The Indian Clerk: A Novel (ISBN 1596910402)

Surprise!:
Yes! Ramanujan is a strange person, even in the eyes of his own countrymen. But the real strangeness resides in the group of Cambridge mathematicians and their colleagues in which he ends up after arriving in England. If the author has painted a true picture of this elite group of early 20th Century Cantabridgians, then--at least to this Westerner--it's a far, far weirder time, place and people than the personality of the "Hindoo Calculator." Well worth reading, not to find out more about Ramanujan, but to catch a glimpse of this peculiar tribe of Englishmen (and Englishwomen) just before and during WWI.

Pretentious:
Only that. It's pretentious, pompous with an 'over-baroque' writing and plain characters. A novel which tries to evoke memories and circumstances, clearly, far beyond the knowledge and experience of the author. It's a cold relate from an author who is trying to go out of the gay topics which gave fame to him.

Disorder:
David Leavitt takes historical figures and facts of the early 20th century in England, and weaves a complicated story of personal relationships and mathematical genius on the pages of his novel, The Indian Clerk. The title refers to Srinivasa Ramanujan, who in 1913 from his accounts clerk desk in Madras, India, sent a nine-page letter about prime numbers to Cambridge mathematician G.H. Hardy. Hardy and his colleague J.E. Littlewood recognize Ramanujan's talent and agree that he should come to Cambridge. Once there, he and Hardy work hard on math proofs. The orderliness of math contrasts well with the disorderliness of the relationships in this book. Genius can always be difficult in their personal relationships, and the many geniuses in The Indian Clerk make for lively and complicated relationships. Lovers of math will find the formulas in the book and their discussions to be intriguing. For the rest of us, there's sadness about all the personal aspects of unfulfillment in the emotional lives of all the key characters. Husbands and wives are estranged; lovers are separated; homosexuality is closeted and Ramanujan dies an early death for a reason that could have been avoided if the selfish Hardy had paid more attention. For those readers who reach the end of the book with questions about what was fact and what was fiction, Leavitt provides a final section of the book that sorts much of that out. Rating: Three-star (Recommended)

Believable:
This book portrays the characters of mathematicians and related society in England circa WWI, although it doesn't provide much help at understanding the math. It does a good job of capturing the eccentricities of people who are obsessed with math. One quote that seemed particularly apt: "It's as if each of the integers is one of his personal friends", which reminds me of the analysis in Keith Devlin's book The Math Gene. But this realism means that the characters aren't sufficiently likable or exciting for me to want such a lengthy story about them. One aspect of the book which puzzles me is when he suggests Ramanujan died of lead poisoning. He cites A. B. Young as a source of information on Ramanujan's illness, in a way that suggests that Young supports that diagnosis. So I was surprised when I checked and saw that Young concludes he died of a liver parasite.

" The Indian Clerk "; a personal view:
I found this tale, based on real events, to be absolutely compelling, notwithstanding a certain degree of writers privilege. You do not need any special mathematical ability, for few people would truly understand the number theory involved. What matters here, is the interplay of human characters; most with fine intellects. The story reveals much about Cambridge life, during that period.