Thursday, August 23, 2012

Goldman's Theorem by R.J. Stern

I have a suspicion that Ron Stern is a great guy to hang out with. A full-time mathematics professor at Concordia University in Montreal, Prof. Stern decided to write a novel a few years back. According to the 2009 press release from Concordia,  "Stern's goal was to write something satirical and over-the-top, but that still spoke truth about academia. The 'feel' of the story might be described as The Big Lebowsky meets Sideways in a campus novel."

My take? This is the work of an interesting academic who likes to push his personal boundaries, which explains why a mathematician is dabbling with fiction. As for the final product? Well, the novel leaves much to be desired, even if it is funny in parts.

Goldman's Theorem tells the story of Simon Goldman, a mathematics professor in the fictional University of Northern Vermont near the Canada - United States border. After years of apparent inactivity, Goldman announces that he has cracked the P versus NP Problem, which is one of the millennium problems. The news sparks a flurry of activity from the university's administrators who are eager to capitalize on this breakthrough. Yet amidst this joy from the university community, doubts begin to emerge on whether the proof is accurate.

This book left me with mixed feelings. When I first started reading it I thought it was terrible. It's true that Stern wanted to write a comedic book that poked fun at academic administrators, and that the slapstick humour was presented on purpose. This desire for high comedy, however, seemed to me like a veiled attempt to hide literary naivety. Stern is an accomplished mathematician, but an experienced fiction writer he is not, which comes across clearly in this book.

Nevertheless, things picked up about half-way through the story. Certain passages were quite funny and the writing significantly improved. My thoughts are that Stern got better as an author as he practiced writing fiction, which is why the second-half is much better than the first. As a result, by the end of the book, I become quite interested in the characters and the final outcome. That being said, if I had to do it again, I probably would not have picked up this book.

2 1/2 out of 5 stars