The Mathematics Of Love
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
'Fascinating.... If you're in a book club torn between lovers of 19th-century and modern fiction, The Mathematics of Love may be just the thing to square the circle... hauntingly beautiful'
(Washington Post )'This is that rare thing, a book that works on every conceivable level... an uncommonly good read'
(The Times )Product Description
From the Suffolk countryside to the old Basque towns of Spain, Emma Darwin's unforgettable debut tells the astoundingly moving story of Stephen, a veteran of Waterloo, whose suffering and secret lost happiness is transformed by love. Gorgeously written, fascinating and engrossing, THE MATHEMATICS OF LOVE is a sexy, heartbreaking, glorious novel by a major new literary star.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The blurb of this book is misleading as the focus of this book isn't as it suggests the two love stories development and intertwinement but rather what society expects of us in different cultures and periods with the last two hundred years. The relationships explored in this book are beautiful in many different ways and Emma Darwin portrays realistic damaged characters with such integrity that a reader feels they are their best friend. The book is a very philosophical and fascinating look at what love really is and does not always present what the reader would want or expect. However, the book takes a long time to draw the reader in and long chapters swapping in first person between two main characters can be confusing at first and tiresome. I would thoroughly recommend this book but do not be mislead into believing you are going to get a wonderfully gothic romantic period novel. Also the book leaves several loose ends which I believe the author has encouraged the reader to make their own assumptions about but this can be annoying.
43 of 47 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Written as her submission for her MPhil in writing at the University of Glamorgan, The Mathematics of Love is Emma Darwin's first novel. And what a first novel it is.
The novel weaves together two lives: Stephen Fairhust, a Major returned from the brutality of Wellington's Peninsular War to a world he tries desperately to be once more a part of; and Anna Ware, a fifteen year old girl all but abandonded by her feckless mother, forced to live with her uncle and drunken grandmother in a delapidated ex-school. Through the medium of letters (and in this respect there are resonances with both 'Cloud Atlas' and 'Possession' here) a link develops between the two, and parallels form between two lives more than 150 years apart. Loves develop, often against society's expectation, and ghosts of past and future seem to cross boundaries. There are thematic parallels too: the ghastly form of Belle, who brutally lords it over Kersey, seems like a modern day Napoleon, whose invastions of the peninsula and consequent battles with Wellingtons men form the sickening vignettes spaced throughout the novel. Anna's interest in photography parallels with Lucy Durward's desire to render much that she sees through the medium of her sketch pad. A young boy appears, as if from nowhere, seeming to jump across time. Again and again we are made to think about the nature of time and how a good novellist can play with it.
But it is in the quality of the prose that the novel really sparkles. There are many novels written whose ideas are original and whose narratives have been meticulously planned. There are few which some close to the sharpness and clarity of Darwin's writing. Every word counts. There are passages of description which deserve rereading: Tom Greenshaw's bruises after being beaten are described as being 'dark as ink, spilt to make a picture of the boots and stones that had struck his soft flesh.' There are so many passages like this, ones that pull you up short, make you smile, give you shivers. In addition, the effortless switching between the formal, Austen-like prose (as good as, in my opinion) and the more informal prose of Anna Ware's world, makes for compelling reading. With very little other than a line break, Darwin is able to take us from one world to another. There are few novels which can do this so well. It took AS Byatt a long time to produce something similar, but Darwin has done it at her first attempt. David Mitchell at times seems forced in 'Cloud Atlas', but not so here. It works, brilliantly, and without a foot wrong.
Emma Darwin should be justly proud of this book. It is original, mature, intelligent and beautifully rendered. Like Lucy Durward (who I think might have something of the novel's author in her), Darwin is able to render a character and a scene with a few deft brush strokes, leaving us all the more illumuniated for it. An evocative and at times erotic novel, The Mathematics of Love deserves success, as its readers cannot fail but take something quite special from it.
The novel weaves together two lives: Stephen Fairhust, a Major returned from the brutality of Wellington's Peninsular War to a world he tries desperately to be once more a part of; and Anna Ware, a fifteen year old girl all but abandonded by her feckless mother, forced to live with her uncle and drunken grandmother in a delapidated ex-school. Through the medium of letters (and in this respect there are resonances with both 'Cloud Atlas' and 'Possession' here) a link develops between the two, and parallels form between two lives more than 150 years apart. Loves develop, often against society's expectation, and ghosts of past and future seem to cross boundaries. There are thematic parallels too: the ghastly form of Belle, who brutally lords it over Kersey, seems like a modern day Napoleon, whose invastions of the peninsula and consequent battles with Wellingtons men form the sickening vignettes spaced throughout the novel. Anna's interest in photography parallels with Lucy Durward's desire to render much that she sees through the medium of her sketch pad. A young boy appears, as if from nowhere, seeming to jump across time. Again and again we are made to think about the nature of time and how a good novellist can play with it.
