Gaurav Suri and Hartosh Singh Bal. A Certain Ambiguity: A Mathematical Novel. (New Delhi: Penguin, 2007)

Quite out of the blue, a colleague of mine gifted me a book toward the end of the 2018-2019 academic year. It was an unexpected gift, but quite timely since I did not have any holiday reading planned. I guess my colleague chose the book because I am a Mathematics teacher. I wonder, though, how many people would be attracted to a book that purports to be ‘a Mathematical novel’!

I was, however, quite eager to get started with the book. The protagonist of the novel is one Ravi Kapoor, who is a student at Stanford. His father, Vijay Sahni, had been a Mathematician and had instilled in Ravi a love for Mathematics. When Ravi reaches Stanford, he enrolls in a Mathematics course called Thinking About Infinity taught by Professor Nico Aliprantis. During discussions related to the course, Ravi mentions his grandfather, whose name Nico recognizes. When Nico pulls out a paper written by Vijay, Ravi reads a note that indicates that Vijay had been in prison in New Jersey in the early twentieth century. That sets Ravi on a course to discovering why his grandfather had been imprisoned. His digging reveals that Vijay had been charged under an obscure blasphemy law in New Jersey.

The novel is like a braid, with three strands running through it. One strand, of course, is that related to the discussion in the course taught by Nico. The second consists of fictionalized memoirs of various Mathematicians ranging from Euclid to Gauss. The third consists of conversations between the grandfather, Vijay, and Judge John Taylor, appointed to decide whether Vijay should go on trial or be set free. Since Vijay was charged with blasphemy, these conversations also touch on religious themes.  The three strands are woven intricately and play off each other extremely well.

As the title suggests, the book narrates how Vijay and Ravi searched for certainty within Mathematics. I’ll just leave it at that without revealing the outcome of their search. That is for you to discover for I wholeheartedly recommend the book to anyone who either loves Mathematics or enjoys a well crafted tale.