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'Upward, yet not Northward.' How would a creature limited to two dimensions be able to grasp the possibility of a third? Edwin A. Abbott's droll and delightful 'romance of many dimensions' explores this conundrum in the experiences of his protagonist, A Square, whose linear world is invaded by an emissary Sphere bringing the gospel of the third dimension on the eve of the new millennium. Part geometry lesson, part social satire, this classic work of science fiction brilliantly succeeds in enlarging all readers' imaginations beyond the limits of our 'respective dimensional prejudices'. In a world where class is determined by how many sides you possess, and women are straight lines, the prospects for enlightenment are boundless, and Abbott's hypotheses about a fourth and higher dimensions seem startlingly relevant today. This new edition of Flatland illuminates the social and intellectual context that produced the work as well as the timeless questions that it raises about the limits of our perception and knowledge.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Please don't be deterred by those reviewers who imagine that the author shared the Flatlanders' disparaging view of women and blue-collar men. Not so. E. A. Abbott was an energetic teacher and writer as well as an Anglican priest, and he devoted a great deal of his energy to the cause of women's education, working with the leading female educators of the day in their campaign for access to universities and better opportunities for secondary education. As well as a parable and an introduction to n-dimensional geometry, Flatland is a satire on social prejudice-- on two-dimensional attitudes, in other words. The clues can be found in the book itself, but the record of Abbott's life confirms the satirical agenda. Victorian clergymen weren't all misogynists and snobs, and to assume that Victorians in general were stuffy, biased, and repressed is both patronizing and unfair. There are bigots in every time and place, our own included, but there are always also those who are working for a better, juster world.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I came to this odd little gem via Carl Sagan's Cosmos (Cosmos [DVD] [1980). Sagan uses an apple - gleefully slicing and printing, rather poorly, circular sections with it - to illustrate Abbot's ideas on how one might begin to think extra-dimensionally.
A clergyman and teacher, Abbot's work is a modern philosophical/religious parable. As a naturalist and free-thinker, I felt that I might find this troublesome. But, to my mind at least, Abbot's ideas tap deeper roots than mere allegories for Christian religion (cf. C. S. Lewis' Narnia series). As a philosophical nugget, this tiny book packs a powerful punch, reminding us - like Hume's 'Dialogue & History of Natural Religion' (Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, and The Natural History of Religion (Oxford World's Classics)) that - if we take ourselves as the measure of everything, we're likely to severely miscalculate in many important areas. I'm not sure what Abbott would make of my reading of his work, but I find it stimulates my mind rather towards scientific paradigm shifts, like the cosmological re-orderings of Copernicus and Galileo, or Darwin's fundamental rewriting of the history of life on earth, than religious ones.
It's tricky territory, and, rather like the pervasive fogs that fill Flatland, it can be hard to keep the bigger philosophical ideas that lurk here in focus. On one level (which of Abbot's levels this might correspond to I can't be sure) this can be read as a Victorian appeal to retain a religious sense of 'our place' in 'creation', but on another, and to my mind deeper (or more dimensional) level, it's also a thought experiment concerning how humans are stuck in the matrix of their own physical/mental modes of perception, and that's an exciting area for thought.
There's a point in the book (the pun's unavoidable), where the Sphere shows the Square a view of Pointland, where there are no dimensions, in which a single consciousness buzzes continuously to itself: able only to perceive itself, all else is merely an aspect of it's self. The square and the sphere are horrified by the introspective solipsism of the point, the Sphere sternly declaiming, somewhat contradictorily: "Behold yon miserable creature... mark his perfect self-contentment, and hence learn this lesson... to be self-contented is to be vile and ignorant... to aspire is better than to be blindly and impotently happy". This passage puts aspirations to contentment, which most if not all of us no doubt pursue much of our lives, however ineffectually, in an interesting light.
A very short but stimulating and pleasurable read, highly recommended.