But it is in the quality of the prose that the novel really sparkles. There are many novels written whose ideas are original and whose narratives have been meticulously planned. There are few which some close to the sharpness and clarity of Darwin's writing. Every word counts. There are passages of description which deserve rereading: Tom Greenshaw's bruises after being beaten are described as being 'dark as ink, spilt to make a picture of the boots and stones that had struck his soft flesh.' There are so many passages like this, ones that pull you up short, make you smile, give you shivers. In addition, the effortless switching between the formal, Austen-like prose (as good as, in my opinion) and the more informal prose of Anna Ware's world, makes for compelling reading. With very little other than a line break, Darwin is able to take us from one world to another. There are few novels which can do this so well. It took AS Byatt a long time to produce something similar, but Darwin has done it at her first attempt. David Mitchell at times seems forced in 'Cloud Atlas', but not so here. It works, brilliantly, and without a foot wrong.
Emma Darwin should be justly proud of this book. It is original, mature, intelligent and beautifully rendered. Like Lucy Durward (who I think might have something of the novel's author in her), Darwin is able to render a character and a scene with a few deft brush strokes, leaving us all the more illumuniated for it. An evocative and at times erotic novel, The Mathematics of Love deserves success, as its readers cannot fail but take something quite special from it.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I really enjoyed this engrossing, atmospheric dual-timeframe story. The narrative switches between Stephen's life when he returns from the Napoleonic wars to run his family estate, and Anna's experiences in the 1970s when her mother goes to live in Spain and she is sent to stay with her uncle and grandmother, who are living in Stephen's former home. There are also flashbacks to Stephen's childhood and his horrific experiences on the battlefield.
Stephen is a very sympathetic character - he's convinced that no woman could ever love him because of the disability he sustained during the war - but he also has a dark side. His friendship with Lucy, a strong independent woman, develops when they travel to Spain to find his lost love.
I also felt some sympathy for Anna, who is abandoned by her family and seeks friendship (and more) with a couple of free-loving photographers who are living on the estate. She becomes fascinated with Stephen's story when a local museum owner gives her copies of the letters he wrote to Lucy.
As the story unfolds we find that there are common themes between Stephen and Anna's worlds and the link between them becomes obvious towards the end - the ending itself being very romantic and quite spooky.
Stephen is a very sympathetic character - he's convinced that no woman could ever love him because of the disability he sustained during the war - but he also has a dark side. His friendship with Lucy, a strong independent woman, develops when they travel to Spain to find his lost love.
I also felt some sympathy for Anna, who is abandoned by her family and seeks friendship (and more) with a couple of free-loving photographers who are living on the estate. She becomes fascinated with Stephen's story when a local museum owner gives her copies of the letters he wrote to Lucy.
As the story unfolds we find that there are common themes between Stephen and Anna's worlds and the link between them becomes obvious towards the end - the ending itself being very romantic and quite spooky.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
The biggest surprise...
... was the final acknowledgement that the book had been written as part of the author's MPhil.
The writing is very good although the descriptive scenes of battle and the... Read more
The writing is very good although the descriptive scenes of battle and the... Read more
Published 4 months ago by BatReader
An authentic voice
The main protagonist, Stephen Fairhurst, is very well drawn. Both his commentary to the reader and his letters to Miss Durward, as well as hers in return, are realistic, using the... Read more
Published 9 months ago by Emily Parr
Beautifully-crafted novel
Switching between 1819 and the heatwave summer of 1976, The Mathematics of Love is a beautifully-written novel, telling the stories of Stephen Fairhurst and teenager Anna Ware... Read more
Published 15 months ago by Kathryn Eastman
Absorbing read
I very much enjoyed this, and felt really drawn into the lives of the characters. I found the 1970s sections particularly convincing, and the character of Anna seemed very 'real'. Read more
Published on 16 Aug 2009 by Reader 11
Beautiful thought-provoking
This is a beautiful and thought-provoking book. The two levels of narrative gently but persuasively suck you in and you really feel that you are encountering real people. Read more
Published on 12 April 2009 by N. Beale
Extraordinary for a first novel
I thought this was a wonderful book and I was astonished at how assured the writer's voice was for a new novelist, especially in the historical narrative. Read more
Published on 17 July 2008 by Jess
Heart wrenching
The synopsis of this book doesn't give it justice; it switches between 2 stories - the life of a man in the 19th century and his unrealised love for his best friend, and the story... Read more
Published on 28 April 2007 by J. Mattler
"I like to think of you reading my small tales aloud this evening"
Sex, love, and war echo throughout the generations as author Emma Darwin spins a unique and quite lovely tale that exposes the inner-most lives and unsupecting passions of two very... Read more
Published on 25 Jan 2007 by M. J Leonard
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
- Books > Fiction > Historical
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
