settingshadow reviewed Mathematician's Shiva by Stuart Rojstaczer
Review of "Mathematician's Shiva" on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
Most novels ostensibly about math feature math as a [a:Dan Brown|630|Dan Brown|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1399396714p2/630.jpg]-ian McGuffin, approximately equivalent to magic: we take these numbers and then Do Math and then the secret to the universe pops out-style. That is not the Mathematician's Shiva. This is a book written by someone who clearly loves and understands math. The whole novel is basically a love poem to math, and cold Wisconsin winters, supported by knowing winks at academic culture and a heavy dose of Madison in its setting. Out of that comes a charming family story, staring all middle-aged+ protagonists (shout-out to Jon, who's into that sort of thing), as well as some thoughtful exploration of the meaning of religion, and specifically Judaism to a bunch of hard-nosed skeptics who don't literally believe but still gain value, the difference between intelligence and genius and the areas of the world where gender discrimination is alive and …
Most novels ostensibly about math feature math as a [a:Dan Brown|630|Dan Brown|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1399396714p2/630.jpg]-ian McGuffin, approximately equivalent to magic: we take these numbers and then Do Math and then the secret to the universe pops out-style. That is not the Mathematician's Shiva. This is a book written by someone who clearly loves and understands math. The whole novel is basically a love poem to math, and cold Wisconsin winters, supported by knowing winks at academic culture and a heavy dose of Madison in its setting. Out of that comes a charming family story, staring all middle-aged+ protagonists (shout-out to Jon, who's into that sort of thing), as well as some thoughtful exploration of the meaning of religion, and specifically Judaism to a bunch of hard-nosed skeptics who don't literally believe but still gain value, the difference between intelligence and genius and the areas of the world where gender discrimination is alive and well.
I'm not totally sure who this novel was actually for, but as an academic Eastern-European Jewish math-enthusiast, cross-country-skiing-enthusiast who was born and raised in Madison, I enjoyed it largely as a "hey, look at that, someone wrote a book just for me!" I'm not sure whether a broader audience would appreciate it.