A clergyman and teacher, Abbot's work is a modern philosophical/religious parable. As a naturalist and free-thinker, I felt that I might find this troublesome. But, to my mind at least, Abbot's ideas tap deeper roots than mere allegories for Christian religion (cf. C. S. Lewis' Narnia series). As a philosophical nugget, this tiny book packs a powerful punch, reminding us - like Hume's 'Dialogue & History of Natural Religion' (Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, and The Natural History of Religion (Oxford World's Classics)) that - if we take ourselves as the measure of everything, we're likely to severely miscalculate in many important areas. I'm not sure what Abbott would make of my reading of his work, but I find it stimulates my mind rather towards scientific paradigm shifts, like the cosmological re-orderings of Copernicus and Galileo, or Darwin's fundamental rewriting of the history of life on earth, than religious ones.
It's tricky territory, and, rather like the pervasive fogs that fill Flatland, it can be hard to keep the bigger philosophical ideas that lurk here in focus. On one level (which of Abbot's levels this might correspond to I can't be sure) this can be read as a Victorian appeal to retain a religious sense of 'our place' in 'creation', but on another, and to my mind deeper (or more dimensional) level, it's also a thought experiment concerning how humans are stuck in the matrix of their own physical/mental modes of perception, and that's an exciting area for thought.
There's a point in the book (the pun's unavoidable), where the Sphere shows the Square a view of Pointland, where there are no dimensions, in which a single consciousness buzzes continuously to itself: able only to perceive itself, all else is merely an aspect of it's self. The square and the sphere are horrified by the introspective solipsism of the point, the Sphere sternly declaiming, somewhat contradictorily: "Behold yon miserable creature... mark his perfect self-contentment, and hence learn this lesson... to be self-contented is to be vile and ignorant... to aspire is better than to be blindly and impotently happy". This passage puts aspirations to contentment, which most if not all of us no doubt pursue much of our lives, however ineffectually, in an interesting light.
A very short but stimulating and pleasurable read, highly recommended.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
What an extraordinary book! I approached it expecting a period piece and found a masterpiece. Don't get me wrong - it's no surprise that the author was a Victorian clergyman-schoolmaster - who else would think of writing an entertaining best-seller about geometry and the fourth dimension?
Told from the perspective a respectable middle class citizen of the two-dimensional world of Flatland, this is a 120-page tour-de force. Whilst taking the reader through the imaginative steps which lead, logically, to the idea of four (or more) dimensions, the narrative reflects many of the social absurdities and dangerous ideas of Victorian Britain. On the lighter side, the narrator pokes gentle fun at the class system and social ambition; on the darker side he discusses eugenics, egalitarianism and the threat of unorthodox ideas.
Science fiction? Geometry? Philosophy? Satire? It's been compared to Gulliver, Erehwon, The Time Machine and Alice in Wonderland. Alice is probably the closest - but only in the sense that it's one of those rare books that demands a category of its own.
As well as the text, the Oxford World's Classics edition has a useful introduction, a good bibliography and a chronology of the life of Edwin Abbott. Highly recommended.
Told from the perspective a respectable middle class citizen of the two-dimensional world of Flatland, this is a 120-page tour-de force. Whilst taking the reader through the imaginative steps which lead, logically, to the idea of four (or more) dimensions, the narrative reflects many of the social absurdities and dangerous ideas of Victorian Britain. On the lighter side, the narrator pokes gentle fun at the class system and social ambition; on the darker side he discusses eugenics, egalitarianism and the threat of unorthodox ideas.
Science fiction? Geometry? Philosophy? Satire? It's been compared to Gulliver, Erehwon, The Time Machine and Alice in Wonderland. Alice is probably the closest - but only in the sense that it's one of those rare books that demands a category of its own.
As well as the text, the Oxford World's Classics edition has a useful introduction, a good bibliography and a chronology of the life of Edwin Abbott. Highly recommended.
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Flatland
Wow, what an interesting concept. Whilst the book is clearly one giant metaphor for Victorian society and the associated scientific, moral, and religious undertones at the time (as... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Tom
An interesting idea
I read this after my interest was triggered by it being mentioned in an episode of 'The Big Bang Theory'. Read more
Published 5 months ago by K. Rayment
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