Úžasný Mandelbrot

by Liz Ziemska, Martin Královec (Translator)

Logika někdy stvoří příšery.

Příšery provází Benoita Mandelbrota celý život. Skutečný svět jeho dětství ovládají reálné příšery, které vyvolal nástup Hitlera a rozmach Třetí říše.
Z varšavského ghetta uprchl spolu s rodiči do Paříže. Pro židovského teenagera byl život v nacisty okupované Francii nesnesitelný v každém případě, Benoitovi vše ještě více komplikují dvě věci – jeho nesporná genialita a ostych před lidmi. Jako každý, kdo vládne superschopnostmi je tak trochu outsider. Mandelbrotovi utíkají do malého města na jihu, tají svou identitu a zoufale se pokouší splynout s francouzskými venkovany,

Příběh Benoita Mandelbrota se však ubírá jinou trajektorií než válkou zmítaná Evropa. Únik před krutostí světa nachází v jiných vesmírech, tajných dimenzích, je vtažen do nekonečných proměnných vzorců, objevování neznámých divů. V matematice magie a přežití.

Pro své spolužáky je Benoit příliš inteligentní, a příliš arogantní. Jejich rivalita vyústí až v katastrofu. Musí proměnit skryté dimenze a starobylou mystiku ve skutečné bezpečí a zachránit své blízké.

Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Fiction, Historical, Mathematics, Science Fiction, Novella

114 pages, Paperback

First published December 27, 2017

Reviews

[Fran · Rating 5 out of 5]

Benoit Mandelbrot was born in Warsaw, Poland in the 1920's. His father, a tailor, descended from a long line of Talmudic scholars and his mother was a dentist. Uncle Szolem was a mathematics professor. Szolem shared his love of math, especially Kepler's ellipses, with the youngster who stated that when he grew up he wanted to make a simple discovery of something no one else thought of.

The political climate and threat of war in 1936 caused the Polish Jewish family to seek safe haven in Paris, then later in the town of Tulle. Foreigners living in France were not afforded the same protections as French-born citizens. Mandelbrot found refuge in math, however classmate Emile Vallant was a thorn in his side. As the Germans invaded France, Mandelbrot was determined to hide his family by mathematically embellishing the Hausdorff Dimension, a new dimension that went "inward" instead of "outward".

"Mandelbrot the Magnificent" by Liz Ziemska is a historical, mathematical, fantastical novella. What was fact? What was fiction? Engrossing and with magical realism, the story of Mandelbrot, the father of fractals, unfolds.

"A fractal is a way of seeing infinity" - Mandelbrot

Author Ziemska has created a World War II tome of Jewish mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot and the factors that arguably shaped his foray into higher mathematics. An excellent read!

Thank you Macmillan-Tor/Forge and Net Galley for the opportunity to read and review "Mandelbrot the Magnificent".

[Joel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Any sufficiently complex mathematics is indistinguishable from magic.

No, literally.

[Rachel (Kalanadi) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved the essential idea here (math as magic, fractals to create illusions) but the story was almost too brief. Even just another 20 or 30 pages might have been enough to flesh out the story's frame and the characters a bit more. But now I suddenly need to know more about the real Mandelbrot!

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

Damn, what a brilliant conceit that's pulled off even more brilliantly. I'm in awe, frankly. (and to add a personal aside, I'm often asked if I will ever write a mathematics story or a story using math. I haven't, and now I don't have to. I'll just point the person to this wondrous little book).

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Such a short book to pack such a wallop. How magical is mathematics, how mathematical is magic? I’ll be thinking about this novel for a long time.

[qamar⋆｡°✩ · Rating 4 out of 5]

4☆ — fictionalised account of a very real jewish mathematician, featuring fractal geometry being imbued with magical realism during the period of the holocaust. i really liked this one, i just wished it went on for more !

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

At just 125 pages, I flew through this novella over the course of a short afternoon. The small dose of magical realism and high-level mathematics provides a special uniqueness in this story of survival. Benoit’s inner thoughts and feelings are true to that of a young man trying to figure out his place in the world. He’s selfish at times, as are all teens, but finds the will to see past himself and help others. This transition is beautifully described in Ziemska’s writing.

I will be telling many people about this one, especially my math teacher colleagues.

Highly Recommended.

For my full review: https://paulspicks.blog/2019/05/05/ma...

