The Parrot's Theorem: A Novel

by Denis Guedj, Frank Wynne (Translator)

Overview

An immediate bestseller when first published in France, The Parrot's Theorem charmingly combines a straightforward history of mathematics and a first-rate murder mystery.

Mr. Ruche, a Parisian bookseller, receives a bequest from a long lost friend in the Amazon of a vast library of math books, which propels him into a great exploration of the story of mathematics. Meanwhile Max, whose family lives with Mr. Ruche, takes in a voluble parrot who will discuss math with anyone.

When Mr. Ruche learns of his friend's mysterious death in a Brazilian rainforest, he decides that with the parrot's help he will use these books to teach Max and his brother and sister the mysteries of Euclid's Elements, Pythagoras's Theorem and the countless other mathematical wonders. But soon it becomes clear that Mr. Ruche has inherited the library for reasons other than enlightenment, and before he knows it the household is racing to prevent the parrot and vital, new theorems from falling into the wrong hands.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780312303020
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	10/04/2002
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	360
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.79(d)

About the Author

Denis Guedj is Professor of the History of Science at Paris VIII University. He has spent many years devising courses and games to teach adults and children math. He is the author of Numbers: The Universal Language.

Reading Group Guide

Mr. Ruche, a Parisian bookseller, receives a bequest from a long lost friend in the Amazon of a vast library of math books, which propels him into a great exploration of the story of mathematics. Meanwhile Max, whose family lives with Mr. Ruche, takes in a voluble parrot who will discuss math with anyone. When Mr. Ruche learns of his friend's mysterious death in a Brazilian rainforest, he decides that with the parrot's help he will use these books to teach Max and his brother and sister the mysteries of Euclid's Elements, Pythagoras's Theorem and the countless other mathematical wonders. But soon it becomes clear that Mr. Ruche has inherited the library for reasons other than enlightenment, and before he knows it the household is racing to prevent the parrot and vital, new theorems from falling into the wrong hands.
An immediate bestseller when first published in France, The Parrot's Theorem charmingly combines a straightforward history of mathematics and a first-rate murder mystery.

1. What do you think of The Parrot's Theorem in relation to the work of Jorges Luis Borges and Umberto Eco? Is the emphasis on math rather than "the word" a fundamental difference between the works, or not?
2. What do you think of The Parrot's Theorem in relation to Flatland or Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, which also use fictional tales, in whole or in part, to illustrate mathematical ideas? Did The Parrot's Theorem help you to understand math any better? Did it make you more interested in math?
3. How does The Parrot's Theorem compare to Sophie's World, which teaches philosophy through a novel? Is one more effective than the other, and why?
4. Mr. Ruche remained in Paris, Grosrouvre went to Brazil, Don Ottavio loves his native Syracuse, and the parrot, according to Aristotle, hails from India (p141). Mr. Ruche divides the Rainforest Library by region as well as time. What role does geography play in The Parrot's Theorem?
5. What do you think about Perette's revelation to her children early in the book about their origins? What significance does it have to the rest of the story?
6. Where you surprised by the confluence of math, religion, poetry, politics, and philosophy by historical characters in The Parrot's Theorem?
7. What historical characters in The Parrot's Theorem did you find most interesting/admirable/villainous?
8. Opposites and contrasts run throughout The Parrot's Theorem: Being and Nothingness, the secretive Pythagoreans v. the open Library of Alexandria; the free city of Athens v. the hierarchical governments everywhere else; Jon-and-Lea, the "identical-but-not-identical twins" (p13). What other contrasts can you think of? What significance do all these contrasts have? How do mathematical proofs fit in amongst all these contrasts? What do you make of the following passage from The Parrot's Theorem (p167): "This was the most important function of mathematics, he [Mr. Ruche] decided, to state precisely in which cases, under what conditions and subject to which hypotheses a statement is true. Grosrouvre's index card had reminded Mr. Ruche how valuable mathematics could be as a reminder of the dangers of absolutism."
9. Do you think Don Ottavio is right about Grosrouvre's motivations for keeping his theorems secret? Why or why not?
10. Do you think Grosrouvre was murdered, committed suicide, or died by accident?
11. Do you think Grosrouvre succeeding in his proofs, or did he make a mistake?
12. What did you think of the epilogue, in which Sidney/Mamaguena explained Grosrouvre's proofs to the conference of birds?
13. What do you think of Mr. Ruche's growing bond with Perrette's family, especially with Max? What do you think about Don Ottavio's offer to provide Max with an inheritance?

Editorial Reviews

A bestseller in France (where the author teaches history of science), Guedj's first fiction is a charmer indeed-a history of mathematics offered up pretty as you please via a handful of likable characters, a mystery-and a talking parrot. At 84 and wheelchair-bound, though nimble in every other way, the kindly Mr. Ruche owns a bookshop in Montmartre, where he lives celibately with Perrette, 44 years his junior, and her three children, the twins Jonathan and Lea and adoptive 12-year-old Max, who is deaf. This is the little family that pulls together with bonds of friendship and love when two things happen: Max saves a parrot from two thugs at a flea market, and Mr. Ruche receives the best private collection of math books in the world, sent from South America by his old college friend Elgar Grosrouvre. Grosrouvre is also 84 but, unlike Mr. Ruche, is facing a catastrophe. For years, he's devoted himself to math, and now he's proved not only Fermat's Last Theorem but also Goldbach's conjecture. Equally astonishing, he hasn't published: instead, he's confided his breakthrough work only to "a loyal friend," partly to keep the theorems from an unnamed enemy-who, next thing Mr. Ruche hears, has apparently burned down Grosrouvre's house and the old man with it. How to find out who it was? What to do? Oblique clues in Grosrouvre's books and letters suggest a trail of meaning, but to make sense of them would mean studying mathematics from Pythagoras on through Fermat-which is just what the little family does, offering readers, howsoever math-impaired they be, a great introductory ride all the way from Thales measuring the Pyramids through the discovery of zero and Archimedes repelling theRomans at Syracuse. Will the mystery be solved? Well, you won't find out about it here. A wonderful little book, cartoonlike, yes, but tender and impassioned-and with a tour of math just as useful for YAs as for Methuselah.

Kirkus Reviews