Born in Texas and raised in Chicago, Janna Levin is currently a professor of mathematics and physics at Barnard and Columbia universities. She holds a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and has been Scientist-in-Residence at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art at the University of Oxford and an Advanced Fellow in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics at Cambridge University. Levin is the author of How the Universe Got Its Spots, published in 2003 by Anchor.
“Intelligent . . . compelling. . . . As Levin alternates between the lives of Turing and G?del, she delivers a convincing, palpably human portrait of solitary genius.” —The Philadelphia Inquirer“A simple work of genius.”—Toronto Globe & Mail“Her characters and their century come brilliantly . . . alive.” —The Los Angeles Times Book Review“Like a lyrical mash-up, Levin interweaves the personal narrative style of her first book with taut prose evocative of Alan Lightman's Einstein's Dreams.” —Seed Magazine
The lives of Kurt Godel (1906-1978) and Alan Turing (1912- 1954) never crossed physically, but did intellectually: Godel's incompleteness theorem implies a sort of Platonism, and Turing's mechanical decision theory implies, conversely, hard-nosed materialism. Levin, a mathematician, juxtaposes both lives in her debut novel. She begins with Godel as a young man in Vienna, his incompleteness theorem destroying the line of inquiry (arguably spearheaded by Wittgenstein, who cameos)that argued math was complete in itself; his courtship with a nightclub dancer, Adele; his misunderstanding of the Nazi takeover of Austria. Alan Turing's not very charmed life is skewed not only by what looks like autism but by being hounded for his homosexuality in Britain-after breaking the German Enigma code during WWII. Turing is an innocent in many ways, while Godel, a greater thinker, is a monster of selfishness; both, however, have a passion for the invisible that is hard to dramatize. Godel becomes a paranoid old man, living with Adele (who comes alive through Levin's shrewd novelistic guesswork) in solitude in Princeton, and eventually starving himself to death. Levin is sympathetic to all concerned, but doesn't quite make a larger point, dramatic or otherwise. (Aug. 25) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
"Intelligent . . . compelling. . . . As Levin alternates between the lives of Turing and G?del, she delivers a convincing, palpably human portrait of solitary genius." -The Philadelphia Inquirer"A simple work of genius."-Toronto Globe & Mail"Her characters and their century come brilliantly . . . alive." -The Los Angeles Times Book Review"Like a lyrical mash-up, Levin interweaves the personal narrative style of her first book with taut prose evocative of Alan Lightman's Einstein's Dreams." -Seed Magazine
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