Logicomix

Logicomix is a fascinating and unusual graphic novel by Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos Papadimitriou, with art by Aleco s Papadatos and Annie Di Donna.  The subtitle, An Epic Search for Truth, signals the story's thread: an account of the development of logical thought, from the late 1890's up through the 1950's, using Bertrand Russell as narrator and his life story as the frame.  Russell came from a privileged and illustrious family - his grandfather was a Prime Minister of England - but also a secretive one, with skeins of madness and promiscuity.

Thus, Russell's earliest passions were to discover hidden truths, with certainty, which drove his interest in logic.  He spent roughly a decade collaborating with Alfred North Whitehead in developing a logical basis for arithmetic, with the goal of placing mathematics on a secure foundation.  Although the methods they developed in their Principia Mathematica were highly influential, they never succeeded in their goal and Russell felt that this effort had been a failure.  Eventually, as recounted in this book, Kurt Gödel relied heavily on the methods of Russell and Whitehead, to prove conclusively that the effort to axiomatize arithmetic is inherently flawed.  John von Neumann was in the audience when Gödel presented this work, and famously said "It's all over".

Russell was also a passionate pacifist, and the human cost of the wars and revolutions of the 1900's is a second major theme of the story, serving to underscore the tension between rational versus emotional or ideological approaches to human interaction.  The authors appear in the book as themselves, discussing the ideas and themes and, especially, how the book should end.  So as not to spoil the ending, I will simply say that the authors and illustrators attend a performance of the Oresteia, and draw conclusions from the ending of the play, which is visually exciting and emotionally powerful.  A very interesting and thoughtful book....and I am now reading the Oresteia!

All the Light We Cannot See

This book by Anthony Doerr is written simply, but with the emotional power and magical intensity of a fable or fairy tale. The book is set in World War II and centers on two main characters, a blind French girl and a talented young German soldier, who are eventually drawn together and meet in the walled city of St. Malo. The structure is a little unusual, with short chapters that switch from one character to another and back in forth in time, getting closer and closer to the moment of meeting.  

There's a very interesting interview with Doerr that was published in the Powell's Book Blog.   At one point, the interviewer, in asking him about the short chapters, says perhaps they "can allow for more lyricisms and/or experimentation with language in some ways than longer chapters because you get that cessation. Doerr agrees that his writing in this novel is very lyrical and says "I know that's demanding, so this was a gesture of friendliness, maybe. It's like I'm saying to the reader, "I know this is going to be more lyrical than maybe 70 percent of American readers want to see, but here's a bunch of white space for you to recover from that lyricism." [Laughter].

The story and characters are so captivating that All the Light We Cannot See is hard to put down.  When I had finished and was thinking over the book, it seemed to me that it differed from many books in that it had no strong themes.  One line spoken by a character in the book has been repeatedly quoted by readers and reviewers:  “Open your eyes and see what you can with them before they close forever.”  The title and this statement clearly relate to the blind girl, but I finally came to feel that they also describe a central "theme"of the book: that life is magnificent; joyous and heartbreaking, meaningful and random, kind and cruel. Although Doerr is not Tolstoy, and All the Light We Cannot See is not War and Peace, the power of the writing nevertheless grips us and invites to embrace the variety of life.