For all my reviews: https://paulspicks.blog

[Anton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing novella! Part biography / part urban fantasy (very small part). Exquisitely written. Highest possible recommendation

[Mel (Epic Reading) · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a short story There are some definite pros and cons in Liz Ziemska's short story about Mandelbrot, a real-life mathematician.

Pros
I really love how short and succulent this story is. It's primary focus is not necessarily on Mandelbrot learning difficult math concepts; as it is on his family's journey to avoid persecution as Jews during WWII.
The journey from Poland to France, while condensed into a few sentences, is intriguing if only because Mandelbrot's family was just ahead of the Nazi's the majority of the time. I enjoyed seeing the different, if difficult, options in front of them as the family was split up in order to try and keep everyone safe.
I was not familiar with the Sefirot and found the explanation in Mandelbrot the Magnificient sent me to Google to learn more. In historical pieces there are few things I love more than a drive to find out the 'truer than true' version of something. And yet I have to wonder where the Serifot fits into true mathematics (if at all) today.

Cons
Mathematics is a truly beautiful language all it's own. For those of us, like myself, that are intrigued by complex physics, chemistry and mathematics but unable to truly comprehend them it's always great to read a book that breaks concepts down or tries to teach you basic theories at a non-academic level.
In Mandelbrot the Magnificent there are two downfalls with this approach:
1) The imagery and concepts of complex mathematics are made into too much magic. As though you just be a magician to understand. While perhaps this isn't a bad comparison it made me wonder what was true in the story and what wasn't. How did Mandelbrot protect people? Obviously wasn't true magic as this is a true story and so something about his understanding of mathematics benefited his family when the Nazi's came knocking. But because the descriptions and explanation are so founded in some sort of magic I am at a loss to explain any part of the theories or ideas that were used.
2) There are lots of pretty mathematic graphics in this book but few actual descriptions of the complex problems. Now this might be because the Ziemska didn't want to focus too much on the math aspect and instead wanted us to feel math as a part of our organic existence. While I understand and get that it would have been nice to have maybe learned something new and a bit more complex instead of just naming theories I know of but still can't even begin to explain.

Overall
Given the small amount of time invested into reading Mandelbrot the Magnificent it's clear to me it's worth a read if you have any interest.
I could have skipped it and been content with my life knowing what I know now about this story. What I really want is someone to read an interesting, compelling and factually accurate story of Mandelbrot and his true contributions to the scientific community.
However, if Ziemska has given us the only insight currently available at a non-math reading level into Mandelbrot's tumultuous childhood and fractal theories than, without a doubt, Mandlebrot the Magnificent will at least whet any appetites that may lead you into the truly monstrous world of science.

For this and more of my reviews please visit my blog at: Epic Reading

Please note: I received an eARC of this book from the publisher via Net Galley. This is an honest and unbiased review.

[Nikoleta L. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nothing makes me feel stupid as math. When faced with an abstract mathematical problem my brain simply stops, convinced that it has met an insurmountable obstacle. Of course, there’s little I have more respect for than math and I do kind of think it’s magical. So I felt magically stupid while reading Mandelbrot the Magnificent. This little book is very sweet, smart and it shows that which I believe, but am unable to comprehend - that there is nothing in the natural world that math can’t tackle. As long as it finds a mathematician.

[Megan Hex · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a beautiful, perfect gem of a story. This is a gorgeous intersection of history, mathematics, and magical realism; a story of a family, a war, a mathematician, and sacred geometry all rolled into one novella that can be read in about an hour. I recommend this to absolutely anyone.

[Eileen · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting, heartfelt, and creative novella written in the young voice of the mathemetician, Benoit Mandelbrot, as he discovers his genius and love of math and ponders ways to apply its principles to further protecting the home of his Jewish family from the Germans in WW2 France.

[Barrita · Rating 4 out of 5]

Me gusta mucho cuando los libros exploran el lado de las matemáticas que es tan complejo que para nosotros simples mortales se vuelve prácticamente magia (senti una experiencia similar leyendo Binti o Godel, Escher and Bach).

No conocía más que algunas generalidades de Mandelbrot pero quedé encantada con esta versión. La historia me quedo un poco corta, siento que necesitaba cerrarse un poco mejor pero también sé que aunque vaya a investigar sobre Mandelbrot no será igual que aquí 😔

[Ann · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was the perfect novella to read on Pi Day. I love when fantasy and mathematics meld so beautifully.

