"THE INDIAN CLERK" BOOK REVIEW
Editor’s Note: Liney Kindler (‘17) reviews “The Indian Clerk” by David Leavitt in this insightful review that explores the ability of Leavitt’s novel to paint mathematics and human relationships in an entirely new light.
Hello! Today I am going to be talking about “The Indian Clerk,” by David Leavitt. “The Indian Clerk” is classified as literary fiction, which is a novel about people who really existed, recreated by the author who plays with the facts and various nuances of their lives. While most of the people really did exist, there are a few invented characters that help to bring a greater depth and meaning to the novel. “The Indian Clerk” is loosely structured around a lecture given by the brilliant English mathematician and Cambridge don G.H. Hardy. In 1913, Hardy receives a letter from S. Ramanujan, a poor clerk working in a colonial accounts office in Madras. The letter is filled with nine pages of various math theorems, and Ramanujan claims to have come close in trying to prove the Riemann hypothesis – a mathematical problem involving the mystery of the primes and their distribution. Hardy, captivated by the self-professed genius, initially questions the credibility of Ramanujan. He approaches his collaborator, J.E. Littlewood, and on the basis of the letter, the two decide to invite Ramanujan to come to Cambridge. Both persuading and finding the money to bring Ramanujan from India to the U.K. proves very difficult, with through lines of religion and spirituality that are reoccurring throughout the novel, but eventually Ramanujan is brought by boat, and another mathematician, Eric Neville, takes Ramanujan into his home; Neville’s wife, Alice, becomes obsessed with their guest’s comfort, catering to Ramanujan’s strict dietary restrictions, and her relationship with Ramanujan becomes one of great significance (wink, wink).
Ramanujan begins working with Hardy, and what Hardy soon learns is that Ramanujan has received little to no formal math education or training in his life, especially as compared to the fellows of Trinity College, yet he is a mathematical genius. While Hardy is initially frustrated by Ramanujan’s tendency to pursue several ideas in an associative fashion, Hardy eventually realizes he has come in contact with a mind that expands his own notion of mathematics. Hardy’s relationship with Ramanujan, which the real G. H. Hardy famously called “the one romantic incident in my life,” is a gateway into Hardy’s closeted sexuality and the messy realm of human friendship, which are also at play throughout the novel.
While Ramanujan is living in England, World War I breaks out, and the young mathematician is not able to return to India for another five years. During the period of war, many relationships change and various dynamics shift. Several individuals are opposed to the war, including Hardy, and soon their opposition to enlist consumes their entire lives. The war brings a darker tone to the novel, and it also brings about new relationships, like that of Hardy with soldier, Thayer. Soon Ramanujan becomes very ill, and doctors struggle to find a proper diagnosis. He loses weight, and he struggles to continue to work with Hardy as he did before. While there are brief episodes of productivity towards the end of his life, eventually Ramanujan returns to India after the end of the war, where he ultimately dies of Tuberculosis. And while there are many, many intricacies through that bring the story to life, those are the major through lines.
Three things I loved about the book:
1. I loved how the novel so fluidly shifted perspectives. All characters were fully developed, and Leavitt so beautifully brought each and every one of their stories to life.
2. While the events are primarily non-fiction, the story reads more like a novel than a biography, which serves to really bring the story to life. When I started the book, I was afraid that I would be reading 500 pages of dry historical facts, but instead the story unfolded before my eyes like I never would have expected.
3. I LOVED the way the characters talked about math. Every mathematician seemed so deeply invested in their work, especially Hardy who did not glorify the study, but rather confronted the grueling and all-consuming nature of mathematics. On a similar note, I loved the way that Hardy reacted to the letter from Ramanujan. He said by the way Ramanujan expressed his mathematical ideas it was clear he was a foreigner to the traditional language of math. I found this so incredibly striking because we so often think about math as one, unilateral “thing” that will take a similar form wherever you are, but in fact, it fluctuates like a spoken language.
