The Indian Clerk [Paperback]

A fictionalized account centered on the relationship of the great British mathematician G.H. Hardy and his even greater "discovered" protégé, Srinivasa Ramanujan, offers rich possibilities. The story presents ample opportunity for exploration and comparison of Hardy's academically cultivated genius versus Ramanujan's more raw and naturalistic or (divinely?) inspired form, the power relationship between mentor and mentee, the color divide between English and Indian, the hangover of imperialism in the England/India relationship, the role of race prejudice in science and mathematics, cultural differences, early feminism, and sexual orientation.

To his credit, author David Leavitt does indeed tackle many of these issues in THE INDIAN CLERK. Following more or less chronologically the historical record of the Hardy-Ramanujan collaborations at Cambridge, Leavitt retells the story largely through Hardy's blindered eyes. Leavitt opens with the Englishman's first receipt of Ramanujan's unsolicited mathematical writings and closes more or less with the Indian mathematician's return to Madras not long before his premature death. In between, there are mathematical collaborations, cultural adaptations, battles with illness, honors and awards given or refused, and a profound sense of emotional isolation for both men. However, because we see these events from Hardy's emotionally stunted perspective, we never really get to know Mr. Ramanujan. We learn a great deal about Hardy's life - his social backwardness, his cold family relationships, his pacifist stance in World War I, and especially his so-called "non-practicing" homosexuality (as his English collaborator Littlefield actually described it) - but what we learn about the more intriguing Ramanujan comes as much from what is not said and done as from what is.

An unfortunate consequence of Leavitt's authorial choices is that G. H. Hardy comes across about as warmly as Arnold Schwarzenegger's humanized robot in the "Terminator" movies. One can almost imagine Hardy responding to one of his colleagues about Ramanujan's welfare by saying, in monotone, "Talk to the hand." Similarly, Hardy's homosexual encounters with the deceased but aptly named Russell Gaye and the injured soldier Thayer have all the emotional power of a mathematics textbook. Worse for this story, Ramanujan himself appears as a sort of savant of the mathematically trivial. Despite multiple references to the still unproven Riemann hypothesis and a theory of partitions, many of the examples of Ramanujan's work refer to highly composite numbers and his arcane, often spectacularly peculiar mathematical identities, infinite series, and continued fractions. Leavitt's inclusion in the book of some of these formulas serves makes Ramanujan's body of work seem irrelevant to the less informed reader, a handful of silly formulas. The classic "death bed" story of Ramanujan's human calculator response to the number 1729 only adds to the incorrect sense that the great Indian mathematician was hardly more than an arithmatician of uncommon intuition and skill. It does not help Leavitt's cause that twice in the book, on pages 21 and 169, the beginnings of the prime numbers are listed as "2, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 17, 19..." when 9 is demonstrably not a prime.

One of the charms of Leavitt's story is the almost casual passing through of such great lights of early 20th Century thought as Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, G.E. Moore, John Maynard Keynes, and D.H. Lawrence. Each leaves his imprint as seen through Hardy's eyes, yet at the same time the very power of their presence recasts Hardy as a minor figure in his own story. The smaller these great men make Hardy look, the more petty and inconsiderate he looks as well. This is particularly true of his incessant efforts to extract from Ramanujan even the slightest vestige of mathematical material, irrespective of the latter's health. Leavitt further indicts his narrator in Ramanujan's death by suggesting that Hardy self-centeredness and indifference to the Indian's emotional and social needs contributed to his health decline.

THE ENGLISH CLERK is a moderately engaging tale of an intelligent man and an undeniable genius, the former in a privileged position of power, the latter subservient and beholden. Their relationship replicates the Great Britain - India relationship and foreshadows the events to come with Gandhi in the 1940s. On balance, however, the two main figures lack the necessary warmth for readers to empathize with their respective plights, and Ramanujan remains frustratingly more of an unknown than should have been the case.

When the Indian mathematician Ramanujan lay seriously ill he was visited by the English mathematician G.H. Hardy who remarked that the taxi he rode over in was number 1729, "a rather dull number." Not so, responded Ramanujan, it's the smallest number expressible as the sum of two cubes in two different ways.

