azheng's review against another edition
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
readings_musings2002's review against another edition
funny
informative
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
"If I couldn’t find any affirmation of my worth in the mind, I would seek it in the body."
"Like all people in academia, I count my years the way the Bible does, from September to September."
"The process of thinking about philosophy always reminds me of fireworks. One question is shot up and bursts into a splendorous many. Answers? Forget answers. The spectacle is all in the questions."
"I feel an immediate closeness to anyone who loves New York or hates Los Angeles. Either condition is sufficient, but I’ve found that satisfaction of the one usually entails satisfaction of the other."
"The women were all soft-spoken and sweet, cherishing, quite clearly, the appearance of unflappable exteriors. I tried to modulate my voice accordingly. There was nothing to be done about my obvious raw youth."
"Since childhood I had been prey to the Look of the Other. Does he like me? Does she approve of me? A look on the face of anybody interpreted as a smirk or a sign of dislike would sear me, make me dizzy with pain.".
“Truth and beauty, beauty and truth,” I murmured. "Yes, exactly. The truth of science, the beauty of art. Math exceeds all.”
"My husband sounded so much like Plato at times, I was tempted to suggest that before he was the Viennese mathematician perhaps he had been the Greek philosopher."
"I can tolerate the word ‘pagan’ just about twenty times in one day."
“A beautiful woman is more of a person and less of a person. We don’t really believe in her suffering. How can the beautiful suffer? Certainly not in the grimy ways of the unlovely. Can a goddess have hemorrhoids, worry about mortgage payments? How can we presume to reason by analogy from our interior to hers?”
"How can any of us expect others to share our world, particular as each of ours is? One is alone, alone, alone, alone. Alone in one’s own world."
"Which would have infuriated Noam more, a violation of his wife or a violation of logic?"
“But you’re not, Noam. You’ll never be merely that. It was you who scaled the heights, up beyond all the others, to the transinfinite realm, to the numbers bigger than all others.”
"Like all people in academia, I count my years the way the Bible does, from September to September."
"The process of thinking about philosophy always reminds me of fireworks. One question is shot up and bursts into a splendorous many. Answers? Forget answers. The spectacle is all in the questions."
"I feel an immediate closeness to anyone who loves New York or hates Los Angeles. Either condition is sufficient, but I’ve found that satisfaction of the one usually entails satisfaction of the other."
"The women were all soft-spoken and sweet, cherishing, quite clearly, the appearance of unflappable exteriors. I tried to modulate my voice accordingly. There was nothing to be done about my obvious raw youth."
"Since childhood I had been prey to the Look of the Other. Does he like me? Does she approve of me? A look on the face of anybody interpreted as a smirk or a sign of dislike would sear me, make me dizzy with pain.".
“Truth and beauty, beauty and truth,” I murmured. "Yes, exactly. The truth of science, the beauty of art. Math exceeds all.”
"My husband sounded so much like Plato at times, I was tempted to suggest that before he was the Viennese mathematician perhaps he had been the Greek philosopher."
"I can tolerate the word ‘pagan’ just about twenty times in one day."
“A beautiful woman is more of a person and less of a person. We don’t really believe in her suffering. How can the beautiful suffer? Certainly not in the grimy ways of the unlovely. Can a goddess have hemorrhoids, worry about mortgage payments? How can we presume to reason by analogy from our interior to hers?”
"How can any of us expect others to share our world, particular as each of ours is? One is alone, alone, alone, alone. Alone in one’s own world."
"Which would have infuriated Noam more, a violation of his wife or a violation of logic?"
“But you’re not, Noam. You’ll never be merely that. It was you who scaled the heights, up beyond all the others, to the transinfinite realm, to the numbers bigger than all others.”
greyemk's review against another edition
4.75
This one is for the Elif Batuman girlies. The Mind-Body Problem is the older, very Jewish sister to Batuman’s works.
Goldstein uses the campus novel to explore the classical philosophy problem in the title. The narrator is a young female graduate student in philosophy and we follow her across several years and her marriage with a genius mathematician.
