Flatland : A Romance of Many Dimensions - Edwin A. Abbott

A friend had told me about 'Flatland' quite recently, after Nolan's recent movie about space and dimensions : Interstellar. It sounded quite fascinating but (as the introduction asserts) higher dimensions are very much a layman topic now. So I was in no rush to get to this book although it remained in my list. One fine day while ordering Borges's 'The Book of Imaginary Beings' I decided to add 'Flatland' to the order and picked it up almost immediately.

The book was way more succint than I had imagined it to be. The edition I read had a mere eighty-two pages and since I am currently a sucker for short and gripping stories I had no qualms in pushing it to the top of the list of pending books. To be honest, I did not have much expectations from the book. I had imagined it to be another treatise on the philosophy of higher dimensions and I had read enough crap about it recently to expect nothing more than a modification of the same old story. So imagine my surprise at finding myself immersed in the book and reading it cover to cover on a lazy Sunday. It is downright the most amazing book I have read in quite some time! And to think that it was written more than a century ago! I read the book with a stupid smile on my face that was a result of the incredulity of Abbott. He treats the idea of multiple dimensions with such crude simplicity that one wonders why dimensions is an abstract science anyway.

The story is narrated by "our friend Square" who is an inhabitant of Flatland. This realm of his is two dimensional and has various classes and sects of society not very different from our own (or atleast similar to what it must have been in later 1800's). There are also laws : natural and social, that govern a creature's existence and conduct in this two dimensional "Space". He addresses us, the readers in the three dimensional world, Spaceland, and tells us all about his flat world. And he talks about his vision of meeting the monarch of Lineland and receiving visions of Spaceland.

Abbott's genius is evident in every line of the book; his prose exposed in every sentence. It is the rare comination of good authorship and logically sound writing that one rarely finds in scientific literature or fictional writing. I thoroughly enjoyed reading the eigthy-two pages of this book and marvelled at the comprehensiveness with which the author treated the subjects that would have been obvious questions while switching dimensions. I do not know much of Abbott's other works but I am sure enough to start digging.

The Myth of Sisyphus - Albert Camus

'The Myth of Sisyphus' had come up in a discussion I was having with a dear friend of mine (one of the many we had had). She had suggested me this book when I had told her that I had read Camus's 'The Outsider'. The topic, as she had described it to be, did interest me. So I got hold of a copy but I was not expecting an essay. Not having the appetite for it back then and feeling myself rather lost in Camus's reasoning, I had put the book back on the shelf using the excuse that his arguments were rather difficult to follow because I had no idea about the references that he was making My friend did assure me that the references did not matter, and that if I persisted it would all be lucid in a bit. But I shelfed the book anyway. It was only when I recently read Sartre's 'Nausea' that I thought of getting back to this book.

I would like to believe that I now had the required existentialist knowledge to follow Camus. He builds up on the theory of Absurdism and looks at the possible options that an absurd man has for himself. He tries to argue the futility of suicide as an answer to the existentialist question. Camus recognises the absurd and advocates the acceptance of the absurd as the only reasonable option to counter it. He uses the works of other philosophers and writers, like Kierkegaard, Dostoyevsky, Nietzsche, Kafka, etc., to make his case against suicide as a viable option. He argues that ending one's life serves only to reinforce the absurd. He even dismisses the leap of faith as shown in the works of Dostoyevsky and Kafka as a philosophical suicide and suggests that it does nothing to defy the absurd. His solution is acceptance and rebellion; to live out the absurd as an act of defiance. Camus does make a convincing case of it. Though I think that he (and probably others) disregards other options that are present to the "absurd man". Sisyphus, who has been condemned by the Gods to the task of pushing a boulder up a hill and watching it roll back down as he sets to repeat his effort again, strikes Camus as the quintessential of absurd. The acceptance of his fate by Sisyphus, says Camus, is his true freedom; his rebellion against the absurd that he has been condemned to.

The other essays in the book were pieces on his Algerian travels. These were far easier to assimilate than the main one. They were also far more personal and engaging. Camus describes, not so much in events than the emotions stirred in him, a summer spent in Algiers, his travel to Oran and a nostalgic return to Tipasa. Any travel writer could look for inspiration in these short works.

Camus was as brilliant as I remember him to be. I think it is the personal touch that he lends to his works that make them even more endearing; more real. I am not sure whether I which of his works I will pick up next, fiction or non-fiction; but I surely will read more of him.