Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This is the first review on Amazon I've written for which I had difficulty determining whether the book merited one or five stars. Based purely on the information in the book and the story the book tells, it's easily a five-star book. The author beautifully weaves together fascinating strands of narrative: the bizarre yet powerful culture of mathematics education in the former Soviet Union; the extraordinary brilliance of Grisha Perelman; the deep mathematical questions underlying the problems he solves; and the culture of mathematics generally. (As to this aspect of the book, I might point out, I would have liked to have seen more detail on precisely what problems Grisha solved as a student - e.g. his curriculum, his mathematical Olympiad problems and answers, his final exams - and some photos would have been interesting too.) So that's the five star part of the book. The one star part of the book is that it's written, not as a dispassionate account, nor even from the supportive perspective most biographers take towards their subjects, but rather as if the author hates her subject with a passion. The author's contempt and distaste for Grigori seethes through her prose. Over and over, she takes the noblest, most selfless, and most understandable acts of Grigori and twists them into a pop-psychological narrative of his supposed mental illness or lack of understanding of society. It's a contemptible display, this attempted character assassination of a great man, but at the same time it's so ineptly done that Perelman comes out of it fine, at least for a careful reader. For example, the author criticizes Perelman (and in harsh personal terms) for turning down an assistant professorship at Princeton prior to his solving the Poincare conjecture. But Perleman's rationale is absolutely valid: he had abundantly demonstrated he merited a tenured position, having already proven another major conjecture and demonstrated his supernal talent. Why should he struggle along having to worry about job security on some meager salary, when he deserved to be decently treated? Everyone understands when an athlete rejects a multimillion dollar salary offer because he thinks it's not merited; why inveigh against one of the most talented people on the planet when the best that's offered is pay maybe 3% of a top athlete's with no job security? It's a preposterous situation and Grigori was thus absolutely correct in turning down this insulting job offer. Similarly, the author all too typically criticizes Grigori for his insistence on ascribing proper credit to others and for his reluctance to work with others who are dishonest. Her reasoning seems to be that because many, if not most, people lie and cheat, Grigori's insistence on not working with those who do is a sign of a failure to understand society. But it is not that at all: it's a sign of his strong ethical character. If more people took his stance, then corruption and dishonesty would be much less pervasive. It's not Grigori who misunderstands society - he understands it perfectly well - it's the author who doesn't understand Grigori. Likewise, the author seems to think Grigori's turning down the Field's medal was aberrant and irrational. But Perelman, like some other mathematicians, doesn't believe in such prizes (just recently Peter Scholze turned down another award from a mathematical prize, for example). Indeed, as meticulously documented in the book, what happened to Perelman is one of the great shames of the mathematical community, and even of the entire culture in which it's embedded. Perelman created a lasting, beautiful, and important contribution to human thought. In response, a group of mathematicians shamelessly tried to steal his work (and, abetted by a credulous press, nearly got away with it); he was shunted over and ignored for major prizes and recognition; mediocrities who have never done anything a millionth as useful spend their time complaining about his clothes. Why should he participate in that farce? Why continue to spend his life helping spiteful ingrates? Given how he was treated, his retreat was entirely rational - but instead of criticizing the jealousy and pettiness of Perelman's enemies, the author spends most of her time criticizing Perelman. To some extent, the author attacks not just Perelman but great mathematicians generally. Her theory is that many of them have some sort of mental illness preventing them from understanding ordinary social interactions. To the contrary, the actual data in the book demonstrates that they understand social interactions very well. Indeed, she herself notes that mathematicians were among the leaders in reforming and liberalizing harsh practices of the former Soviet Union. Yet she never claims the bureaucrats who did their level best to destroy the lives of so many brilliant young Russian scientists were culpable - these, by her theory, one supposes understood social conventions. As long as they dressed well, they were justified, seems to be the subtext of her narrative. In conclusion, there's a great story underlying the viciousness and pettiness of the narrative: a story of a courageous, ruthlessly honest, deeply creative man who gave to humanity a wonderful gift, and has since been almost universally mocked and rejected. To the extent that this story emerges through the scum of authorial condescension, it's a book well worth reading - but to the extent that condescension occludes this story, it's a contemptible one. And that's why I did not know whether to give it 5 stars or 1 star. 5 stars for the actual facts; 1 star for its vicious presentation. But I reluctantly settled on 5 stars because, frankly, the story is interesting and there's nowhere else to get it. This book furthermore would be a very useful jumping off point for someone who wants to write a real biography of the man.