This is a fictional biography of those two men, who stood out as great mathematicians of the early 20th century. Hardy felt that Ramanujan was perhaps one of the greatest mathematicians of all time. Sad, then, that Ramanujan died at the age of 33. The reader profits in two ways from this book as it is an elegantly literate novel, and it provides a great deal of accurate information about these two men's lives (Leavitt provides a 6 page bibliography at the end of the book).

It's a book by David Leavitt, and thus you will find his usual references to the gay life. Well actually it sometimes seems as if most of the characters are gay. That shouldn't bother the average straight reader, though, as you quickly become absorbed in the life of these two men. Famous personages of the time such as Bertrand Russell, and Lytton Strachey wander in and out of the story. Ludwig Wittgenstein also plays a cameo role. World War I makes a somber appearance, and has its effect on the principals.

Ramanujan, a self taught mathematician, is brought from India to Cambridge by Hardy who fills the role of Ramanujan's tutor. Mr. Leavitt does an excellent job of showing how the Indian struggles to adapt to the English way of life. There is a lot of humor in this as kindly hosts try to make edible vegetarian meals for him. English food is often bad enough as it is (I lived there for a few years), and the veggie meals were disasters.

There's not much real math in the book which will come as a relief to the mathematically challenged (and perhaps a bit of a disappointment to the mathematically inclined). Some reviewers have indicated that the characters weren't well developed, but I feel the exact opposite. Yes, G.H. Hardy comes across as a bit of a cold fish, but to my knowledge that's the way he was. In summary, I feel that The Indian Clerk is superbly written, the prose is elegant, and the story holds your attention throughout. By the way, Ramanujan is pronounced ra' mah' noo jan, the accent on the first two syllables.

The story has been told before. Not long before the first World War, G. H. Hardy, the well-known English mathematician, receives a letter from an unknown Indian clerk asking Hardy to review and comment on certain mathematical results. Hardy consults with J. E.Littlewood, another eminent mathematician, and together they decide the Indian might be a self-taught mathematical genius. After trial and tribulation they manage to get the Indian to Cambridge. Hardy and the Indian genius collaborate on some outstanding mathematical papers. The genius, far from home and comfort and family, gets sick, and returns to India to die. As for Hardy--Hardy has the satisfaction of knowing that he worked on nearly equal terms with the great Ramanujan.

A subtext of the story is that mathematical genius, like musical genius, is hard-wired in from a very early age. The corollary is that unless the genius is smothered or suppressed, it somehow gushes forth, like water.

In some sense "The Indian Clerk" is a historical novel, but then in some sense "Troilus and Cressida" is a tale about the Trojan War. David Leavitt, in telling a rousing good story, is poking and prodding and trying to figure something out. What exactly? Maybe he is drawing a parallel between mathematicians and homosexuals, both so formed before conscious choice kicks in. That's an element, but it doesn't go far to explain the book. Time and again, particularly in talking about the relationship of John Littlewood and Anne Chase, Leavitt plays with the tension between the human need to be connected and the human need to be unconstrained. But that's not what the book is "about." Maybe Leavitt is puzzling about the divisions in this world, on the one side the "large bottomed," on the other side the lean types who "think too much." Leavitt is intrigued by the issue, but he's also interested in a lot else. He certainly is interested in the math itself. From time to time he sticks some into the book, and then talks around it: which is a good thing: Hardy and Littlewood and Ramanujan are really doing math. The book is thick with incident and character and texture. Bertrand Russell shows up in the novel, and Ludwig Wittgenstein, and the Apostles, and the background noise of The Great War. Leavitt has carefully researched the historical record, and this gives him leave to use it for purposes of his own, although what his purposes are cannot be easily delineated. Probably that is just as well.

A mathematician friend, who doesn't much like the novel, challenges me to state why I like it so much. Not so easy. I like it because it's exciting. Because the novel's cheerful acceptance of Hardy and Littlewood and Ramanujan enlarges the area of acceptable behavior. Because the novel teaches me things. The book has an author's voice that is personal and authentic and that knows a lot that is worth knowing. "This is the way I see the world," Leavitt says, and if I don't always agree, it is a pleasure hearing his voice.

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