I found this book funny and sharp. The characters have a lot of philosophical discussions but the dialogue is snappy and he narrative didn’t get bogged down. Similarly, the plot illustrates the mind-body problem (mostly by exploring that nebulous concept, desire) without feeling forced.
Goldstein uses the campus novel to explore the classical philosophy problem in the title. The narrator is a young female graduate student in philosophy and we follow her across several years and her marriage with a genius mathematician.
I found this book funny and sharp. The characters have a lot of philosophical discussions but the dialogue is snappy and he narrative didn’t get bogged down. Similarly, the plot illustrates the mind-body problem (mostly by exploring that nebulous concept, desire) without feeling forced.
kjboldon's review against another edition
5.0
I read this first in my 20's, fresh off a broken engagement and about to enter grad school. I'm not sure there was a much better book for me at the time. Now, past 50, it still delights. This tale of a woman who perceives herself as beautiful for a brainy woman, brainy for a beautiful one, but objectively neither, still has enough intellectual and sexual juice to spin out romance and the search for identity as the messy and creative processes they are.
veryperi22's review against another edition
4.0
The book is a fictional account of a young woman, formerly orthodox, now in the kodesh hakedoshim of academia, Princeton University, who pursues a career in philosophy all the while trying to answer the mind-body problem.
From Berkeley to Niesche, Sartre and Spinoza, she struggles with acceptance of her mind when her body is what captivates.
She pursues the very great minds with her very beautiful body all the while wanting to be desired for her own mind. Or at least validated for it.
In all, it's an enjoyable book, often sharply witty. There's the heavy center of the book, but which without the book would lose its heft.
I had the feeling while reading that the book was partly biographical. I would love to know if that were true.
A couple of quotes I liked:
"I'm amused when people talk of the "religious mentality " or the "religious personality", and always think of my father, mother, brother and sister, all of whose religious personalities had little in common apart from their being Jewish. "
---
"In gazing with desire on the Other I reveal how he, in my desire, takes me over, permeates my sense of self, and in his gaze i see how i similarly matter to him, who himself matters at the moment so much. It's this double reciprocal that accounts, i think, for the psychological intensity of sexual experience. It answers to one of our deepest needs, a fundamental fact of human existence : the will to matter "
---
"We're parallel lines, you and I."
"Parallel lines never mind"
"Who wants to meet? One infinitesimal point of convergence, followed by ever widening distances. Parallel lines can travel along side by side forever."
From Berkeley to Niesche, Sartre and Spinoza, she struggles with acceptance of her mind when her body is what captivates.
She pursues the very great minds with her very beautiful body all the while wanting to be desired for her own mind. Or at least validated for it.
In all, it's an enjoyable book, often sharply witty. There's the heavy center of the book, but which without the book would lose its heft.
I had the feeling while reading that the book was partly biographical. I would love to know if that were true.
A couple of quotes I liked:
"I'm amused when people talk of the "religious mentality " or the "religious personality", and always think of my father, mother, brother and sister, all of whose religious personalities had little in common apart from their being Jewish. "
---
"In gazing with desire on the Other I reveal how he, in my desire, takes me over, permeates my sense of self, and in his gaze i see how i similarly matter to him, who himself matters at the moment so much. It's this double reciprocal that accounts, i think, for the psychological intensity of sexual experience. It answers to one of our deepest needs, a fundamental fact of human existence : the will to matter "
---
"We're parallel lines, you and I."
"Parallel lines never mind"
"Who wants to meet? One infinitesimal point of convergence, followed by ever widening distances. Parallel lines can travel along side by side forever."
sikirica's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
ehussong's review against another edition
funny
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
sherdenise's review against another edition
1.0
I couldn't finish...it was completely ridiculous and droll. I'm glad I only paid 25 cents for it!
nkmeyers's review against another edition
4.0
surprisingly disenchanting at first then the structure of it simply won me over.
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