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Leaning Towards Infinity: How My Mother's Apron Unfolds into My Life
The narrator, an Australian woman, looks back on her complex relationship with her mother
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1996
6 people are currently reading
132 people want to read
About the author
Sue Woolfe
13 books16 followersSue Woolfe has worked as a teacher, scriptwriter, TV subtitle editor, documentary maker and cook. She is the author of the bestselling novel about mathematics and motherhood, Leaning Towards Infinity, published in five countries and won the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction in 1996 and was shortlisted for many other prizes, including the Commonwealth Prize and the prestigious US TipTree Prize. She re-wrote it for the stage, and it’s been workshopped in New York and produced at the Ensemble, Sydney. It’s currently optioned to an American film producer.
Sue Woolfe’s other works include the novel Painted Woman, published in Australia in 1989 and in translation in France in 2008 (also produced twice as a stage play) and co-authored with Kate Grenville Making Stories: How Ten Australian Novels Were Written.
After attaining her BA, Sue taught at high schools and TAFE, and then became a journalist for Choice Magazine. Following huge sales of her best-selling textbook, Language and Literature, she bought 16mm film equipment and set up her own editing suite and wrote/produced or directed 44 short documentary films, many specially commissioned, and all of which sold to commercial TV channels or to SBS. Now, at Sydney University, she teaches fiction writing for post-graduates by a revolutionary method she calls “dangerous writing”, and has designed and coordinates a course to highlight the work of those film underdogs, the screenwriters. In this course, local screenwriting celebrities talk about the triumphs and tribulations of the craft.
Sue lives in Sydney with her partner and daughter.
Sue Woolfe’s other works include the novel Painted Woman, published in Australia in 1989 and in translation in France in 2008 (also produced twice as a stage play) and co-authored with Kate Grenville Making Stories: How Ten Australian Novels Were Written.
After attaining her BA, Sue taught at high schools and TAFE, and then became a journalist for Choice Magazine. Following huge sales of her best-selling textbook, Language and Literature, she bought 16mm film equipment and set up her own editing suite and wrote/produced or directed 44 short documentary films, many specially commissioned, and all of which sold to commercial TV channels or to SBS. Now, at Sydney University, she teaches fiction writing for post-graduates by a revolutionary method she calls “dangerous writing”, and has designed and coordinates a course to highlight the work of those film underdogs, the screenwriters. In this course, local screenwriting celebrities talk about the triumphs and tribulations of the craft.
Sue lives in Sydney with her partner and daughter.
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
August 17, 2021
I tried to slog my way through this book (twice!)---I really did. The writing was good but the structure---going backwards and forwards across four generations using two different narrators with a vague theme of mathematics was just too much for me and as I was not enjoying it I decided to cut my losses and quit. DNF.
3/10
3/10
August 19, 2017
I have had this book for a long time, and tried to read it on a number of occasions. However I could never get into it. This time around, I thought now is the right time to read this book. And it was great. Mathematics played a big role in it; it seemed to take the place of affection and emotional flow between the mother and daughter, both sets (you didn't need to understand high-level maths to get the analogy here). What was great was when Frances took the opportunity to not make the same mistake with Hypatia, that Juanita made with her. We don't often get to choose our relationships, or their parameters, they are organic and have a life of their own. I believe that's what Frances came to understand when she realised that it was Matti who was chosen, yet she was the child that Juanita could've shared her gift with, if she opened her heart and her eyes.
Frances striving to be like her mother was a sad journey, and at times dangerous for Frances herself. It was heartbreaking watching Frances soak up her mother's maths, without her mother even realising it was happening.
I think the old woman, Joanna became like a surrogate mother for Frances and this was the event that opened Frances' eyes to her relationship with her own daughter. It was also funny, after hearing from Frances how beautiful Juanita was, only to hear others reply "she was?".
And I loved the title of the book, "Leaning Towards Infinity". It's like it could've been "Leaning Towards Immortality", if the characters hadn't been interested in maths. The patterns of our lives, their intersections and their trajectory, don't really have a clear identifiable beginning or end.
