembert's Principle is actually three stories, including the title story, "The Cosmography of Magnus Ferguson," and "Tales from Rreinstadt." Each represents an aspect of D'Alembert's definition of knowledge: memory, reason, and imagination. The stories are set in the 18th century, when D'Alembert worked with Diderot on his famous dictionary. The first story uses D'Alembert's memories to illustrate his great success with mathematical theories but his failure in love. The second story, representing reason, is an exploration of empiricism. "Tales from Rreinstadt" is narrated by Pfitz, the beggar who also appeared in Crumey's earlier novel, Pfitz (LJ 9/1/97), while Pfitz is temporarily imprisoned by a wealthy jeweler. Crumey, a Scotsman, has cleverly interwoven aspects of human thought with entertaining stories. The details and tone of the stories aptly convey the tenor of 18th-century rationalism. For academic and public libraries where intellectual fiction is enjoyed.?Ann Irvine, Montgomery Cty. P.L., Silver Spring, MD
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
See all Editorial Reviews
The senseless passion of 18th-century French mathematician Jean le Rond D'Alembert for his friend Julie de L'Espinasse (hinted at in Diderot's satire D'Alembert's Dream) is the subject of the strongest of the three interrelated novellas that make up this volume from Scottish author Crumey. Diderot implied that they were lovers; tragically, for D'Alembert, L'Espinasse never returned his passion. Instead, she fell for a number of other, physically imposing men. D'Alembert learns this from her letters after her death, and the claims of reason come tumbling down as he probes the logic of his passions. Crumey deftly outlines D'Alembert's life and times, albeit in broad, rather prim strokes. In his less compelling, oddly humorless second novella, a series of variations on the paradoxes of solipsism, Crumey follows the windings of an 18th-century author who appears and disappears in the text of his semifabulous book. The third, fortunately, goes for less heavily theoretical territory, returning to the characters of his acclaimed previous novel, Pfitz. A jeweler named Goldman in the city of Rrheinstadt gets thrown into prison with a beggar named Pfitz, and the beggar tells him a series of improbably scabrous tales. The loopy dialogue between Pfitz and Goldman is reminiscent of the Tortoise and Achilles sections in Douglas Hofstadter's Godel, Escher, Bach. Crumey is described as a postmodernist, but he isn't anything so terrifying: he's simply reviving that old Enlightenment pastime, the philosophical jeu d'esprit. (Nov.) FYI: Crumey's first work, Music, in a Foreign Language, won England's Saltire Prize for Best First Novel.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
D'Alembert's Principle is actually three stories, including the title story, "The Cosmography of Magnus Ferguson," and "Tales from Rreinstadt." Each represents an aspect of D'Alembert's definition of knowledge: memory, reason, and imagination. The stories are set in the 18th century, when D'Alembert worked with Diderot on his famous dictionary. The first story uses D'Alembert's memories to illustrate his great success with mathematical theories but his failure in love. The second story, representing reason, is an exploration of empiricism. "Tales from Rreinstadt" is narrated by Pfitz, the beggar who also appeared in Crumey's earlier novel, Pfitz (LJ 9/1/97), while Pfitz is temporarily imprisoned by a wealthy jeweler. Crumey, a Scotsman, has cleverly interwoven aspects of human thought with entertaining stories. The details and tone of the stories aptly convey the tenor of 18th-century rationalism. For academic and public libraries where intellectual fiction is enjoyed.?Ann Irvine, Montgomery Cty. P.L., Silver Spring, MD
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
See all Editorial Reviews
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