[Caroline · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you can make maths interesting to me, you’ve got to be good.

[Alvaro Zinos-Amaro · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review forthcoming

[Atlas · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Logic sometimes makes monsters"

* * *
3 / 5

Occasionally I will dive into a biography of a philosopher or a mathematician. When I do, I like to get a feel for the real person - perhaps via the inclusion of letters that they wrote, or excerpts from interviews, or real conversations - but to also get a sense of the feelings of the author. Mandelbrot the Magnificent was peculiar; it was an easy, engaging read, but I was never quite sure what was truth and fact and what was embellishment on the part of Ziemska.

"the only shame is in humanity's unquenchable desire to destroy itself"

The background of the book is true enough. Born in Poland and Jewish, growing up against the outset of World War II, Benoit Mandelbrot fled to France with his family: his brother Leon, his tailor father, and dentist mother. They lived with his uncle, a mathematician in his own right, who served as Mandelbrot's inspiration, telling him stories of Kepler and other famous mathematicians. But it was a dangerous time for a young Jewish boy to become notable for his mathematical skill.

Woven into this historical fact are threads that I presume are of Ziemska's invention: a young boy at Mandelbrot's school who is equally gifted in mathematics yet hates him; a book, The Book of Monsters, which sets Mandelbrot on the path of abstract geometry; the hiding of his family from the Gestapo using Hausdorff dimension and Koch snowflakes. In a way, I adored this book, but in another I was constantly pulled out of illusion this book casts with thoughts of "is this what the real Mandelbrot was like?". I got very little insight into the real man and his discoveries in fractal geometry, in information theory. It begins as a memoir but shifts, slowly but surely, into the realm of the magical (I had to reread several paragraphs properly grasp what Ziemska was doing) and the religious.

Mandelbrot the Magnificient was peculiar and innovative and definitely a special book; it just isn't quite what I expected. One should approach this book as a magical realism novel, a foray into alternate history, set against the backdrop of a real man.

My thanks to Netgalley, the publisher, and the author for an ARC of this book

Read this review and more on my blog: https://atlasrisingbooks.wordpress.co...

[Alicia · Rating 4 out of 5]

https://wordnerdy.blogspot.com/2022/0...

Interesting novella based on the real life of the titular mathematician (who named fractals), centering on his teen years as a Jew in France during WWII. There is a little hint of the fantastic/magical realism/mysticism but this is mainly rooted in history….and a lot of math. I was definitely caught up in the story but it didn’t one hundred percent work for me. I think this is one of the novellas where I wanted just a little bit more, or maybe that it’s that I found it mildly unsettling? A-/B+.

[Marcheto Marcheto · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mathematics, magic based in fractals, World War II (alternate) history, Mandelbrot biography… everything mixed in the right amount to make this book an engaging and original novella perfect to read in one seating.

[Nils · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interessanter Ansatz von Mathemagie vor dem Hintergrund des zweiten Weltkriegs. Leider emotional ein wenig distanziert.

[Diamond · Rating 5 out of 5]

OMG! I wish it was real....this book seriously inspired me! Math has no limits. ...))

[Bill Shubert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice short memoir of Mandelbrot's youth. As a Jew living in WWII France, life was not easy. Young Benoit was deeply in love with math, and this book conveys that well.

[Lia · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Love with Numbers

[enricocioni · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've read plenty of alternate histories, but I think this is the first alternate biography I've ever come across. Benoit Mandelbrot was a real person--a brilliant mathematician who, as the NYT review for his posthumous memoir put it, "coined the term 'fractal' to refer to a new class of mathematical shapes that uncannily mimic the irregularities found in nature". In Mandelbrot the Magnificent, Liz Ziemska takes Mandelbrot's childhood and teenage years--he was born to a Jewish couple in 1920s Poland, his family fled to Paris in 1936 in advance of Hitler's invasion, then to Southern France a few years after that, and they managed to survive Nazi occupation--and weaves in a variety of magic that, appropriately for this story, combines the weirder fringes of mathematics with Judaic mysticism. Young Mandelbrot's gift for maths allows him glimpses of a strange dimension where monstrous geometric shapes lurk--shapes that somehow both defy logic and are ruled by it--and when this gift attracts unwanted attention from Nazi-collaborating neighbours, Mandelbrot must try to protect his family by bringing a part of this dimension into our own, and arranging it so his family can live inside it and be safe.


