Talk Back

[Eisworth]

Since I've been in Toronto, I've had little to do except read since the city has been deluged with snow. I've got to head back to Ohio in the next day or so for the start of school, so I'm guessing the burst of reviews the past two weeks will slow down.

Anyway, this book is a "prison novel" set in the Soviet Union in the 1930s after Stalin came to power. Doug did a nice job reviewing this one on his Top 100 list (see http://www.dougshaw.com/Reviews/review8.html ).

All I would add to his description is to reiterate how much "logic" is important to this work; I look at it as a study in how rationalism can go wrong. Marxism is allegedly a "science of history", and the actions of the people in this book are perfectly rational in light of the assumed axioms of the science. They have deduced themselves right into Hell.
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Todd Eisworth
Associate Professor of Mathematics
Ohio University