If, like me, you bought this book years ago, could never get into it, and still have it sitting in your bookshelf, pick it up, start reading and don't stop, it's very, very good, even after all this time.
Frances striving to be like her mother was a sad journey, and at times dangerous for Frances herself. It was heartbreaking watching Frances soak up her mother's maths, without her mother even realising it was happening.
I think the old woman, Joanna became like a surrogate mother for Frances and this was the event that opened Frances' eyes to her relationship with her own daughter. It was also funny, after hearing from Frances how beautiful Juanita was, only to hear others reply "she was?".
And I loved the title of the book, "Leaning Towards Infinity". It's like it could've been "Leaning Towards Immortality", if the characters hadn't been interested in maths. The patterns of our lives, their intersections and their trajectory, don't really have a clear identifiable beginning or end.
If, like me, you bought this book years ago, could never get into it, and still have it sitting in your bookshelf, pick it up, start reading and don't stop, it's very, very good, even after all this time.
May 13, 2017
I wanted this book to continue. I loved it. I read it about the same time as some other books ...Hanna's Daughters was one, and I thought it had every bit as much to say about mother-daughter relationships. Also 'Gut Symmetries' by Janette Winterson, which I did not like...this had more to say about the mathematical woman genius.
It makes the point rendered over and over by Dale Spencer in 'Women of Ideas and What Men have Done To Them' but in a fictionalised account, well plotted and without the hyperbole to which Spender is prone.
Woolfe is a good writer, and her use of language approaches the delights of Arundhati Roy in God of mall Things (but never surpasses).
It makes the point rendered over and over by Dale Spencer in 'Women of Ideas and What Men have Done To Them' but in a fictionalised account, well plotted and without the hyperbole to which Spender is prone.
Woolfe is a good writer, and her use of language approaches the delights of Arundhati Roy in God of mall Things (but never surpasses).
November 25, 2008
A beautifully written, engaging story with an interesting structure . . . a daughter seeks to conclude her mother's (and grandmother's) mathematical legacy, whilst resolving intra-family secrets in the process.
Took a bit of effort to begin with (but I would encourage the reader to stick with it, after all, the journey is as much fun as the destination) for the resolution is worthy of your time.
Took a bit of effort to begin with (but I would encourage the reader to stick with it, after all, the journey is as much fun as the destination) for the resolution is worthy of your time.
November 10, 2015
I read this for a book club, but didn’t enjoy it — too confusing, the math wasn’t convincing, the mathematicians were really not convincing, and I didn’t like any of the characters. Oh, well. Robin says it’s better if you read it a second time.
February 28, 2012
Beautiful, delicate, intelligent book
July 18, 2025
A demanding, but very rewarding exploration of the destructiveness of unrecognised genius, through the lives of three generations of women. The mother is on the verge of discovering a new form of mathematics, but is driven mad by social isolation and betrayal. The narrator, her daughter, attempts to piece together her work. Meanwhile, her daughter is trying to get her attention ... A stunning novel.
November 20, 2018
As good as the first time I read it. Brilliant writing.
July 5, 2020
An original topic... So many beuatiful ideas, sentences... However, they don’t make the End-product perfect! A good book for sure, but could have been much better!
August 21, 2021
It put me to sleep.
June 17, 2023
Interesting view onto motherhood and obsession.
December 14, 2011
I am jumping out of the text into Maths on line... Fibonacci,Art & Maths, and thinking.
I know I'm reading this so late, everyone read it years ago. But I am deliberately going slow, I have to, it is compelling stuff!
Well finally I have finished it and I really enjoyed the amatuer mathmetician Frances on her journey to present her mother's work to the world. But it is more about her family, before and after Frances and their relationships and patterns. It is about women and their need to go beyond traditional roles; women who don't dust, don't easily make scones or pick up their crying baby in the middle an equation or calculation. Instead, they leave screwed balls of paper on the floor; or paper lost sons with sheets of theories. They take a lover, ignore a husband; but also they sometimes don't see important things happening right under their noses, children neglected and in pain.
