109 pages
Published July 1, 2014 by Open Road Media Sci-Fi & Fantasy.
Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions is a satirical novella by the English schoolmaster Edwin Abbott Abbott, first published in 1884 by Seeley & Co. of London. Written pseudonymously by "A Square", the book used the fictional two-dimensional world of Flatland to comment on the hierarchy of Victorian culture, but the novella's more enduring contribution is its examination of dimensions.Several films have been made from the story, including the feature film Flatland (2007). Other efforts have been short or experimental films, including one narrated by Dudley Moore and the short films Flatland: The Movie (2007) and Flatland 2: Sphereland (2012).
Really enjoyable story about a square that learns about the third dimension. With elements of an educational novel, this book is also brilliantly witty with a Johnathan-Swift-esque humour to the benign adventures of an unlikely protagonist in a world only a geometrist could dream up.
Having read the "unofficial sequel" Flatterland before, I was a bit disappointed by the very low amounts of science and mathematics in this book. But, on the other hand, it verges more towards philosophy and sociology.
If you always keep in mind when this book was written, it serves as a nice satire of the thinking in that time (and even present thinking in some cases).
Don't read this book for the plot, because it is very thin, but this is not really a big issue in this case.
The book loses a star because of the frankly horrible "Preface to the second edition" where the author (sorry, the editor who speaks for the anonymous square who wrote the book) tries to answer to some of the criticisms he received - by denouncing some of the very ideas of the book and apparently failing to see the newly opened possibilities …
Having read the "unofficial sequel" Flatterland before, I was a bit disappointed by the very low amounts of science and mathematics in this book. But, on the other hand, it verges more towards philosophy and sociology.
If you always keep in mind when this book was written, it serves as a nice satire of the thinking in that time (and even present thinking in some cases).
Don't read this book for the plot, because it is very thin, but this is not really a big issue in this case.
The book loses a star because of the frankly horrible "Preface to the second edition" where the author (sorry, the editor who speaks for the anonymous square who wrote the book) tries to answer to some of the criticisms he received - by denouncing some of the very ideas of the book and apparently failing to see the newly opened possibilities for satire.
1) '''I am indeed, in a certain sense a Circle,' replied the voice, 'and a more perfect Circle than any in Flatland; but to speak more accurately, I am many Circles in one.' Then he added more mildly, 'I have a message, dear Madam, to your husband, which I must not deliver in your presence; and, if you would suffer us to retire for a few minutes#-' But my Wife would not listen to the proposal that our august Visitor should so incommode himself, and assuring the Circle that the hour of her own retirement had long passed, with many reiterated apologies for her recent indiscretion, she at last retired to her apartment.
I glanced at the half-hour glass. The last sands had fallen. The third Millennium had begun.''
2) ''An unspeakable horror seized me. There was a darkness; then a dizzy, sickening sensation of sight that was not like …
1) '''I am indeed, in a certain sense a Circle,' replied the voice, 'and a more perfect Circle than any in Flatland; but to speak more accurately, I am many Circles in one.' Then he added more mildly, 'I have a message, dear Madam, to your husband, which I must not deliver in your presence; and, if you would suffer us to retire for a few minutes#-' But my Wife would not listen to the proposal that our august Visitor should so incommode himself, and assuring the Circle that the hour of her own retirement had long passed, with many reiterated apologies for her recent indiscretion, she at last retired to her apartment.
I glanced at the half-hour glass. The last sands had fallen. The third Millennium had begun.''
2) ''An unspeakable horror seized me. There was a darkness; then a dizzy, sickening sensation of sight that was not like seeing; I saw a Line that was no Line; Space that was not Space: I was myself, and not myself. When I could find voice, I shrieked aloud in agony, 'Either this is madness or it is Hell.' 'It is neither,' calmly replied the voice of the Sphere, 'it is Knowledge; it is Three Dimensions: open your eye once again and try to look steadily.''
