A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines

In glittering prose that swirls through time and place with an almost surreal quality, Janna Levin dances along the knife edge of madness that haunted the genius of two seminal figures of 20th Century thought, Kurt Godel and Alan Turing. Levin mixes biography and fiction to recall these two men's magnificent intellectual accomplishments, Godel's mathematically renowned Incompleteness Theorem and Turing's theoretical conception of the calculation device that ultimately became known as the Turing machine. Added to this mix are appearances by two other lions of modern thought, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Oskar Morganstern. Rather than belabor the content of these men's discoveries, however, A MADMAN DREAMS OF TURING MACHINES focuses instead on these tortured souls, geniuses both, whose lives ran in parallel with but the briefest of near-intersections. As her story alternates between her two protagonists, Levin introduces Kurt Godel as pathologically introverted, a man whose self-confidence can be shattered by the merest "tssk, tssk" from a more outspoken peer who disagrees. Godel, a man who labored in anonymity and whose name is still largely unrecognized by the general public, is presented by the author as having a weak physical constitution, thin to the point of self-starvation. His illness is only compounded by paranoia that he is being poisoned, if not by his food, then by his heating stove. Alan Turing, subject of the theatrical production "Breaking the Code," is considered by many the father of modern computing. However, he is remembered as much for his homosexuality as for his vital role at Bletchley Park, England, in World War II, leading the British effort in cracking the Germans' Enigma code-making machine. Levin imagines Turing in all his peculiarities, from his boarding school experience of being bound helpless beneath a dormitory room floor and his Asperger-like difficulties with social interaction to his compulsive behavior with regard to foods of similar color and his ultimate death by suicide. Both of Levin's "man-children," are nearly incapable of caring for themselves, Godel dependent on his devoted, self-effacing wife Adele Nimbursky and Turing on his friend and wife Joan Clarke. The author draws diverse connections between the two men, ranging from their philosophical ruminations and conversations with the great philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein to their presence at Princeton to the story of Snow White and its device of the poisoned red apple. Yet despite its biographical focus, A MADMAN DREAMS OF TURING MACHINES is also a discourse on epistemology and the notion of free will. "How do we know what we know, and indeed what do we really know?" are questions that torture Godel, the man who literally imprisons himself in his room and starves himself to death while convinced he is merely exercising his free will in doing so. Turing, on the other hand, imagines human will as nothing more than the pre-ordained responses of a complex bio

Janna Levin has created a strange and beautiful world in this relatively short, very readable, compelling book. She pushes the line between fiction and nonfiction. The book sticks close to the biographical facts of two historical figures, towering intellects of the last century. Their stories are told by someone you might at first assume is the author. Only, this narrator is unreliable, distorting their stories not with untruths exactly but with hyper-real prose. The imagery is too vivid and eventually slightly surreal to be true. Eventually the narrator, a self-professed liar, becomes unreal too and you realize you don't even know who the narrator is. Maybe the narrator is you. Maybe it is all in your mind. At first I didn't get what she was doing with the narrator but then it hit me. She's saying it's all in our minds! This book makes you think about truth, the pursuit of truth, beauty and weakness. I also found particularly compelling the descriptions of thought itself and the loneliness that can result from getting lost in your own world. I do have a science background but I shouldn't think you need a background in mathematics to appreciate the power thinking has over every aspect of our perceptions. The subtle melding of fact and fiction is, well, subtle. Not everyone will get it. Not everyone will like it. But if you do get it, it's powerful. This book is special, a little gem.

This is a marvelous book. However, if you are looking for finely detailed biographies of Godel and Turing then read Logical Dilemmas: The Life and Work of Kurt Godel by John Dawson and Alan Turing: The Enigma by Andrew Hodge. Ms. Levin has a different mission in her finely crafted work. She spins a wonderful tale of two men seeking truth in the world of mathematics. Godel , the pre-eminent logician of the 20th century, who proves that mathematics is an incomplete sytem but who in the end dies of starvation due to his paranoia. And Turing, the brilliant young Cambridge eccentric, who cracks the German Enigma Code thereby hastening Germany's defeat in WW II and, in addition, laying the groundwork for modern computers. For all that he did, Turing is rewarded by his government by being sentenced to chemical castration for his homosexuality. As a result, he chooses suicide. Janna Levin takes us into the minds of these two brilliant men as their search for truth via mathematics ends in the chaotic demise of both. This book will leave you wondering how these two men accomplished so much in spite of their tortured personal lives. You will also come away with great respect for these two humans and for all who seek the truth including the author, herself. Obtain a copy and read. This book is a little gem!

A story of the parallel lives of Alan Turing, brilliant decoder for the british in WW II, and Kurt Goedel, who wrote the Incompleteness Theorem(see the book: [...]. There are debates about God, the limits of logic,and cosmology. I read parts out loud to my husband and we debated it into the night in a hotel room. Wittgenstein is featured here in this historical novel. Levin has done a wonderful job weaving the two lives together, and I think she got a raw deal in the NY Times Book Review, which was so sexist I can't believe they printed it in the Times! They quoted her as having had Goedel say unscientific things, but I couldn't find said quotes anywhere in her book. I wrote them, but too late in the news cycle. I sent it the book to my father[...] for Christmas. When he opened it, he couldn't wait to read it, too.

I also saw this author on The Colbert Report. She made a fantastic impression sparring with Colbert but somehow I wasn't prepared for just how brilliant this book is. I would have to say that it is the best book I have read in years. Let's put it this way, I have never felt impelled to write a review before. This book sent me reeling with so many ideas. I want other people to read it. The writing is luminous. On the dust jacket the word "Incantatory" is used and I couldn't select a better descriptor myself. The language is incantatory. It is an extremely well crafted novel. There are passages so beautiful that I've found myself returning to read them long after I finished the book. As a former teacher of English, once involved in the publishing industry, I have to say she is an unusually skillful writer. The book can be read on one level as a very readable, very compelling story of two brilliant but ailing minds. The style is extremely cinematic. On other levels you can find several deep and fascinating layers. Although I am not a mathy type of person, I was totally engrossed. The book is not really about mathematics and in some ways the mathematical ideas appear most prominently in the clever structure and not the exposition. What is the book about? On the face of it, the book is about brilliance and the pursuit of truth. But probably that's just on the face of it. What is the book really about? Reality? Imagination? Fact vs. Fiction? I'm not sure I've decided yet. But it's really inspiring to wonder. Just in case you don't trust my opinion, I plucked these reviews from the website for the book (since I missed the reviews myself): "The poetically heightened language...the incantatory prose and the stylized metaphysical colloquy...make it clear that Levin's novel is no mere assemblage of biographical transcriptions. We are very much within the mind of an unreliable narrator, one whose dark existential obsessions resonate with the versions of Godel and Turing she has fashioned." THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW "Three dimensions emerge from the flat page. Her characters and their century come brilliantly, irritably alive." LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK REVIEW "very smart first novel... a simple work of genius" TORONTO GLOBE MAIL "A brainy novel rich in revelation" BLOOMBERG "Levin constructs a fascinating tale... What's most impressive here is the elegance and sympathy with which Levin creates the fictional universe that accommodates these men's mathematical principles, while at the same time mapping a mathematical universe in which fiction can thrive." BALTIMORE SUN "A fast-reading, deceptively complex book...as a detailed, intensely felt character study of two striking figures in the realms of mathematics and philosophy, "A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines" is undeniably compelling." RICHMOND TIMES DISPATCH "Like a lyrical mash-up, Levin interweaves the personal narrative style of her first book with taut prose evocative of Alan Lig