Attribution: Simpsons contributor at English Wikipedia [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
Now--I am terrible at maths. I had to quote that bit about Mandelbrot's achievements because I wouldn't be able to use my own words to explain exactly what he did and why it's important (besides providing us with some pretty cool psychedelic imagery--as you can see on the right). Even looking up Mandelbrot on Simple English Wikipedia, I struggled to grasp what I was reading. In fact, I've suspected for a while now of being at least slightly innumerate--though I was ok at maths in school, so part of it is probably just that I'm several years out of practice.

At the same time, I think that if an author includes magic in their work, the rules by which that magic works should be reasonably easy to grasp. Of course there are many exceptions, but I think Mandelbrot the Magnificent is one of those books where the reader is meant to understand the magic--because a lot of it is based on actual real-world mathematics, because Mandelbrot's ideas are relatively simple, and because Ziemska provides lots of illustrations.

My question, then, is--does the fact that I did not fully grasp the logic of Mandelbrot's more spectacular magic towards the end of the book constitute a flaw in the book, or a flaw in my mind?

Normally, I think I'd blame the book--a really good author should perhaps be able to explain things so amazingly clearly that even mathematically challenged minds like mine should be able to follow. However, in this case, I'm inclined to say that the book is sufficiently good that it doesn't matter--because I still really enjoyed it. In fact, rather than being frustrated that I didn't 100% get how Mandelbrot's reality-bending worked, I'm actually eager to re-read the book (or better yet, read it with a mathematically gifted friend, of which I actually have a few) and see if I'll get it next time. It helps that Mandelbrot the Magnificent could be read in just over an hour (I think it's only slightly more than 100 pages long), and, especially, it helps that it's wonderfully written.

Young Mandelbrot first falls in love with maths when he hears his uncle Szolem--also a brilliant mathematician--tell the story of how 17th-century German astronomer Johannes Kepler fixed a problem that had bedevilled generations of star-gazers through a surprisingly simple solution (one that, I'm proud to say, I did understand). Things that are apparently simple and yet are also profoundly beautiful and/or mask hidden depths abound throughout the novel: Szolem's house in Southern France is "a simple wooden box" that nonetheless "seemed like a palace" to Mandelbrot and his brother; a rabbi tells teenage Mandelbrot that a "simple act of kindness" has just as much worth in the eyes of God as "the creation of a new masterpiece in the realm of art, music, dance, literature"; Mandelbrot's father believes that "God" is "a simple word used by those who would be terrified if they knew the whole story". Similarly, Ziemska's writing is, on the surface, relatively no-frills, often focussing on the concrete details of the characters' everyday lives--but, somehow, she always manages to describe things in a way that made me stop and marvel at their beauty. I'm not entirely sure how this kind of magic works, either, nor am I sure I can convey it by quoting fragments out of context, but I have the book open at the first page and I find its description of a cauliflower--"curlicues of steam coming off the tiny florets"--incredibly evocative. I can almost see those curlicues!

In fact, I don't know if Ziemska always writes like this (I don't think I've ever read anything else by her, something I will now aim to correct), but this kind of prose also fits nicely with our narrator: though Mandelbrot tells the story from the vantage point of his old age, for most of the it he is a quiet teenage boy who feels infinite wonder towards the world(s) that surround him and can only share his sense of wonder with us, his readers--because his atrocious accent when speaking French would immediately give him away as a foreigner to the Nazi collaborators in his town.

And perhaps that is ultimately the main reason why I'd recommend this book--by the end of it, you feel like you've become friends with the narrator. You've relieved young Mandelbrot from his loneliness, and he's given you a glimpse into the wonderful machinery of his mind. I'm already looking forward to seeing him again next time I read this book.

Mandelbrot the Magnificent is out on November 17th. You can pre-order an electronic copy for just under £3 or $3 depending on where you live/the format you favour. I received an advance copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review. 

[Bogi Takács]

Longer review shortly IY"H? I got this as a birthday gift from Charles Tan. :)

[Sally Koslow · Rating 5 out of 5]

A quirky little gem about the mystical power of mathematics, the Nazi occupation of France, and a boy's coming of age.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very short book/novella (110 pages) of biographical historical fantasy. Our protagonist is the mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot, who discovered fractals; in our story, he masters complex geometry with a dash of Jewish traditions to create a pocket in the universe in which to hide his Polish Jewish family from the Nazis in occupied France.

