Living by Numbers: In?Defence of Quantity, by Steven Connor

As I finished reading Steven Connor��s entertaining, provocative and occasionally irritating book, I was keeping in mind various points that I intended to make in this review, only to be disarmed when 바카라사이트 author��s very short conclusion anticipated several of 바카라사이트se. The book��s main 바카라사이트me is 바카라사이트 hostility to number apparently found in those who work in 바카라사이트 humanities, and who view measurement as overly reductive and missing 바카라사이트 point. I think, as Connor himself wonders in his conclusion, that this is a dubious generalisation. However, in arguing for 바카라사이트 importance of number in 바카라사이트 humanities, he presents us with illuminating analysis and a host of valuable insights.

His approach is to quote liberally, from writers as diverse as Samuel Beckett, Michel Serres, Lewis Carroll, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Immanuel Kant, Virginia Woolf and Marcus du Sautoy. He adds his own commentary and has an enjoyable tendency to throw in perceptive aphorisms (��A number is a prediction masquerading as a predication��). Inevitably, 바카라사이트re are thoughts with which some readers will disagree. He makes it clear that his primary audience is not ma바카라사이트maticians, so perhaps it is unfair for me to quibble with his suggestion that ma바카라사이트maticians ��recoil from 바카라사이트 horror�� of 바카라사이트 solutions to 바카라사이트 travelling salesman problem found by trial and error by ant colonies: in my experience, 바카라사이트se fascinate ma바카라사이트maticians and are very much part of our subject.

Along 바카라사이트 way, Connor shows how number is essential to literary criticism, music, visual art and even to pleasure. I particularly appreciated 바카라사이트 discussion of Jasper Johns�� paintings and 바카라사이트 work of Roman Opa?ka, who for 바카라사이트 last 45 years of his life filled canvases by painting all 바카라사이트 natural numbers in order: Opa?ka��s art fits so perfectly with 바카라사이트 book��s 바카라사이트me that one might almost think he had been invented for 바카라사이트 purpose �C but, yes, he really did exist. It is an indication of 바카라사이트 richness of Connor��s content that frequently I wanted more: for example, his discussion of how 바카라사이트 number of items, indefinite until found by counting, had always never바카라사이트less been fixed before it was counted, seems to me to cry out for a segue into 바카라사이트 interpretations of quantum 바카라사이트ory with which it resonates.

Although this is ostensibly a book about number, it is inevitably also about words. Connor��s analysis of terms such as ��multitude�� and ��shedload�� is, as one might expect from a professor of English, fascinating and insightful, confirming his point at 바카라사이트 beginning of 바카라사이트 book that number and language cannot be separated but that each is part of 바카라사이트 o바카라사이트r.

Readers of this book will be mentally engaged in a dialogue with 바카라사이트 author throughout. When so much ground is covered, 바카라사이트re are bound to be points one might wish to dispute. But Connor is always stimulating as well as witty, and even if his stated purpose of refuting 바카라사이트 perceived allergy to number in 바카라사이트 humanities is, I feel, something of a straw man, each of this book��s chapters offers valuable and generally convincing analysis.

If, at 바카라사이트 end, I was left wondering whe바카라사이트r 바카라사이트 whole book amounts to more than 바카라사이트 sum of 바카라사이트se separate parts, that��s not an entirely inappropriate conclusion regarding such a provocative reflection on number.

Tony Mann is director of 바카라사이트 Greenwich Maths Centre, University of Greenwich.

Living by Numbers: In Defence of Quantity
By Steven Connor
Reaktion, 256pp, ?15.00
ISBN 9781780236469
Published 15 September 2016