Genres
Publication
Doubleday UK (2009), Edition: Airport / Export ed, 320 pages
Description
Misfits Alice and Mattia bond as teens over shared experiences of suffering before mathematically gifted Mattia accepts a research position that takes him far away, a situation that restores their isolation before they meet by chance years later.
Media reviews
Ik heb blijkbaar een voorkeur voor Italiaanse schrijvers die de Premio Strega winnen. En de 26-jarige Paolo Giordano is met zijn boek De eenzaamheid van de priemgetallen ook nog eens de jongste Premio Strega-winnaar aller tijden!
Het verhaal pakte mij vanaf het begin.
De briljante Mattia
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schaamt zich voor zijn achterlijke tweelingzusje Michela. Onderweg naar een verjaardagsfeestje liet hij dat lastige zusje eventjes achter op een bank in het park. Ze is nooit teruggevonden.
Alice wordt door haar vader gedwongen te skiën. Zijn obsessie voor de lange latten maakt haar opstandig en als zij tijdens een mistige afdaling haar skiklasje verlaat, breekt ze haar been. Sindsdien loopt ze mank.
Mattia omschrijft zichzelf en Alice als twee priemgetallen die afwijken van hun omgeving zoals priemgetallen dat doen ten opzichte van de rest van de getallen:
”Alleen en verloren, vlak bij elkaar, maar niet dicht genoeg om elkaar echt aan te raken”.
Giordano beschrijft heel mooi hoe twee jonge mensen hun draai in het leven proberen te vinden; van hun traumatische jeugdjaren tot ze bijna dertigers zijn. Alice en Mattia voelen zich vanaf de dag van hun ontmoeting verbonden, maar merken al snel hoe moeilijk het is om wezenlijk contact met elkaar te krijgen.
Het is een roman die je bijna filmisch meesleept, je hebt geen idee hoe het zal eindigen. Het enige dat je kunt doen, is hopen op een happy end, maar de vraag is of dat er wel komt. Wat mij betreft mag deze jonge schrijver nog heel veel meer moois uitbrengen!
Waarschuwing: dit boek is moeilijk weg te leggen als je begint te lezen!
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The Solitude of Prime Numbers hints at the scientific background of its 27-year-old Italian author. Paolo Giordano is completing a PhD in Physics in Turin, while also winning the country's most prestigious literary prize, Premio Strega, selling over one million copies all over the world, and
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writing short stories and columns for the Italian press.
Giordano's first novel tells the story of two solitary adolescents: he compares them to "special" prime numbers such as 11, 13, 17, 41 and 43. These numbers can only be divided by one and themselves – they live parallel lives without ever touching. This is the story of Alice and Mattia, two extraordinary beings who will live parallel destinies, developing a friendship without ever becoming romantically involved. Show Less
"La solitud dels nombres primers", la novel·la més venuda a Itàlia el 2008, relaciona solitud, geometria i literatura a mans del seu autor, Paolo Giordano, un llicenciat en Física teòrica de 25 anys que ha aconseguit l'èxit amb la seva primera publicació literària, segons que ha dit en una
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entrevista amb Efe. Show Less
Giordano's volmaakte beheersing zit niet alleen in de precisie van de taal, maar vooral ook in zijn toon. Daarmee bereikt hij dat over zijn hele roman een floers van eenzaamheid ligt, waardoor het boek ook door zijn vorm voelbaar maakt wat het wil mededelen. Als lezer moet je wel een heel koude
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kikker zijn om daar onberoerd onder te blijven. Show Less
User reviews
LibraryThing member gbill
“The Solitude of Prime Numbers” is about two people who have been damaged in childhood and are carrying on in their lives, but who are unable to fully integrate into the world or to completely connect even with those closest to them. Alice is an anorexic who is lame in one leg following a
Likening these people to mathematical prime numbers, combining their awkwardness with moments of comedy, and showing us the world at times through Mattia’s eyes are all very nice touches by Giordano. The book works on other levels that I could relate to: the difficulties of growing up, of finding love, marriage, and making decisions at those critical moments of truth in one’s life. Giordano’s writing is clear yet multi-faceted, and I enjoyed this book.
On retreating into studies; I loved this one:
“’Do you really like studying?’
Mattia nodded.
‘Why?’
‘It’s the only thing I know how to do,’ he said shortly. He wanted to tell her that he liked studying because you can do it alone, because all the things you study are already dead, cold, and chewed over. He wanted to tell her that the pages of the schoolbooks were all the same temperature, that they left you time to choose, that they never hurt you and you couldn’t hurt them either. But he said nothing.”