Two (of many more) things that I thought about after I finished the book:
1. In the end, how much does Ramanujan actually benefit from his study at Cambridge? To what ultimate end are his relationships with Hardy, Littlewood, Neville, Alice, etc. healthy? Ramanujan attempts suicide, and he dies of a disease contracted by his move to England. Here is a quote that I have been thinking about a lot that touches upon these questions: “Ramanujan, in the late months of 1917 and the early months of 1918, was a man from whose body many hooks dangled. Of these, at the time at least, I could only see some. There was the hook that connected him to me, to my ambition for him, which he felt obliged to meet, and to my fear of him, which he felt obliged to allay; and there was the hook of his illness, obliging him to rely on the care of doctors, and the hooks of duty and love connecting him to his three friends, Chatterjee, Rao, and Mahalanobis and the predatory hook (this one particularly sharp and menacing) plunged into him at an early age by his mother and the hook of responsibility and desire that linked him to his wife across the ocean; and the hook of the war, embedded in everyone’s flesh in those years; and finally the hook of his own ambition, which of course he had driven into himself” (418).
2. What did it mean to not fight in the World War? I did not think going into the book that I would leave with this question, but the war, and characters who took a stance against it, played such a large part in the novel – the Union for Democratic Control, a pacifist organization, as well as Bertrand Russell’s antiwar activities. I cannot imagine the bravery it takes to put your entire career, your credibility, and everything you have worked for on the line to take a stance…pretty incredible.
Favorite quotes:
I flagged a page every time I read a quote that really resonated with me. I am so angry with myself because I only came up with this idea on page 336, so these are my 5 favorite quotes from page 336 and on: 1. “Mathematics, for me, has always been like this: you are looking at a mountainous landscape. Peak A you can see clearly, peak B you can barely discern amid the clouds. Then you find the ridge that leads from peak A to peak B, at which point you can move on to further, more distant peaks. All very pretty, this analogy – I used it in a lecture I gave in 1928 – and yet what it fails to address is whether, in making this exploration, you should rely only on your binoculars, or actually strike out on foot. In the latter case, you no longer regard the peaks from a distance; you delve into them. And this is a much more dangerous game. For now there are risks that you do not face standing safely at a distance, gazing through your binoculars: frostbite, weariness, losing your way. You may lose your footing, too, fall from the surface you are scaling into the abyss. Yes, the abyss is always there. We cope with the risk of falling in different ways. I coped with it by not looking, by pretending there was no abyss. But Ramanujan, I think, was always staring down into it. Guarding himself. Or preparing to jump” (336). This quote is a perfect example of how the characters in “The Indian Clerk” talk/think about mathematics – quite incredible.
2. “They would break him, and sent him home for repair, and break him again In much the same way, I realized later, we broke Ramanujan, and patched him together again, and broke him again, until we had squeezed all the use we could out of him. Until he could manage no more. Only then did we let him go home” (340). This quote touches upon the question I raised earlier.
3. “‘And now she flies all the time. You’re an angel cat, aren’t you, Hermione?’ As if in answer, she wriggles out of his grasp, scuttles across the floor, and starts to sharpen her claws on the curtains. Gaye follows her. ‘Bad girl,’ he says, bending down and detaching her claws, which rake the silk. ‘Don’t leave,’ Hardy says, but he already feels the severing, smells the smoke of the guttered candle” (446). I reread this quote to Julia McCormick over FaceTime, and I had the same reaction I did the first time I read it (many, many tears.)
4. “Mother were out with children, and a man was selling balloons. It occurred to me that it had been a long time since I’d seen a balloon, and this reflection made me recognize the degree to which, for years, we had been deliberately draining our daily lives of color and light” (464).
5. “Once again, mathematics had tantalized us with a pattern, only to snatch it away. Really, it was rather like dealing with God” (467).