This book takes a while to get into it, but it is worth the effort because it becomes enthralling and sends you off to all sorts of maths / science dictionaries you haven't opened in years. The writing is poetic, beautiful and drives the strangely twisting and turning narrative (and your head) into lots of cul-de-sacs of imagination, dreaming and thought.
You think that Sue woolfe must be a rare and fascinating woman to connect numbers, calculations, algebra and conjectures so well with the art of her book. No Arts/ Science divide here - so very unusual.
If you hated maths at school this could well suprise you to think again.
I know I'm reading this so late, everyone read it years ago. But I am deliberately going slow, I have to, it is compelling stuff!
Well finally I have finished it and I really enjoyed the amatuer mathmetician Frances on her journey to present her mother's work to the world. But it is more about her family, before and after Frances and their relationships and patterns. It is about women and their need to go beyond traditional roles; women who don't dust, don't easily make scones or pick up their crying baby in the middle an equation or calculation. Instead, they leave screwed balls of paper on the floor; or paper lost sons with sheets of theories. They take a lover, ignore a husband; but also they sometimes don't see important things happening right under their noses, children neglected and in pain.
This book takes a while to get into it, but it is worth the effort because it becomes enthralling and sends you off to all sorts of maths / science dictionaries you haven't opened in years. The writing is poetic, beautiful and drives the strangely twisting and turning narrative (and your head) into lots of cul-de-sacs of imagination, dreaming and thought.
You think that Sue woolfe must be a rare and fascinating woman to connect numbers, calculations, algebra and conjectures so well with the art of her book. No Arts/ Science divide here - so very unusual.
If you hated maths at school this could well suprise you to think again.
July 29, 2021
Leaning Towards Infinity was definitely a strange read, and probably not one that I would have ever picked up on my own (it was a recommendation from a uni friend), but I enjoyed all the same. The story focuses on amateur mathematical theorist, Frances Montrose, as she works hard to present the completion of her mother’s work at a convention, faces academic snobbery and her own insecurities. While the story is interesting, and you can really identify with her struggles, it is how the book is written that makes it remarkable.
The story employs a form of written gymnastics to explore the relationship between mother and daughter: ‘written’ by Frances’ daughter, Hypatia, as she reflects on her childhood and her own motherhood. This is compounded even more by the relationship between Frances and her own mother – and then hers again! Once the flow of history is established however, the stories weave interestingly and, in points, heartbreakingly.
The story employs a form of written gymnastics to explore the relationship between mother and daughter: ‘written’ by Frances’ daughter, Hypatia, as she reflects on her childhood and her own motherhood. This is compounded even more by the relationship between Frances and her own mother – and then hers again! Once the flow of history is established however, the stories weave interestingly and, in points, heartbreakingly.
February 8, 2009
A demanding, but very rewarding exploration of the destructiveness of unrecognised genius, through the lives of three generations of women. The mother is on the verge of discovering a new form of mathematics, but is driven mad by social isolation and betrayal. The narrator, her daughter, attempts to piece together her work. Meanwhile, her daughter is trying to get her attention ... A stunning novel.
June 17, 2008
I love this book on mathematics, women in a men's world, and motherhood. If you think social psychology conferences are bad, think again! Dear male pigs in academia. If there is only one woman at your conference, this is no invitation to repeatedly knock on her door in the middle of the night, forcing her to change hotels.
September 29, 2014
I picked this up on a recommendation from another Australian writer and it was fantastic. Deep and emotional and messy and feminine and powerful. And really great analysis of the psychology of math and mathematicians.
May 3, 2010
My husband bought this for me (for the naked woman I'm sure). It is one of the most beautiful books I have every ready. I loved the hypnotising mathematics.
December 8, 2010
I've read the dutch translation years ago
January 3, 2013
Interesting but my attention wandered occasionally. Quite innovative though to invent a story on female mathematical genius, which surely must be a first!
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews