The Indian Clerk

[Ya Sam]

http://www.amazon.com/Indian-Clerk-Novel-David-Leavitt/dp/1596910402


>From Publishers Weekly
Ambitious, erudite and well-sourced, Leavitt's 12th work of fiction 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. Hardy is hardly likable, 
however, and Leavitt (While England Sleeps, etc.) packs too much into the 
epic-length proceedings, at the expense of pace. (Sept.)
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