Princeton University, 1980. A young and unambitious librarian named Anna Roth is assigned the task of retrieving the records of Kurt Gödel—the most fascinating and hermetic mathematician of the twentieth century. Her mission consists of befriending and ultimately taming the great man's widow, Adele, a notoriously bitter woman set on taking belated revenge against the establishment by refusing to hand over these documents of immeasurable historical value. But as Anna soon finds out, Adele has a story of her own to tell. Through descriptions of Princeton and Vienna after the war, the occupation of Austria by the Nazis, the pressures of McCarthyism, the end of the positivist ideal, and the advent of nuclear weapons, Anna discovers firsthand the epic story of a genius who could never quite find his place in the world—and the private torment of the woman who loved him.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
October 14, 2014 -
Formats
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9781483018638
- File size: 382944 KB
- Duration: 13:17:47
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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Publisher's Weekly
July 14, 2014
Grannec depicts the life of historical mathematical prodigy Kurt Gödel and his mismatched but devoted wife, Adele, in this overly earnest debut. In 1980, young translator Anna Roth, tasked by her mathematician parents, visits the widowed Adele in a nursing home and tries to persuade her to release Kurt’s papers for study. Adele recounts her early life, beginning with her first meeting with Kurt in Vienna. Older and worldlier than Kurt, the earthy Adele holds considerable allure for the young genius, but only gains his iron-willed mother’s consent to marry him when Kurt flees Nazi Austria just after the outbreak of WWII for a position in the United States. In Princeton, Adele is initially lonely, but soon makes friends, with Einstein, no less. Meanwhile, in chapters told in the third person from Anna’s perspective, the young woman learns valuable lessons from the older woman in everything from beauty to standing up to her smothering family and oppressive bosses. Yannec’s attempts to evoke period can be clumsy, as when, in 1955, Adele listens to the radio and asks her friends, “Do you know Chuck Berry, ladies? They are calling this ‘rock and roll.’” More off-putting, though, is the afterword’s admission that the novel’s premise—Adele’s reluctance to part with Kurt’s papers—is utterly untrue.
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