The Indian Clerk: A Novel

by David Leavitt

Hardcover, 2007

Status

Available

Call number

PS3562.E2618 I63

Genres

Collections

Your library, University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh

Publication

Bloomsbury USA (2007), Edition: 1st, Hardcover, 496 pages

Description

Leavitt's novel centers on the relationship between mathematicians G.H. Hardy (1877-1947) and Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887-1920). In January of 1913, Cambridge-based Hardy receives a nine-page letter filled with prime number theorems from S. Ramanujan, a young accounts clerk in Madras. Intrigued, Hardy consults his colleague and collaborator, J.E. Littlewood; the two soon decide Ramanujan is a mathematical genius and that he should emigrate to Cambridge to work with them. Hardy recruits the young, eager don, Eric Neville, and his wife, Alice, to travel to India and expedite Ramanujan's arrival; Alice's changing affections, WWI and Ramanujan's enigmatic ailments add obstacles. Meanwhile, Hardy, a reclusive scholar and closeted homosexual, narrates a second story line cast as a series of 1936 Harvard lectures, some of them imagined. Ramanujan comes to renown as the the Hindu calculator discussions of mathematics and bits of Cambridge's often risqué academic culture (including D.H. Lawrence's 1915 visit) add authenticity.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member Clara53

The recognition and description of genius is a tricky enterprise, so I applaud the author for the skillful account of events (true and invented) surrounding the short and brilliant life of the great Indian mathematician Ramanujan. One also gets a great feel of the period, masterfully portrayed

through the eyes and feelings of Hardy who was the instrument of bringing Ramanujan to England and also his collaborator. The overall feeling is that of melancholy and human frailness, though, and it was with me throughout the reading of the book...

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LibraryThing member theageofsilt

G.H. Hardy, acclaimed mathematician, seeks to help a math prodigy from India come to England to further his development. The chilly Hardy is dismayed to find that this genius is not only one of the greatest mathematicians of all time, but also a complex human being that brings with him a baggage of

personal problems and cultural barriers. "The Indian Clerk" is closely based on the real life of Ramanujan and captures the Edwardian England of those left at home during World War I.

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LibraryThing member yooperprof

If there were a "truth in book titles" law, this novel should really be called "The Cambridge Don."

Bravo to David Leavitt for doing a lot of research on Cambridge intellectuals in the period immediately before and during the First World War. Who would have thought you could write a 500 page novel

about early 20th century mathematics and make it interesting? Here's the rub: based upon Leavitt's effort here, it's probably not possible. Actually, the "campus politics" aspect of the book keeps the plot simmering for the first 200 pages or so. It's fun to read about the "naughty" Cambridge Apostles, and the conflicting egos of Bertrand Russell, D.H. Lawrence, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and other intellectual bigwigs who make their appearances here. And the Indian mathematician of the title, Srinivasa Ramanujan, is fascinating enough, even though he is treated entirely from the outside. The problem is there's not enough of interest - not enough plot - to justify the lengthy treatment that the author provides. And the central character through whom the novel is refracted, a cranky bachelor don named G.H. Hardy, becomes tiresome company halfway through the book.

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LibraryThing member hailelib

This award-winning novel tells the story of G. H. Hardy and his association with the Indian mathematician S. Ramanujan beginning in 1913 and lasting until Ramanujan's death in 1920.

It was Hardy and his fellow mathematicians Littlewood and Neville who arranged for Ramanujan to come to Cambridge

University, arriving in 1914 and remaining in England until a few months before his death at the age of 32. Leavitt tells the story primarily from Hardy's point of view and while a number of mathematical discussions are scattered throughout the book one doesn't have to fully understand them to read The Indian Clerk. There is a great deal of detail about English academia of the time, about WWI and life for those on the 'home front', and, about the life of a homosexual during that period in England. (Hardy and some of his friends were more attracted to men than to women and this naturally influenced their relationships.) Also several of the characters were pacifists which created difficulties for them once war was declared. While mathematics was a recurring theme in the novel, Leavitt also explored the friendships, loves and careers of many of his characters, the prejudices and politics of academia, particularly at Cambridge University, and even touched on the racism that made Ramanujan's election as a Fellow more difficult.

This was an interesting book but I did tend to read it in sections with other reading between those sections. Cautiously recommended.

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LibraryThing member lorraineh

I struggled with this book to begin with but I have to stay I enjoyed it in the end. Its an interesting tale of pre-war politics in a University and the clash of cultures when an indian genius challenges mathematical thinking.
For me it expresses the upper class delusions during this period of

history as well as the way other cultures were misunderstood.
If you pick the book up, keep with it! Its worth it in the end

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LibraryThing member otterley

A very interesting book about the mathematician GH Hardy, at the time when the untaught Indian mathematical genius Ramanujan, entered his life. Thi story has been told in a number of places (I first came across it in the marvellous play by Complicite - a disappearing number) and speaks to many

contemporary obsessions - colonialism, sexuality, the second world war, religion, maths and science, to name but a few. Leavitt draws a very compelling and convincing picture of the very strange world of Cambridge in the early years of the 1900s - a bizarre cultish place that produced a strange harvest of geniuses - and also produces sympathetic characterisations. Notable for me was Hardy's collaborator Littlewood, a very 'normal' man who happens to be an outstanding mathematician. Leavitt's first person narrative is impeccable, his narrator fallible yet likeable, and we are drawn into the world of this extraordinary story and given a glimpse of the alien but beguiling world of maths

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LibraryThing member Limelite

Perfectly evoking the ivory tower intellectual life of Trinity College, Cambridge and English society and attitudes in Edwardian times, Leavitt delivers a superb fictionalized biography of two men, focusing on the relationship between theoretical mathematicians G. H. Hardy and Ramanujan, the Indian

self-taught genius.

Hardy’s war with God, social convention, Ramanujan’s quirks, his mother’s illness, and his sister’s unfulfilled potential leave the impression of a hard-working rationalist nearly lacking in all human understanding. By contrast, Ramanujan remains a mystical, insecure, frail, and estranged exotic transplant, yet working just as much as Hardy as they collaborate (with Littlewood) in an attempt to solve the Reimann Hypothesis, which remains to this day the "Holy Grail" of modern mathematics and one of the seven Millennium Prize Problems.

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LibraryThing member MarthaJeanne

I'm finding this slow going. It drags.

LibraryThing member Aditr

tough to get into

LibraryThing member kerns222

I thought this would be a book about the Indian mathematician. It is a book about an English mathematician, Hardy, and his colleagues and family. And Cambridge. And England. Even the servants. But the young man from India is presented in your basic inscrutable style. His life is hinted but never

shown. And what is shown is always through the English eyes. No natives need apply.
If I wanted to learn more about the English I would watch PBS.

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