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Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by A. Square (Penguin Classics) (Paperback)

by Edwin Abbott (Author), Alan Lightman (Introduction) "I call our world Flatland, not because we call it so, but to make its nature clearer to you, my happy readers, who are privileged..." (more)
4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (34 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Paperback: 118 pages
  • Publisher: Penguin Classics; New Ed edition (25 Feb 1999)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 014043531X
  • ISBN-13: 978-0140435313
  • Product Dimensions: 19.2 x 12.8 x 1.2 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 296,882 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #3 in  Books > Fiction > Authors, A-Z > L > Lightman, Alan

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Product Description

Product Description
FLATLAND has fascinated generations of readers. It is a deft mixture of social satire and science fiction that continues to pose provocative questions about perception and reality. FLATLAND is a brilliant parody of Victorian society where all existence is limited to length and breadth - its inhabitants unable even to imagine a third dimension. The amiable narrator, A Square, provides an overview of this fantastic world - its physics and metaphysics, its history, customs and religious beliefs. But when a strange visitor mysteriously appears and transports the incredulous Flatlander to the Land of Three Dimensions, his world view is forever shattered.

About the Author
Edwin A. Abbott (1838-1926) was a leading scholar and theologian of the Victorian era. Alan Lightman, the author of 'Einstein's Dream' and other books, is an astrophysicist and the Director of the Writing Program at M.I.T.
Inside This Book (Learn More)
First Sentence
I call our world Flatland, not because we call it so, but to make its nature clearer to you, my happy readers, who are privileged to live in Space. Read the first page
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Concordance
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by A. Square (Penguin Classics)
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Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by A. Square (Penguin Classics) 4.6 out of 5 stars (34)
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Customer Reviews

34 Reviews
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4 star:
 (6)
3 star:
 (1)
2 star:    (0)
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Average Customer Review
4.6 out of 5 stars (34 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Spellbinding!, 27 Nov 2001
By A Customer
This review is from: Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (Dover Thrift) (Paperback)
If you've ever tried to imagine a "fourth" (or even higher) dimension, this little gem is for you.

Square is an inhabitant of an infinite flat plane (hence the title of the book) whose inhabitants, flat shapes, are totally unaware of the existence of a third "upward" dimension completely different from their north-south and east-west ones. Sphere, from our world, views Flatlanders as ignorant, and tries to show Square the delights of higher dimensions, as well as showing him the "squalor" of his lower dimensional "lineland" and "pointland" cousins...

There is a delightful class system which ranks flatlanders according to how many sides they have (circles are regarded as the highest class of clergymen) but all women are straight lines, indicating the somewhat Victorian outlook of the author. Also interesting is Sphere's hypocritical reluctance to accept a fourth dimension, as Square refused to accept a third.

Charming and simple, this book really makes you think about the nature of space itself (not an easy task!)

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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Go on... ...give it a go..., 10 Jan 2005
By A Customer
This review is from: Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (Dover Thrift) (Paperback)
I urge you to read this insightful book. It's short and is very easy to read yet will give you a tangible way of contemplating further dimensions by reference to a society with only two (hence the title 'Flatland'). This [Dover Thrift Edition] could well be the best ever spend on a present for your head! The only negative for me is the book's portrayal of Women as straight lines with pointy ends(!), but you have to take into account that it was written by a Victorian Cleric and this part of the story presents an interesting aside in terms of a view of Victorian Society. Please don't get hung up on this point though - in every other way it is incredibly contemporary, accessible and stimulating to the mind. It is referenced by many leading popular science books and is superior to most (incredible considering its vintage). It certainly represents an essential addition to your bookshelf! I'm sure you won't be disappointed.
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Definitely not an allegorical 'Life of Christ', 18 Jul 2002
By A Customer
This review is from: Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (Dover Thrift) (Paperback)
I think the hundreds of reviews preceding this one sum up the book pretty well, so I won't recap it all here. I just wanted to point out that the reviewer who thought that Flatland was a religious allegory, with the Sphere as Jesus has defintely missed the point - Sphere is one of a line (no pun intended) of all too fallible and very much human characters who we meet in the book, illustrating one of its sharpest ironic points (I just can't help myself now).

The first is the Point, utterly convinced, in the teeth of all the evidence, of the non-existence of everything but itself. Then we meet (in a dream) the King of Lineland, who prefers to believe that the Square is a mutant woman, rather than believe in a two-dimensional space (I promise I'm not making this up). Then we have A. Square, our narrator, who has to be forced to accept the reality of three dimensions by being forcibly removed from Flatland.

And, almost at the end of the book, the Sphere, who, until now has seemed to represent enlightened wisdom, shows his own flaws, by reacting angrily and petulantly to the suggestion of fourth, fifth or higher dimensions.

The Sphere is definitely not meant to be divine - he's just as limited in vision as all the other characters. I hardly think that a clergyman would be so unflattering about Jesus.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Extraordinary tour de force
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... Read more
Published 10 months ago by hw

5.0 out of 5 stars A classic
Written over 100 years ago and narrated by the solid A Square, Flatland is a brilliant fantasy about a life in a two-dimensional world at the same time as a witty satire on the... Read more
Published 14 months ago by Melmoth

5.0 out of 5 stars Social Satire
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. Read more
Published 17 months ago by Dychanwr

4.0 out of 5 stars uniquely brilliant
A. Square (!), trying to work out what it might be like as a cube, while we of 3 dimensions watch him and ultimately pine with him for even more dimensions. Read more
Published 23 months ago by apostrophes&arcadefire

5.0 out of 5 stars Sends the imagination soaring
I have just finished reading this little book for probably the third time. As I tend to read in bed at night just before turning out the light to go to sleep, I would lie in bed... Read more
Published on 8 May 2007 by David Carson

5.0 out of 5 stars Flatland as Analogy
I read Flatland (which, I believe, in the US was published without post colon) when I was a teenager in the 1970s studying geometry and many other things (girls, art, girls,... Read more
Published on 20 Feb 2007 by Marc D. Anderson

5.0 out of 5 stars Mosquito in amber
Written over one hundred years ago, but amazingly prescient for its time, Flatland is a Victorian satire that manages to both expand the mind and be a plausibly risible piece of... Read more
Published on 30 Jan 2007 by Madly Bobbington-Blythe

5.0 out of 5 stars Historical science?
This is a book that took complex ideas and presented them well at a time when the science was not widely understood. Read more
Published on 6 Jun 2006 by N. Ball

1.0 out of 5 stars Not a very inspiring book
This is a short, well written book, which discusses geometry and dimensionality in a well crafted fiction. Read more
Published on 24 Nov 2005 by drmikeg

4.0 out of 5 stars Open your mind
Some science books make stuff seem complicated. Even more compliacted than it needs to be. This book, does not. Read more
Published on 17 May 2004 by A. Edmunds

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