Strange Attractors: Stories

by Rebecca Goldstein

A National Jewish Honor Book composed of seven short stories from the author of The Mind-Body Problem .
 
A mathematician studies the geometry of soap bubbles and responds to the rapture of infatuation by reciting Shakespeare in Yiddish. A group of Olympian intellects is made childlike by the appearance of a double rainbow. Becky Sharp steps out of the pages of Vanity Fair to confound a pretentious philosopher. These are just some of the marvelous and unlikely things that happen in Strange Attractors —a collection of stories that explores the interactions of thought and feeling, mind and heart, to reveal the deep, mysterious ties between seemingly unrelated lives.

“A wonderful collection . . . A picture of remarkable depth and complexity.”— Los Angeles Times

“Electric and compelling . . . Rebecca Goldstein brings a keen and specially informed vision to our world.”— Newsday
 
“Rebecca Goldstein again probes the relationships between female intellect and emotion—this time in a sparkling, erudite collection in which brilliant women’s minds dictate their romantic attachments while their gender continues to dictate their fate.”— Kirkus Reviews

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Philosophy, Jewish, Literary Fiction, American

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1993

About the author

Rebecca Newberger Goldstein grew up in White Plains, New York, and graduated summa cum laude from Barnard College, receiving the Montague Prize for Excellence in Philosophy, and immediately went on to graduate work at Princeton University, receiving her Ph.D. in philosophy. While in graduate school she was awarded a National Science Foundation Fellowship and a Whiting Foundation Fellowship.

After earning her Ph.D. she returned to her alma mater, where she taught courses in philosophy of science, philosophy of mind, philosophy of psychology, the rationalists, the empiricists, and the ancient Greeks. It was some time during her tenure at Barnard that, quite to her own surprise, she used a summer vacation to write her first novel, The Mind-Body Problem. As she described it,

"To me the process is still mysterious. I had just come through a very emotional time, having not only become a mother but having also lost my father, whom I adored. In the course of grieving for my father and glorying in my daughter, I found that the very formal, very precise questions I had been trained to analyze weren’t gripping me the way they once had. Suddenly, I was asking the most `unprofessional’ sorts of questions (I would have snickered at them as a graduate student), such as how does all this philosophy I’ve studied help me to deal with the brute contingencies of life? How does it relate to life as it’s really lived? I wanted to confront such questions in my writing, and I wanted to confront them in a way that would insert `real life’ intimately into the intellectual struggle. In short I wanted to write a philosophically motivated novel."

The Mind-Body Problem was published by Random House and went on to become a critical and popular success.

More novels followed: The Late-Summer Passion of a Woman of Mind; The Dark Sister, which received the Whiting Writer’s Award, Mazel, which received the 1995 National Jewish Book Award and the 1995 Edward Lewis Wallant Award; and Properties of Light: A Novel of Love, Betrayal, and Quantum Physics. Her book of short stories, Strange Attractors, received a National Jewish Book Honor Award. Her 2005 book Incompleteness: The Proof and Paradox of Kurt Gödel, was featured in articles in The New Yorker and The New York Times, received numerous favorable reviews, and was named one of the best books of the year by Discover magazine, the Chicago Tribune, and the New York Sun. Goldstein’s most recent published book is, Betraying Spinoza: The Renegade Jew who Gave Us Modernity, published in May 2006, and winner of the 2006 Koret International Jewish Book Award in Jewish Thought. Her new novel, Thirty-Six Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction, will be published by Pantheon Books.

In 1996 Goldstein became a MacArthur Fellow, receiving the prize which is popularly known as the “Genius Award.” In awarding her the prize, the MacArthur Foundation described her work in the following words:

"Rebecca Goldstein is a writer whose novels and short stories dramatize the concerns of philosophy without sacrificing the demands of imaginative storytelling. Her books tell a compelling story as they describe with wit, compassion and originality the interaction of mind and heart. In her fiction her characters confront problems of faith: religious faith and faith in an ability to comprehend the mysteries of the physical world as complementary to moral and emotional states of being. Goldstein’s writings emerge as brilliant arguments for the belief that fiction in our time may be the best vehicle for involving readers in questions of morality and existence."