Final thoughts:
I think all students should take the opportunity to read “The Indian Clerk” because it allowed me to imagine mathematics with an entirely new framework. As students, I think it is only natural to imagine math as that which is confined to the classroom, but as Leavitt so beautifully illustrates in his novel, math is a language, an emotion, a friend, an enemy, an infinite puzzle, and a force to be reckoned with. This intellectual and historical novel explores the beauty of mathematics, the nature of creativity, sexual repression, class relations, and the climate of the British Empire in the early 20th century. Furthermore, the novel questions typical notions of “success.” While both Hardy and Littlewood are renowned mathematics, each fails at domestic life, with Hardy’s guilt for past lover, Gaye, and Littlewood’s long-term affair. Then there is Ramanujan, a man who finds a home for his mind, but not his heart. Leavitt contrasts the certainty attributed to mathematics with the uncertainty of human relationships and the psyche of the intellectual. Everyone should take the opportunity to get lost in these pages and learn more about these fascinating characters.
Ramanujan begins working with Hardy, and what Hardy soon learns is that Ramanujan has received little to no formal math education or training in his life, especially as compared to the fellows of Trinity College, yet he is a mathematical genius. While Hardy is initially frustrated by Ramanujan’s tendency to pursue several ideas in an associative fashion, Hardy eventually realizes he has come in contact with a mind that expands his own notion of mathematics. Hardy’s relationship with Ramanujan, which the real G. H. Hardy famously called “the one romantic incident in my life,” is a gateway into Hardy’s closeted sexuality and the messy realm of human friendship, which are also at play throughout the novel.
While Ramanujan is living in England, World War I breaks out, and the young mathematician is not able to return to India for another five years. During the period of war, many relationships change and various dynamics shift. Several individuals are opposed to the war, including Hardy, and soon their opposition to enlist consumes their entire lives. The war brings a darker tone to the novel, and it also brings about new relationships, like that of Hardy with soldier, Thayer. Soon Ramanujan becomes very ill, and doctors struggle to find a proper diagnosis. He loses weight, and he struggles to continue to work with Hardy as he did before. While there are brief episodes of productivity towards the end of his life, eventually Ramanujan returns to India after the end of the war, where he ultimately dies of Tuberculosis. And while there are many, many intricacies through that bring the story to life, those are the major through lines.
Three things I loved about the book:
1. I loved how the novel so fluidly shifted perspectives. All characters were fully developed, and Leavitt so beautifully brought each and every one of their stories to life.
2. While the events are primarily non-fiction, the story reads more like a novel than a biography, which serves to really bring the story to life. When I started the book, I was afraid that I would be reading 500 pages of dry historical facts, but instead the story unfolded before my eyes like I never would have expected.
3. I LOVED the way the characters talked about math. Every mathematician seemed so deeply invested in their work, especially Hardy who did not glorify the study, but rather confronted the grueling and all-consuming nature of mathematics. On a similar note, I loved the way that Hardy reacted to the letter from Ramanujan. He said by the way Ramanujan expressed his mathematical ideas it was clear he was a foreigner to the traditional language of math. I found this so incredibly striking because we so often think about math as one, unilateral “thing” that will take a similar form wherever you are, but in fact, it fluctuates like a spoken language.
Two (of many more) things that I thought about after I finished the book:
1. In the end, how much does Ramanujan actually benefit from his study at Cambridge? To what ultimate end are his relationships with Hardy, Littlewood, Neville, Alice, etc. healthy? Ramanujan attempts suicide, and he dies of a disease contracted by his move to England. Here is a quote that I have been thinking about a lot that touches upon these questions: “Ramanujan, in the late months of 1917 and the early months of 1918, was a man from whose body many hooks dangled. Of these, at the time at least, I could only see some. There was the hook that connected him to me, to my ambition for him, which he felt obliged to meet, and to my fear of him, which he felt obliged to allay; and there was the hook of his illness, obliging him to rely on the care of doctors, and the hooks of duty and love connecting him to his three friends, Chatterjee, Rao, and Mahalanobis and the predatory hook (this one particularly sharp and menacing) plunged into him at an early age by his mother and the hook of responsibility and desire that linked him to his wife across the ocean; and the hook of the war, embedded in everyone’s flesh in those years; and finally the hook of his own ambition, which of course he had driven into himself” (418).