The idea of math as magic is a very interesting concept, but you don't need to know complex math to appreciate the story. I was able to grasp the crucial points without just a rusty, high school-level understanding of fractals.

I feel like this story could have been either shorter or longer, but at the current length it felt a bit odd. I don't feel like there's enough of an explanation for why Mandelbrot doesn't continue to explore D. At the same time, there's remarkable character development in such a small space.

Anyway, I mostly grabbed this particular one because it was the shortest book on my shelf and I just needed something to hold me over until I got The Iliad from the library. I'd been holding off because I was afraid it was set in a concentration camp (see my review of Briar Rose...), but thankfully, it wasn't.

Quote Roundup

p. 19) (Friends who had been reluctant to leave their park-view apartments, their Meissen china, their illusory dreams of status, did not survive.)

[Jiří Pavlovský · Rating 3 out of 5]

Planeta9 je jedno z vydavatelství, které stojí za to sledovat. Nemusí se vám všechno, co vydávají líbit, ale rozhodně to stojí minimálně za pozornost a za přečtení. Takže jsem zkusil i knížku Úžasný Mandelbrot, což je vážně krátká jednohubka, které by to klidně slušelo v nějakém reprezentativním sci-fi magazínu… kdyby u nás nějaké reprezentativní sci-fi magazíny vycházely. Je to věc, kterou přečtete během cesty tramvají a vlastně přináší poměrně jednoduchý příběh, ve kterém se snoubí matematika a pronásledování Židů za druhé světové války. To všechno na základě skutečného příběhu zakladatele fraktální geometrie.

A tenhle příběh je v podstatě o tom, jak pomocí fraktálů zachránil svou rodinu.

Když otevřete tuhle milou malou neskuečnou biografii skutečného člověka, najdete tam spoustu ilustračních obrázků, ale netřeba se extra bát, že vás čeká stephensonovská nalejvárna. Je to spíš takový magický matematický realismus než ponor do hlubin matematiky.

Ale i tak je to asi knížka, která nejvíc nadchne lidi, co mají sexuální úchylku pro matematiku… i když těm zase můžou vadit, že matika je tu pojednaná jako něco mystického, co není možné chápat, co člověk musí cítit. Ale třeba to tak je, já i na jednoduché sčítání radši používám kalkulačku, takže do toho nemám moc co kecat.

[Kynan · Rating 2 out of 5]

The story starts out with an intriguing cauliflower-based introduction (it was this, and the evocative description of how the cauliflower was cooked that decided me to read this in the first place). From cauliflower we are launched into Mandelbrot's childhood and we follow his family as they attempt to cautiously sidestep the Nazi uprising, and up to this point in the book, the story appears to follow Benoit Mandelbrot's real life. But the fictional starts to mix in with the biographic (I did dearly want to browse through The Book of Monsters, but alas it appears to not exist) and, via a religious segue that I initially took to be very heavy metaphor, heads for the fantastic, which I found to be rather jarring.

This was an interesting read but I wasn't super-keen on the diversion that we took from (science?) fiction into magical-fantasy. I appreciated the pointers in the direction of interesting math and, as a short story, perhaps it will do well at funnelling people in the direction of further reading (perhaps of the history around Mandelbrot's life and World War II or maybe topology and Hausdorff space)?

[Wayne McCoy · Rating 5 out of 5]

'Mandelbrot the Magnificent' by Liz Ziemska is an imaginary biographical tale of Benoit Mandelbrot and his life during World War II.

Mandelbrot was born in the Warsaw ghetto during a particularly bad time in history. His family fled to France, and, as a young Jew, he wasn't very welcome there either. He escaped into the world of mathematics. There he chased the monstrous equations. He finds a unique ability in them, along with some of the power of magical realism, and he might find a way to escape the horrors of the world around him, but at what cost?

There is truth, there is magic and this a pretty great little story that combines the two. There is the faith and arrogance of youth, and a love of mathematics. Included in the book are some formulae as well as a couple of the fractal designs that Mandelbrot is famous for. I really loved this book.

I received a review copy of this ebook from Macmillan-Tor/Forge, and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this ebook.