On adolescence:
“For Alice and Mattia, the high school years were an open wound that had seemed so deep that it could never heal. They had passed through them without breathing, he rejecting the world and she feeling rejected by it, and eventually they had noticed that it didn’t make all that much difference. They had formed a defective and asymmetrical friendship, made up of long absences and much silence, a clean and empty space where both could come back to breathe when the walls of their school became too close for them to ignore the feeling of suffocation.
But over time, the wound of adolescence gradually healed.”
On prime numbers (and people):
“In his first year at university, Mattia had learned that, among prime numbers, there are some that are even more special. Mathematicians call them twin primes: pairs of prime numbers that are close to each other, almost neighbors, but between them there is always an even number that prevents them from truly touching. Numbers like 11 and 13, like 17 and 19, 41 and 43. If you have the patience to go on counting, you discover that these pairs gradually become rarer. You encounter increasingly isolated primes, lost in that silent, measured space made only of ciphers, and you develop a distressing presentiment that the pairs encountered up until that point were accidental, that solitude is the true destiny. Then, just when you’re about to surrender, when you no longer have the desire to go on counting, you come across another pair of twins, clutching each other tightly.”
On sex, as it all falls apart:
“He did everything he could to not make it look like a habit, a duty, but the truth was clear to both of them.
They followed a series of movements that had become consolidated into a routine over time, and which made everything simpler, then Fabio entered her, with the help of his fingers.
Alice wasn’t sure that he was really crying, because he held his head tilted to one side to avoid contact with her skin, but she noticed that there was something different in his way of moving. He was thrusting more violently and more urgently than usual, then he would stop suddenly, his breath heavy, and start again, as though torn between the desire to penetrate more deeply and the desire to slip away from her and from the room.”
On sex, at the beginning:
“Once Denis, talking about himself, had told him that all opening moves were the same, like in chess. You don’t have to come up with anything new, there’s no point, because you’re both after the same thing anyway. The game soon finds its own way and it’s only at that point that you need a strategy.”
On loving someone else:
“She thought of him often. Again. He was like another of her illnesses, from which she didn’t really want to recover. You can fall ill with just a memory and she had fallen ill that afternoon in the car, by the park, when she had covered his face with her own to prevent him from looking on the site where that horror had taken place.
No matter how hard she tried, from all those years spent with Fabio she couldn’t extract so much as one image that crushed her heart so powerfully, that had the same impetuous violence in its colors and which she could still feel on her skin and in the roots of her hair and between her legs.”
On love, unrequited:
“There had been that time and there had been an infinite number of others, which Alice no longer remembered, because the love of those we don’t love in return settles on the surface and from there quickly evaporates.”
On connection, despite great distance or separation:
“If he had moved, she would have been aware of it somehow. Because she and Mattia were united by an invisible, elastic thread, buried under a pile of meaningless things, a thread that could exist only between two people like themselves: two people who had acknowledged their own solitude within the other.”
On change:
“He walked down the corridor to his bedroom. He was sure he would find everything as he left it, as if that space was immune to the erosion of time, as if all the years of his absence constituted only a parenthesis in that place. He felt an alienating sense of disappointment when he saw that everything was different, like the horrible feeling of ceasing to exist.”
On the moment of truth:
“Mattia knew what needed to be done. He had to get out of there and sit back down on that sofa, he had to take her hand and tell her I shouldn’t have left. He had to kiss her once more and then again, until they were so used to that gesture that he couldn’t do without it. It happened in films and it happened in reality, every day. People took what they wanted, they clutched at coincidences, the few there were, and made a life from them. He had either to tell Alice I’m here, or leave, take the first plane and disappear again, go back to the place where he had been hanging for all those years.
By now he had learned. Choices are made in brief seconds and paid for in the time that remains. It had happened with Michela and then with Alice and again now. He recognized them with time: those seconds were there, and he would never make a mistake again.”
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childhood skiing accident. Mattia is a cutter who is brilliant at math but consumed with guilt for having abandoned his retarded twin sister. Their demons and secrets are buried but always present, just below the surface.Likening these people to mathematical prime numbers, combining their awkwardness with moments of comedy, and showing us the world at times through Mattia’s eyes are all very nice touches by Giordano. The book works on other levels that I could relate to: the difficulties of growing up, of finding love, marriage, and making decisions at those critical moments of truth in one’s life. Giordano’s writing is clear yet multi-faceted, and I enjoyed this book.
On retreating into studies; I loved this one:
“’Do you really like studying?’
Mattia nodded.
‘Why?’
‘It’s the only thing I know how to do,’ he said shortly. He wanted to tell her that he liked studying because you can do it alone, because all the things you study are already dead, cold, and chewed over. He wanted to tell her that the pages of the schoolbooks were all the same temperature, that they left you time to choose, that they never hurt you and you couldn’t hurt them either. But he said nothing.”
On adolescence:
“For Alice and Mattia, the high school years were an open wound that had seemed so deep that it could never heal. They had passed through them without breathing, he rejecting the world and she feeling rejected by it, and eventually they had noticed that it didn’t make all that much difference. They had formed a defective and asymmetrical friendship, made up of long absences and much silence, a clean and empty space where both could come back to breathe when the walls of their school became too close for them to ignore the feeling of suffocation.
But over time, the wound of adolescence gradually healed.”
On prime numbers (and people):
“In his first year at university, Mattia had learned that, among prime numbers, there are some that are even more special. Mathematicians call them twin primes: pairs of prime numbers that are close to each other, almost neighbors, but between them there is always an even number that prevents them from truly touching. Numbers like 11 and 13, like 17 and 19, 41 and 43. If you have the patience to go on counting, you discover that these pairs gradually become rarer. You encounter increasingly isolated primes, lost in that silent, measured space made only of ciphers, and you develop a distressing presentiment that the pairs encountered up until that point were accidental, that solitude is the true destiny. Then, just when you’re about to surrender, when you no longer have the desire to go on counting, you come across another pair of twins, clutching each other tightly.”
On sex, as it all falls apart:
“He did everything he could to not make it look like a habit, a duty, but the truth was clear to both of them.
They followed a series of movements that had become consolidated into a routine over time, and which made everything simpler, then Fabio entered her, with the help of his fingers.
Alice wasn’t sure that he was really crying, because he held his head tilted to one side to avoid contact with her skin, but she noticed that there was something different in his way of moving. He was thrusting more violently and more urgently than usual, then he would stop suddenly, his breath heavy, and start again, as though torn between the desire to penetrate more deeply and the desire to slip away from her and from the room.”
On sex, at the beginning:
“Once Denis, talking about himself, had told him that all opening moves were the same, like in chess. You don’t have to come up with anything new, there’s no point, because you’re both after the same thing anyway. The game soon finds its own way and it’s only at that point that you need a strategy.”
On loving someone else:
“She thought of him often. Again. He was like another of her illnesses, from which she didn’t really want to recover. You can fall ill with just a memory and she had fallen ill that afternoon in the car, by the park, when she had covered his face with her own to prevent him from looking on the site where that horror had taken place.
No matter how hard she tried, from all those years spent with Fabio she couldn’t extract so much as one image that crushed her heart so powerfully, that had the same impetuous violence in its colors and which she could still feel on her skin and in the roots of her hair and between her legs.”
On love, unrequited:
“There had been that time and there had been an infinite number of others, which Alice no longer remembered, because the love of those we don’t love in return settles on the surface and from there quickly evaporates.”
On connection, despite great distance or separation:
“If he had moved, she would have been aware of it somehow. Because she and Mattia were united by an invisible, elastic thread, buried under a pile of meaningless things, a thread that could exist only between two people like themselves: two people who had acknowledged their own solitude within the other.”
On change:
“He walked down the corridor to his bedroom. He was sure he would find everything as he left it, as if that space was immune to the erosion of time, as if all the years of his absence constituted only a parenthesis in that place. He felt an alienating sense of disappointment when he saw that everything was different, like the horrible feeling of ceasing to exist.”
On the moment of truth:
“Mattia knew what needed to be done. He had to get out of there and sit back down on that sofa, he had to take her hand and tell her I shouldn’t have left. He had to kiss her once more and then again, until they were so used to that gesture that he couldn’t do without it. It happened in films and it happened in reality, every day. People took what they wanted, they clutched at coincidences, the few there were, and made a life from them. He had either to tell Alice I’m here, or leave, take the first plane and disappear again, go back to the place where he had been hanging for all those years.
By now he had learned. Choices are made in brief seconds and paid for in the time that remains. It had happened with Michela and then with Alice and again now. He recognized them with time: those seconds were there, and he would never make a mistake again.”
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LibraryThing member detailmuse
The Solitude of Prime Numbers opens in the childhoods of an Italian girl and boy, Alice and Mattia, where separate traumatic incidents alter their lives. Isolation is a factor in the incidents, and is such a continuing fact in their lives that Mattia likens himself to a prime number. Despite
Though the setting is modern-day Italy, I was disappointed that there is no sense of the country or culture. (In fact I was bumped back to the USA by a couple of passages, including the literal line, “Alice doesn’t live here anymore.”) Otherwise, it’s a lovely (though melancholy) and insightful novel with an ending I found wholly satisfying.
(Review based on an advance reading copy provided by the publisher.)
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becoming acquainted with each other in adolescence, their sense of separateness continues in Mattia’s characterization of them as twin primes: “pairs of prime numbers that are close to each other, almost neighbors, but between them there is always an even number that prevents them from truly touching.” The spare narration beautifully evokes their introversion (even autism) and as they grow into adulthood and careers of photography and mathematics, the throughline remains: is solitude their destiny?Though the setting is modern-day Italy, I was disappointed that there is no sense of the country or culture. (In fact I was bumped back to the USA by a couple of passages, including the literal line, “Alice doesn’t live here anymore.”) Otherwise, it’s a lovely (though melancholy) and insightful novel with an ending I found wholly satisfying.
(Review based on an advance reading copy provided by the publisher.)
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LibraryThing member siafl
This book is not as good as all its accolades would suggest. I don't find much of a story in it, so at the end I am left wondering what it really is about. However, there are some very nice touches throughout, not the least because the author is a scientist and he draws parallels from mathematics,
The writing is beautiful, nevertheless, and it's fresh to read a writer who has a different voice. And I think, if Giordano continues to write, he would produce fascinating books. I find the character Alice utterly irritating, but Mattia's elusively interesting.
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physics and biology that are very fresh to read. Having said that, I am not entirely sure about the reference to prime numbers, other than that the total number of chapters happens to be forty-seven, which is, supposedly non-coincidentally, a prime number. I've even wondered whether that there exists a code hidden, somewhat DaVinci Code-like, among all the prime-numbered chapters, that when chained together, they form a special story, which I now don't believe is the case.The writing is beautiful, nevertheless, and it's fresh to read a writer who has a different voice. And I think, if Giordano continues to write, he would produce fascinating books. I find the character Alice utterly irritating, but Mattia's elusively interesting.
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LibraryThing member TheAmpersand
People have been unhappy for about as long as people have existed, but Mattia and Alice, the main characters of "The Solitude of Prime Numbers" seem to be unhappy in particularly modern ways. He's a genius mathematician, but he struggles to form emotional bonds with others, engages in self-harm,
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and hides a dark secret in his past. She was disabled in a childhood accident, struggles to cope with an eating disorder, and her parents are rather cold and distant. None of them want for much -- indeed, Alice's family seems quite well-off -- but their lives seem drab and joyless. They may share, as the title implies, a deeper emotional connection, but who knows what surprises life holds? More importantly, who cares? "The Solitude of Prime Numbers" is pretty drab and joyless itself, in part due to its prose, which is, like IKEA furniture, functional but rather boring. This may be an effect intended by the author, or it may be due to a poor translation; it's difficult to tell. Plain old bad writing might also be the culprit here. The author does capture something of the excitement and nausea of adolescence in the book's earlier chapters and finds some beauty in the language of the mathematics that Mattias studies obsessively, but I generally found myself unable to care about its protagonists' tortured, airless lives. "The Solitude of Prime Numbers" -- which is an oddly poetic title for a book that distinguishes itself being, in the main, resolutely unpoetic -- fails, for me, anyway, the Henry James test, which holds that a novel can be about anything as long as it's interesting. Somewhere in here, I think that there might be a big, sweeping, sentimental romance struggling to break free, but in order to pull that sort of thing off, you really need to create memorable characters that mean something to someone besides themselves, and Alice and Mattia don't seem like much more than the sum of their various sorrows. Okay, I'll stop now. "The Solitude of Prime Numbers" can take it's two stars, buy a Eurail pass, and get out of town. Ciao! Show Less
LibraryThing member VeronicaH.
The Solitude of Prime Numbers by Paolo Giordano is the second beautiful but sad Italian novel. Well, if I’m being honest, it’s downright depressing, but not in the week-long funk inducing way that Lev Grossman’s The Magicians and The Magician King were. The beauty of the Giordano’s prose
The novel follows them from youth, the time surrounding each incident, through adolescence when Alice and Mattia meet and form a timid friendship, and then through early adulthood. What is most depressing about this novel for me was the fact that both Alice and Mattia recognize one another for who they are and have the capacity to understand each other. And yet, time and again, neither will take the action that could save them both. The last two pages of the novel helped, gave some hope, but the novel as a whole is pretty bleak. But it is also quite beautiful, and that’s why I continued with it. I also kept hoping that Alice and Mattia would get their shit figured out.
The cast of characters is fairly small, which is good since Giordano sometimes jumps into various heads to offer differing perspectives, not on the same event, but rather as a way to show us how others see the primary two characters. It’s done well and not nearly as jolting as it was in Swimming to Elba, and for that I’m grateful. I realize that I really don’t read much contemporary “literature,” and because of that am not used to it’s tropes. I usually read as an escape and don’t usually enjoy reading about someone who could be my next door neighbor. I need something other, so international contemporary literature or anything pre-1980s is generally acceptable. I’m about to start rambling, so my final verdict is that this is a well-written meditation on the loneliness we inflict on ourselves and the weight of consequences. It is quiet and sometimes lovely, but also heavy and suffocating, like water at the bottom of a river on a warm summer day.
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tempers the dreary subject matter, which is a sad tale about two broken people trying to deal with the “weight of consequences,” as Alice, one of the book’s protagonists puts it. Both of the actions that create weighty consequences happen in the first two chapters of the novel. For Alice, it’s an unfortunate accident. For Mattia, the other protagonist, it’s an unthinking, childish need to be normal for the space of a birthday party. These actions haunt each character, to the extent that both retreat from the world into solitary obsessions. Mattia turns to the solitude of numbers, and Alice to starving herself. They use these obsessions to create iron-clad barriers between themselves and everyone else, including each other.The novel follows them from youth, the time surrounding each incident, through adolescence when Alice and Mattia meet and form a timid friendship, and then through early adulthood. What is most depressing about this novel for me was the fact that both Alice and Mattia recognize one another for who they are and have the capacity to understand each other. And yet, time and again, neither will take the action that could save them both. The last two pages of the novel helped, gave some hope, but the novel as a whole is pretty bleak. But it is also quite beautiful, and that’s why I continued with it. I also kept hoping that Alice and Mattia would get their shit figured out.
The cast of characters is fairly small, which is good since Giordano sometimes jumps into various heads to offer differing perspectives, not on the same event, but rather as a way to show us how others see the primary two characters. It’s done well and not nearly as jolting as it was in Swimming to Elba, and for that I’m grateful. I realize that I really don’t read much contemporary “literature,” and because of that am not used to it’s tropes. I usually read as an escape and don’t usually enjoy reading about someone who could be my next door neighbor. I need something other, so international contemporary literature or anything pre-1980s is generally acceptable. I’m about to start rambling, so my final verdict is that this is a well-written meditation on the loneliness we inflict on ourselves and the weight of consequences. It is quiet and sometimes lovely, but also heavy and suffocating, like water at the bottom of a river on a warm summer day.
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LibraryThing member mochap
amazingly beautiful and haunting story of two "misfits" who oddly fit each other--at least for a while. Ends beautifully
LibraryThing member Tinwara
Overrated. This book has been a bestseller for months now, so I thought I should try. However, despite its intriguing title, I thought it superficial and not very memorable. To read is to forget. It's not that it was an unpleasant read, just that it won't last. Two characters delve into their
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loneliness, and can't ever reach each other. In a review I read it is a homage to the choice for being alone. However, to me the main message was that you've got to be pretty messed up to make this choice. Whereas there could be better and more sensible reasons. Show Less
LibraryThing member fig2
A meditation on isolation, loneliness and alienation, this novel is astonishing in its crystal clear depth. Two high school friends, Alice, an anorexic, and Mattia, a cutter, conceal a sea of emotion beneath their stoic facades. As adults, after years of separation, a chance encounter for Alice and
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her subsequent request for Mattia to return home, changes both of them to the core. Paolo Giordano, at 27, is talented far, far beyond his years. This book is excellent. Show Less
LibraryThing member bragan
Alice is an anorexic rich girl. Mattia is a mathematical genius who is carrying around a guilty secret. Neither has been successful at forming bonds with other human beings, and both of them have scars, both literal and figurative, that the rest of the world actively ignores. But maybe they could
OK, that sort of makes it sound like it might be a cheesy romance. It's really, really not. In fact, I found it rather painful to read, not so much because it contains bullying and self-harm and other disturbing and depressing subjects, but because I so badly wanted to reach through the pages and smack both of them until they made different choices, said what they were thinking, and started treating themselves better. But it was mostly the good kind of pain, and the "Aargh, I care about these characters and they keep making me suffer with them!" kind of wanting to smack them, not the, "Aargh, the author has made these characters too annoying and stupid!" kind.
The writing is very good, even in translation: simple and understated and rather compelling. There is, perhaps, something that feels slightly artificial in how pure these characters are in their isolation and their damage, if that makes sense. But I think there's also something that feels true in it, anyway, so that ultimately, it works. I'm not entirely sure about the ending, which had just enough ambiguity to leave me mildly troubled, but in principle, at least, I think it's probably better than any of the possible endings I was imagining.
