Book of the Week

A reminder that tomorrow evening, it's our annual Predict the Booker event: six books, and six Pauline readers, each with five minutes to talk about one of the shortlisted books, and take questions from the audience, before we vote for the novel that the SPS community thinks should win the prestigious Booker Prize of 2023. The actual winner will be announced on Sunday 26 November, and we'll then discover whether the judges agree with our choice!

This year, our readers are as follows:

• Xavi is reading Study for Obedience, Sarah Bernstein’s unsettling book about prejudice in a remote northern community. 
• Max is reading The Bee Sting by Paul Murray, a tragicomic story of a family trying not to fall apart in rural Ireland. 
• Aditya is reading Prophet Song by Paul Lynch. Also set in Ireland, this imagines a totalitarian future where a mother has to make a terrible choice. 
• Archie returns to read for the second time. This time he is reading This Other Eden by Paul Harding, the story of an island of rejects from the American mainstream whose community comes under threat from civilisation. 
• Sai is reading Chetna Maroo’s Western Lane - a story of family, grief, and squash. 
• And finally, Enyu, makes a very welcome return for the third time to read If I Survive You by Jonathan Escoffery. This book follows a Jamaican family in Miami navigating recession, racism and Hurricane Andrew.

The event, hosted by Mr Mahmoud, takes place in the Kayton Library at 18.30 tomorrow (Wednesday 22nd), but it's also available on our live stream - click here if you'd like to register to attend.  You can find out more about the books, and the Booker, here.

Meanwhile, here's today's book of the week:  

Flatland by Edwin A Abbot

Recommended by Ishaan Nigam

Flatland is a book about the way creatures perceive their world, and how they believe that there could be no more to reality than what they experience, even though the universe may be infinitely more complex. This concept is concisely brought to life through the eyes of a 2d square in a dimension known as Flatland. 

The first part of the book is a description of the narrator and the nature of his society. The second part of the book is about the narrator’s visit by a Sphere and his subsequent journeys into other dimensions (both above and below) and how this changes his perception of his own dimension.  Although Flatland is a fictional book, it challenges the reader to think about very real mathematical and philosophical concepts, and to adjust their own perception using the insights from the narrator. I would recommend this book to people from around age eleven and above who are more mathematically inclined, or to slightly older readers of fourteen and above.

 

I enjoyed reading Flatland as it forced me to reconsider beliefs that I had naturally assumed, while still allowing me to understand the plot of the book. Often I stopped to ponder the concepts and ideas posed by the narrator, and to accept that although the book itself is fictional the same theories could very well be factual. Edwin Abbot also uses powerful language and description to subtly bring to life these complex concepts, in an extremely concise manner, resulting in a slim gem of a book. 

 

I particularly enjoyed the satirical side of the book displayed when the narrator visits creatures of lower dimensions who wholeheartedly believe their dimension is all that there is, and I laughed at the fact that while the narrator thinks himself infinitely better than these sub-dimensional creatures, he reacted in exactly the same fashion as them when visited by a higher dimensional entity. However, these same interactions demand that I reconcile with the fact that although we (as 3-dimensional beings) see ourselves to be in the highest possible dimension, if we were visited by a being from a higher dimension we would almost certainly react in the same way. Recently, I also learned that when Edwin Abbot wrote the book, he intended this satire to be reflective of Victorian society and especially its hierarchical class structure - this allowed me to view the book in a new light and truly appreciate his writing skill. I also approve of what happens to the narrator upon his return to Flatland, as it accurately reflects what happens to such people in our modern society. This links perfectly into the satirical side of the book and forces me to think about such pioneers in our past and their fates. 

 

However, one of the most problematic issues with Flatland is the blatant sexism throughout the book. Although I understand that the book was written towards the end of the 19th century and at the time such beliefs about women were seen as natural, I wholeheartedly believe that this inequality is irrelevant to the plot of the book and, if written in the modern day, would not be included. I also feel that while the extensive descriptions of Flatland society at the start of the book are necessary to truly understand the novella, they make the beginning boring and slow-paced, which makes it hard for the reader to persevere through. 

Aside from addressing the issues mentioned above, I would also change the plot so that it in itself is more interesting. Because the book was written around a single concept, the plot is very linear and could do with some more drama and twists and turns. Furthermore, in the second part the narrator starts referring to the Sphere with very biblical terms, which make the text harder to decipher, especially since this is probably the most brain-bending part of the novella. Linking into this, the book in written in Victorian English, which, while reflective of the time it was written, can prove difficult for a younger modern-day reader to follow. Finally, I would appreciate some illustrations to help demonstrate some of his more complex points, but this issue could simply be due to my copy version.

 

Overall I would recommend Flatland to people of age eleven and above who are more mathematically inclined, and to all slightly older readers. However, I would warn readers that the concepts posed by the book can prove extremely complicated and convoluted despite Abbot’s marvellous attempts at simplifying the matter. One must also be aware of the sexism displayed throughout the book: but be reassured that while the first part of the book can appear boring, the second part is more interesting. Moreover, I would recommend to the reader the satire displayed throughout the book,  to allow them to see the different levels of the book as a basic novella and a mathematical eye-opener but also as a reflection of Victorian and modern society. I think that once a reader sees and understands these different levels of the story, they can truly appreciate Edwin Abbot’s genius in the writing of this book, as well as properly question the issues the book poses about society as a whole.