- Hardcover: 90 pages
- Publisher: St Martins Pr (Dec 1994)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0312113749
- ISBN-13: 978-0312113742
- Product Dimensions: 21.1 x 14.5 x 2 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 2,777,705 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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5 reviews
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
A young man's search for unatainable knowledge.
9 April 1997
Format:Hardcover
Gustavo Roderer sacrifices all to enter a new realm where all current forms of logic and philosophy are null and void. An unseen force acts against his efforts to shed all of humankind's "learned" approach to solving the most basic of questions.
Roderer forsakes a formal education and sheds family, friends and the girl who loves him to pursue a knowledge only God and the Devil share. As he gets closer to the truth, he becomes less able to articulate his thoughts to his closest and only friend. Consumed by disease, he discovers the answer.
Martinez tells a wonderful story of two young men in Argentina--both geniuses. One pursues answers to questions unconcievable, while the other builds himself a normal life within the context of all human knowledge. They feed of each others pursuits, triumphs and failures. Roderer races as fast as he can to find the answers in what little time--he is sure--is left. His friend, the narrator, pulls himself away from his family, his small home town and Roderer over a long period of time.
Neither can reach the end of their journey without
the other.
Martinez uses a brilliant mix of mathematics and philosophy to fuel the exchanges between the narrator and Roderer.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
An overwhelming genius within 90 pages
28 Aug 2001
Format:Hardcover
This intense novel is the history of the friendship between two gifted boys. One of them, the narrator, has always been the brightest in his class. He orients himself wide and takes knowledge from the world surrounding him. The other, Gustavo Roderer, is the new boy in class that fascinates and frightens with another type of intelligence: more extreme and sweeping, more introspective og mystical. Roderer balances on the hazy line between lunacy and wisdom. He seeks the root of the knowledge, moving in the icy landscapes of thoughts stilbb burning with fire. The narrator tries to incorporate more pragmatic sense into his new friend and the narrator's sister gives her love to Roderer, but he is already lost. It's true that you see the tragic end of the book almost from the start but it's not because of a fatalistic presence in the novel more because of the narrators reciting voice through it all that doesn't need to hide anything from the reader. It is a hard, sharp and precise vocabulary that reminded me more of contemporary electronic music that is clean and machinelike, observing cynically the processes that takes place before ones eyes. The book also draws comparisons to Mann's "Dr. Faustus" with its main protagonist beyond help from others, lost in the fervent search for something higher. ***(*) on the barometer
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Impeccable
18 Aug 2002
Format:Hardcover
Charming and intelligent story. This kind of writing remembers me the precision of a Swiss clock, where the end tells 12 o'clock.
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