Goldstein is married to linguist and author Steven Pinker. She lives in Boston and in Truro, Massachusetts.

Reviews

[Joe Krudys · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can't pin down exactly why I liked this book. Maybe some of it was the interspersing of philosophy. Some of it was the admiration of mathematics. But probably, it was just because the stories were written so well and were interesting too. I'm not even sure how I came across this book, but I'm glad I did.

[Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this short story collection. Just loved it. The stories were strange, eerie, delightful, fascinating, empowering, thought provoking. The author speaks in clear, natural prose and through such varied and solid characters - I would almost swear I'd been reading about real people. Simply lovely stories.

[Ariella · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not all winners, but it takes talent to write a short story about philosophy without being pretentious or inaccessible, and Rebecca Goldstein generally succeeds in making them thoroughly engaging, even amusing.

[BrigetteLorraine · Rating 4 out of 5]

"beneath the riot of differences, there's a universal language that makes us all accessible to one another."

"people in my real life were nice or mean, usually normal people are a little nice or a little mean together. But when the times are hard, when there's not enough to eat or drink, when there's war, then you don't find a little nice and a little mean mixed together. you find only greatness. very great badness and very great goodness." (p 230)

"It's okay. I promise not to admire your heritage anymore."

"Luke's semitophilism at first made me bristle with hostility. It seemed to me something very near to its virulent opposite." (193)

"it's what you call the paradox of sex. the ones who'll settle down, who'll do anything you want, who wants them? It's the others, the bums, the no-goodniks. . . " (171)

[Nina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Short stories with a strong bent towards Judaism, philosophy, and mathematics. The stories were well written except for the endings. IT was like she started several novels and decided after one chapter to quit and call it a short story. Primary exception: "The Legacy of Raizel Kaidish." That one had a a good ending. One thing I like was the connection between three of the stories. The last story in the book picked up as an adult character someone who had been a child in an earlier story. Also, a character in that last story mentioned having liked a novel written by a character in the totally unrelated first story of the book.

[Emi Yoshida · Rating 3 out of 5]

Before reading a few of these stories I never understood Joe America's animosity towards ivory tower elitism, but I got it, how off-putting it can come off.

Eventually though I adjusted to it, like reading an accented voice - which by the way Goldstein presents many of. In the end I did love how her final story playfully combined minor characters from some of the others.

[Eric Lawton · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of short stories, very well written, with an interesting mix of academic life, philosophy and vignettes of Jewish life in small-town America.
Although I liked The Mind-The Mind-Body Problem more, this variety of stories showcases her talent.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Though not a big fan of short stories, Rebecca Goldstein's stories (not necessarily short) are like the beginnings of novels that I wish would never end. Are these beginnings of novels that she just couldn't finish??

[Ian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rebecca is a very skilled writer. In this book she assembles an assortment of short stories. Each story is an interesting exercise in mixing philosophy and mathematics with the fictions that hold it all together.

[Jafar · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of stories by philosopher with an interest in mathematics. If you know about the chaos theory, you know what a "strange attractor" is.

[Ghada Al · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've read more than one of Rebecca Goldstein's major books before, like The Mind-Body Problem and 36 Arguments For The Existence Of God. That encouraged me to get this book. And I didn't regret it. I thoroughly enjoy Goldstein's work, the concise language, the intriguing characters. You can't forget that she is a philosopher who knows a great deal -and has a fascination with- mathematics in any of the short stories, which makes the reading experience to me even more entrancing.

[Lúthien · Rating 3 out of 5]

i quite liked it, especially from dreams of the dangerous duke and strange attractors. interesting writing, easily understandable, engaging enough that i read the whole book in an afternoon. sometimes the stories do feel a little surprisingly sad and empty though, like something is missing. but i appreciate the experience of the uniqueness of that style still.

[uosɯɐS · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of Rebecca's earlier publishings. You can see Mazel in formation.

[Mark]

I was tempted to give this a decent rating because I remember being impressed by the writing, but I don't remember enough. I only know Rebecca introduces science into her fiction.