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truly connect with each other, if they'd ever let themselves.OK, that sort of makes it sound like it might be a cheesy romance. It's really, really not. In fact, I found it rather painful to read, not so much because it contains bullying and self-harm and other disturbing and depressing subjects, but because I so badly wanted to reach through the pages and smack both of them until they made different choices, said what they were thinking, and started treating themselves better. But it was mostly the good kind of pain, and the "Aargh, I care about these characters and they keep making me suffer with them!" kind of wanting to smack them, not the, "Aargh, the author has made these characters too annoying and stupid!" kind.
The writing is very good, even in translation: simple and understated and rather compelling. There is, perhaps, something that feels slightly artificial in how pure these characters are in their isolation and their damage, if that makes sense. But I think there's also something that feels true in it, anyway, so that ultimately, it works. I'm not entirely sure about the ending, which had just enough ambiguity to leave me mildly troubled, but in principle, at least, I think it's probably better than any of the possible endings I was imagining.
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LibraryThing member TheLostEntwife
Wow.
You know, I haven't run across much contemporary literature that renders me completely speechless after I put it down. This book is... wow.
Let me start with Alice. My heart broke reading just the beginning of her story. With sharp, clear writing Paolo Giordano gave description of places, of
And then there's Mattia. Sweet, smart Mattia. How could such a smart boy possibly go wrong? It's impossible not to empathize with him and understand his actions, his abuse toward himself. Over and over I felt my heart being wrung from the concern I felt, the desire to reach in to the pages of this book and just haul this character out of it and give him a hug.
The secondary characters in this book were powerful as well. Every character held so much intricate detail. My mind is spinning right now and all I can think is.. people need to read this book.
This book doesn't need me singing its praises. It stands firmly on its own two feet and is one of the most powerful, masterful debut books I've read.
You know, I haven't run across much contemporary literature that renders me completely speechless after I put it down. This book is... wow.
Let me start with Alice. My heart broke reading just the beginning of her story. With sharp, clear writing Paolo Giordano gave description of places, of
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feelings, of fears and then he ripped my heart out with an event that tore Alice's life apart. It's important to remember that not all disorders begin with the "typical" traumatic experiences and Giordano gut-punched me with that reminder at the beginning of Alice's story.And then there's Mattia. Sweet, smart Mattia. How could such a smart boy possibly go wrong? It's impossible not to empathize with him and understand his actions, his abuse toward himself. Over and over I felt my heart being wrung from the concern I felt, the desire to reach in to the pages of this book and just haul this character out of it and give him a hug.
The secondary characters in this book were powerful as well. Every character held so much intricate detail. My mind is spinning right now and all I can think is.. people need to read this book.
This book doesn't need me singing its praises. It stands firmly on its own two feet and is one of the most powerful, masterful debut books I've read.
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LibraryThing member John
Prime numbers are those that can be divided only by themselves and the number one. Mattia, one of the protagonists, has an extreme talent for mathematics and becomes a university lecturer, but the novel does not focus on mathematics, per se; rather, the concept of primes represents the solitude and
“They had already run out of things to say, but they lingered for a few seconds, the receivers pressed to their ears. They both breathed in a little of the affection that still survived between them, diluted along hundreds of miles of coaxial cable and nourished by something whose name they didn’t know and which perhaps, if they thought too carefully about it, no longer existed.”
This is a novel about the weight of consequences for actions taken, actions that scar and change lives for a number of people. It is about loneliness and at the same time a deeply human trait to reach out for emotional connections and love that can sometimes emerge from the most unlikely of circumstances. But love is not a panacea, it is not immutable: “…the love of those we don’t love in return settles on the surface and from there quickly evaporates.” The novel is also about the weight of change and time and distance, and the strength that one can find within oneself, to come to terms with oneself. I feared, towards the end of the novel, that Giordano was going to veer towards the saccharine, but he did not and it made the ending more satisfying, more real.
An impressive first novel.
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loneliness of the two protagonists: Mattia and Alice, both of them scarred by childhood experiences, both of them loners, both of them outsiders. There are certain prime numbers that are separated by only one other number, e.g. 7 and 9, or 29 and 31…..Mattia and Alice are like these numbers and though they do find each other, neither has any experience in, or capacity for, opening honestly to another person, so miscommunication thwarts the journey of their lives. Alice is a loner because she limps from a childhood accident and is never part of the “in” crowd; Mattia’s loneliness stems from his responsibility for the disappearance and death of his sister. Giordano is good on the sensitivities of emotions and relations, for children and adults. This is his description of Mattia’s relationship with his parents after he has moved to England, from Italy, to pursue a scholarship and teaching:“They had already run out of things to say, but they lingered for a few seconds, the receivers pressed to their ears. They both breathed in a little of the affection that still survived between them, diluted along hundreds of miles of coaxial cable and nourished by something whose name they didn’t know and which perhaps, if they thought too carefully about it, no longer existed.”