2. What did it mean to not fight in the World War? I did not think going into the book that I would leave with this question, but the war, and characters who took a stance against it, played such a large part in the novel – the Union for Democratic Control, a pacifist organization, as well as Bertrand Russell’s antiwar activities. I cannot imagine the bravery it takes to put your entire career, your credibility, and everything you have worked for on the line to take a stance…pretty incredible.
Favorite quotes:
I flagged a page every time I read a quote that really resonated with me. I am so angry with myself because I only came up with this idea on page 336, so these are my 5 favorite quotes from page 336 and on: 1. “Mathematics, for me, has always been like this: you are looking at a mountainous landscape. Peak A you can see clearly, peak B you can barely discern amid the clouds. Then you find the ridge that leads from peak A to peak B, at which point you can move on to further, more distant peaks. All very pretty, this analogy – I used it in a lecture I gave in 1928 – and yet what it fails to address is whether, in making this exploration, you should rely only on your binoculars, or actually strike out on foot. In the latter case, you no longer regard the peaks from a distance; you delve into them. And this is a much more dangerous game. For now there are risks that you do not face standing safely at a distance, gazing through your binoculars: frostbite, weariness, losing your way. You may lose your footing, too, fall from the surface you are scaling into the abyss. Yes, the abyss is always there. We cope with the risk of falling in different ways. I coped with it by not looking, by pretending there was no abyss. But Ramanujan, I think, was always staring down into it. Guarding himself. Or preparing to jump” (336). This quote is a perfect example of how the characters in “The Indian Clerk” talk/think about mathematics – quite incredible.
2. “They would break him, and sent him home for repair, and break him again In much the same way, I realized later, we broke Ramanujan, and patched him together again, and broke him again, until we had squeezed all the use we could out of him. Until he could manage no more. Only then did we let him go home” (340). This quote touches upon the question I raised earlier.
3. “‘And now she flies all the time. You’re an angel cat, aren’t you, Hermione?’ As if in answer, she wriggles out of his grasp, scuttles across the floor, and starts to sharpen her claws on the curtains. Gaye follows her. ‘Bad girl,’ he says, bending down and detaching her claws, which rake the silk. ‘Don’t leave,’ Hardy says, but he already feels the severing, smells the smoke of the guttered candle” (446). I reread this quote to Julia McCormick over FaceTime, and I had the same reaction I did the first time I read it (many, many tears.)
4. “Mother were out with children, and a man was selling balloons. It occurred to me that it had been a long time since I’d seen a balloon, and this reflection made me recognize the degree to which, for years, we had been deliberately draining our daily lives of color and light” (464).
5. “Once again, mathematics had tantalized us with a pattern, only to snatch it away. Really, it was rather like dealing with God” (467).
Final thoughts:
I think all students should take the opportunity to read “The Indian Clerk” because it allowed me to imagine mathematics with an entirely new framework. As students, I think it is only natural to imagine math as that which is confined to the classroom, but as Leavitt so beautifully illustrates in his novel, math is a language, an emotion, a friend, an enemy, an infinite puzzle, and a force to be reckoned with. This intellectual and historical novel explores the beauty of mathematics, the nature of creativity, sexual repression, class relations, and the climate of the British Empire in the early 20th century. Furthermore, the novel questions typical notions of “success.” While both Hardy and Littlewood are renowned mathematics, each fails at domestic life, with Hardy’s guilt for past lover, Gaye, and Littlewood’s long-term affair. Then there is Ramanujan, a man who finds a home for his mind, but not his heart. Leavitt contrasts the certainty attributed to mathematics with the uncertainty of human relationships and the psyche of the intellectual. Everyone should take the opportunity to get lost in these pages and learn more about these fascinating characters.