Those of us who follow and admire the work of Rebecca Goldstein recognize this 1980's novel as a kind of apologia pro vita sua with its blend of yiddishkeit and profound philosophical insight interwoven with some raunchy events and instincts. In other words, the full and tentatively creative life of the novel's protagonist, Renee Feuer, student, lover and scholarly drifter, mirroring steps in the life and development of Rebecca Goldstein, to my mind one of the great thinkers and personalities of our time.
The plot centers on the not-so-happy marriage of Renee, a doctoral candidate in philosophy at Princeton, to Noam Himmel, a world-recognized "genius" in mathematics who teaches there. Renee has manipulated the marriage to give herself status in the face of her acute self-doubt about her own academic prowess. The "mind-body" problem (does the mind exist independently of the body), Renee's chosen area of study and research, underlays the relationship and the novel itself. The "problem" is in large part the continuing dispute over Spinoza's psycho-physical parallelism as to which that giant of philosophy anticipated today's neuroscience by reducing feelings and emotions to their physical source in the human anatomy. For Noam, the mathematician, the dispute is irrelevant since numbers and equations derive their validity independently of human intervention and the marriage founders on Noam's lack of feeling for the "body" and very soon, Renee.
The philosophic and amatory discussions in the novel are stimulated by a somewhat more focused friend of Renee's, Ava, a marvelous invention who "understands everything" and a heavy, almost destructive extra-marital affair with another mathematician, Daniel Korper. Renee's mother, a Yiddish "worrier" and Renee's Orthodox sister-in-law, Tzippy, lend a Jewish counterpoint to Renee's mind-body preoccupation - as with Goldstein herself, her Jewish heritage insinuates itself into her work and the novel's play whether she likes it or not.
Spinozist that I am, I don't see what all of the philosophical fuss is about (the blessed one proved his case beyond a doubt, validated by Darwin, Freud and the human genome), but the book itself is a good academic yarn and the sex isn't bad. The resolution of the relationship between Renee and Noam is - well, read the book!
Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
Book recommendations, author interviews, editors' picks, and more. Read it now.
Frequently bought together
This item: The Mind-Body Problem (Contemporary American Fiction)
$17.84
Get it as soon as Thursday, Jul 3
In Stock
+
$16.00
Get it as soon as Thursday, Jul 3
In Stock
+
$12.98
Get it as soon as Thursday, Jul 3
In Stock
Total price: $00
To see our price, add these items to your cart.
Choose items to buy together.
Customers who viewed this item also viewed
Page 1 of 1 Start over
About the author
Top reviews from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews. Please reload the page.
- Reviewed in the United States on June 25, 2016
Top reviews from other countries
- Cliff FiscalReviewed in the United Kingdom on December 2, 2021
Very good.
Format: KindleVerified Purchase - J. SweetmanReviewed in the United Kingdom on June 16, 2014
Takes Itself Far Too Seriously
