2020-09-26
I picked up a novel which my daughter recently read called: “Mathematician’s Shiva”（2014）.
I remembered our conversation about this book earlier.
She said: “This book is an interesting read. I learnt about how in Judaism there is the Shiva, a seven-day period of mourning after reading the book. This book also won a 2014 National Jewish Book Award.”
I said: “Chinese WuQi is a very old tradition mourning. Do you remember you came to Beijing before Waipo’s last WuQi to mourning Waipo?”
My daughter said: “Judaism Shiva starts following the burial, Chinese WuQi starts following the death.”
“Mathematician’s Shiva” is the first novel about Jewish culture in ordinary life that I read. This novel spans from 1939 to 2001 and from Poland to Soviet to United States. The story about extraordinary Hilbert’s 23 Question advanced mathematics and the broad Polish Soviet Jewish mixed culture daily life along with occasional touch of humor drew my attention fully. I have not been so immersed in a novel for a long time. This reading brought me joy on acquiring new information along aside, this reading also caused me suffocate on entering life’s darkness… in a comfortable place.
After finish reading this novel, my daughter asked me: “Did you enjoy it?”
“Yes, I did. The beginning of the novel where the son sat next to his mother’s death bed, brought back memories about how Waigong, XiaoJiuPo, XiaoJiuGong, and I sat next to WaiPo’s death bed, which gives the feeling of crossing time and space.”
“Mathematicians believe the cold climate will boost their intelligence. Their acting on solving the famous problem during the Shiva is lively and funny.”
“It is true that cold climate will keep the brain more clear. ” I assured her: “When I was at work, I tend to wear less, I found I could code more efficiently when I was cool.”
“Oh, do you remember I talked about Chinese worker built the California railroad story? Drinking boiled water make them health. In this novel, the mathematician believed her mother died during the cholera epidemic because her mother drank unboiled water outside their apartment. I realized that food hygiene is the wisdom learnt by death through the long history.”
“Mathematician’s Shiva” is a book full of history, culture, and humor, worth to read.
Little Episodes
1. goodreads.com
“Alexander “Sasha” Karnokovitch and his family would like to mourn the passing of his mother, Rachela, with modesty and dignity. But Rachela, a famous Polish émigré mathematician and professor at the University of Wisconsin, is rumored to have solved the million-dollar, Navier-Stokes Millennium Prize problem. Rumor also has it that she spitefully took the solution to her grave. To Sasha’s chagrin, a ragtag group of socially challenged mathematicians arrives in Madison and crashes the shiva, vowing to do whatever it takes to find the solution — even if it means prying up the floorboards for Rachela’s notes.
Written by a Ph.D. geophysicist, this hilarious and multi-layered debut novel brims with colorful characters and brilliantly captures humanity’s drive not just to survive, but to solve the impossible. ”
2. The mathematician believed her mother died during the cholera epidemic because her mother drank unboiled water outside their apartment.
“My father was aware of the potential danger, and made sure that my mother boiled the water before any use. But other families weren’t so cautious and the extra wood necessary for precautionary boiling was almost impossible to find. cholera erupted that spring, and it’s likely that my mother who would occasionally visit other women at the camp, had taken a drink of water from somewhere outside our apartment.”