This is a novel about the weight of consequences for actions taken, actions that scar and change lives for a number of people. It is about loneliness and at the same time a deeply human trait to reach out for emotional connections and love that can sometimes emerge from the most unlikely of circumstances. But love is not a panacea, it is not immutable: “…the love of those we don’t love in return settles on the surface and from there quickly evaporates.” The novel is also about the weight of change and time and distance, and the strength that one can find within oneself, to come to terms with oneself. I feared, towards the end of the novel, that Giordano was going to veer towards the saccharine, but he did not and it made the ending more satisfying, more real.
An impressive first novel.
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LibraryThing member joannemepham29
This was a beautifully written story about lovely people, and I loved the math references and analogies. Just utterly great prose, and characterization. I loved it from the first sentence until the last.
LibraryThing member MarkMeg
People who can only function alone. Alice and Mattia--very dysfunctional. He a math genius. She crippled and suffering from anorexia. Can't live with other people--each other or she with Fabio(her doctor husband who is slow in discovering she is an anorexic) and he with anyone.
LibraryThing member BillPilgrim
Mattia and Alice become friends in high school. They are both shunned to some degree by their peers, he because he is withdrawn and strange, she because of a physical injury. they were both scarred by experiences early in their childhoods. The book explores their continuing relationship through
A problem that I had with the story is that Mattia is so difficult to get to know, that I wondered why Alice continued to put in the effort.
Here are some quotes that I liked especially:
For Alice and Mattia, the high school years were an open wound that had seemed so deep that it could never heal. They had passed through them without breathing, he rejecting the world and she feeling rejected by it, and eventually they had noticed that it didn't make all that much difference.
[Prime numbers] are suspicious, solitary numbers, which is why Mattia thought they were wonderful. Sometimes he thought that they had ended up in that sequence by mistake, that they'd been trapped, like pearls strung on a necklace. Other times he thought that they too would have preferred to be like all the others, just ordinary numbers, but for some reason they couldn't do it. This second thought struck him mostly at night, in the chaotic interweaving of images that comes before sleep, when the mind is too weak to tell itself lies.
People took what they wanted. They clutched at coincidences, the few there were, and made a life from them.
Choices are made in brief seconds and paid for in the time that remains.
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university and young adulthood, as well as their lives apart. It is wonderfully written (and, I assume, wonderfully translated). We care about these characters and want more for them than they are able to achieve.A problem that I had with the story is that Mattia is so difficult to get to know, that I wondered why Alice continued to put in the effort.
Here are some quotes that I liked especially:
For Alice and Mattia, the high school years were an open wound that had seemed so deep that it could never heal. They had passed through them without breathing, he rejecting the world and she feeling rejected by it, and eventually they had noticed that it didn't make all that much difference.
[Prime numbers] are suspicious, solitary numbers, which is why Mattia thought they were wonderful. Sometimes he thought that they had ended up in that sequence by mistake, that they'd been trapped, like pearls strung on a necklace. Other times he thought that they too would have preferred to be like all the others, just ordinary numbers, but for some reason they couldn't do it. This second thought struck him mostly at night, in the chaotic interweaving of images that comes before sleep, when the mind is too weak to tell itself lies.
People took what they wanted. They clutched at coincidences, the few there were, and made a life from them.
Choices are made in brief seconds and paid for in the time that remains.
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LibraryThing member sspare
At times achingly depressing, this is nonetheless a well-written story of two lonely people who orbit around one another's loneliness from high school through adulthood.
LibraryThing member georgekilsley
Seeming sparse, but packs emotional wallop. This for me was a book which lived up to the hype.
LibraryThing member jwhenderson
While all fiction emanates from the imagination it is rare that a work successfully mimics the language of dreams. The Solitude of Prime Numbers comes as close to doing so as any novel I have read in recent memory. The incidents of the characters' lives are blended together by the young author,
As I read I kept trying to think of the right word to describe the events of the story. Were they quirky or odd or just strange? None of these words seemed to capture the feeling created by the author's prose which seemed almost poetic in the ethereal way the quotidian accidents of life were presented. It was only when I remembered the irrationality of my own dreams that I found the appropriate description for the story. The characters' lives are lived on a road strewn with obstacles that seem to be fundamental to their inner being. The substance of their solitude forever separates them from the quality of life that they deserve and most of us enjoy. That a story of two such lives would be compelling is a tribute to the author and his novel.
