Sunday, November 10, 2002
Flatland
(Despite what my daughter says, this is not a book about Illinois.) This is an odd little book--kind of like a geometric fairy tale. The narrator of this tale is A Square. He tells of his world, a universe of two dimensions. It's inhabitants are all polygons and in the first section, Mr. Square describes the society in which these creatures live. In the second section, he then describes his encounters with other dimensions: Lineland, Pointland and Spaceland. It's not a terribly complex book--I happened to have read a book called The Planiverse which offered a two dimensional world with much more scientific detail--but Flatland has a definite style and essence to its tale which makes it memorable. That's probably why this book from 1884 (second edition) was reprinted 68 years later in 1952 and why it's going on my shelf 118 years later in 2002.
Labels: OnMyShelf
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