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Paolo Giordano, in a way that suggests their lives exist, fictionally, on the edge of reality. The main characters, Alice and Mattia, are in a state of continual wonder both of the world that surrounds them and the nature of their own being. Their lives and their search is made tragic by their solitude. The wonder of the novel is in the beautiful, even loving way that this is demonstrated.As I read I kept trying to think of the right word to describe the events of the story. Were they quirky or odd or just strange? None of these words seemed to capture the feeling created by the author's prose which seemed almost poetic in the ethereal way the quotidian accidents of life were presented. It was only when I remembered the irrationality of my own dreams that I found the appropriate description for the story. The characters' lives are lived on a road strewn with obstacles that seem to be fundamental to their inner being. The substance of their solitude forever separates them from the quality of life that they deserve and most of us enjoy. That a story of two such lives would be compelling is a tribute to the author and his novel.
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LibraryThing member tangborn
I bought this book because I was intrigued by the title. I thought it might be about the struggles in life that are faced by a mathematical genius who is misunderstood by his peers. But it's really not about this at all. It's really about a boy and girl growing up separately who are isolated from
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society for reasons that are not made entirely clear. Both of them suffer from childhood traumas that cause some disfigurement, but this does not seem to be the real cause. So it's not entirely clear why they are so unhappy and so incapable of connecting with other human beings. I didn't find the motivation behind their stores to be entirely compelling or understandable. Show Less
LibraryThing member michaelbartley
I loved this book, I liked the ending, nothing in the ending is resloved there is no television ending. the two main characters are both very likeable and at times I was angry at them. the book exams how we make decisions. excellent book
LibraryThing member wouterzzzzz
Beautiful story about a boy and a girl growing up, both with their own (major) issues, and who are attached to each other in some strange way. I'm amazed by how much I understood the main characters, even though they are not easy to like. I was afraid the book would be chick lit, but it turned out
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not to be, and I was blown away by it. The only thing I'm not sure I like is the ending, but maybe I just have to give it some time:) Show Less
LibraryThing member Luli81
Not bad, original in its unfolding story.
An unique love story with two unusual characters.
Sad and compelling. Will stay with you.
An unique love story with two unusual characters.
Sad and compelling. Will stay with you.
LibraryThing member mugsy09
A book about unresolved issues. I was riveted to the book the whole way through. My heart broke for Alice, but I really didn't "like" her. Mattia drew me in far more. A great read. I was surprised that this was a first novel, by such a young author with such a scientific background.
LibraryThing member Mumineurope
Alice and Matthia - troubled children and adults
LibraryThing member amschroe
This book arrived in stores with a lot of hype from The New York Times Book Review, which I read as often as I can and take quite seriously. The book sounded interesting enough on its own, but the idea of a new Italian author coming out with a big success got me even more excited. I found it to be
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an honest tale of modern relationships (or lack thereof), of how people never seem to quite come together. We are always missing each other by just the tiniest bit. Moments of intimacy are quickly interrupted, and we are again alone somehow. The writing was admirable, and the story was interesting. For someone who has a hard time actually finishing books (unless they are 5-star material), I found this one to keep me wondering what was going to happen to the characters, and if they were ever going to finally come together. I did not give it 5 stars because I did, in fact, lose interest about half way through and a month or so later had to force myself to pick it up and finish it. Like I said before, I have a hard time finishing books unless they are superb (or Harry Potter). Show Less
LibraryThing member deadgirl
I was drawn to this book because the last bit of the description said it is "a stunning meditation on loneliness, love, and what it means to be human.", and I am always wanting to read more about loneliness because I experience it almost everyday.
That description is very accurate. Two lonely souls
I fell in love with this book, am glad I bought and read it!
That description is very accurate. Two lonely souls
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find a kind of "comfort" or "kindred spirit" in each other, and yet they are unable to come together. I find this story of love to be more realistic than most, because "happily ever after" is usually in fairy-tales. In this story, the two main characters were always almost coming together, but never did. It tells of the things we always think and wish to express but never say... of how we are silent during moments we should be speaking out. It shows the pain and beauty of love.I fell in love with this book, am glad I bought and read it!
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Awards
Dublin Literary Award (Longlist — 2011)
Premio Strega (Winner — 2008)
Premio Campiello (Winner — 2008)
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
2008
ISBN
0385616252 / 9780385616256
Other editions
The Solitude of Prime Numbers by Paolo Giordano (Paperback)