The solitude of prime numbers

I just finished Paolo Giordano's The Solitude Of Prime Numbers. It's a saddening story about damaged people, but quite beautiful, because their misery is conveyed in such a precise and empathic way.

One passage i don't understand. Could someone help me out?

In chapter 26 Mattia asks his friend Denis for advice: should he leave to go study abroad, or should he stay to be with Alice? Denis implicitly advices him to stay, doesn't he? And Mattia agrees. But next chapter, he tells Alice he will leave anyway.

Why?

I've never read the book, but sometimes people change their minds?

In my copy (translated into French), Alice convinces him to leave. She tells him to go. It's obvious to us that she doesn't mean it, and that she's simply testing him, being her usual sulky, contrary self, but Mattia being Mattia, he takes her at her word. Or that's how I interpreted the chapter anyway...

Yeah she definitely asks him to stay. " I'd imagined the next four years differently. I'm twenty-three and my mother's about to die...but none of that matters to you. Go ahead and worry about your career."

Hmmm...the solitude of prime numbers....doesn't that thought strike you as odd? :-)

>5 alco261: Not even, for a minute.

All right >6 jnwelch:! I wish there was a thumbs up button for these things - I would certainly give one to your post.

>7 alco261: Ditto for yours. :-)

The smallest even prime number...

Robert

Play Should I Stay or Should I Go by The Clash backwards; an answer will emerge.

>9 Mr.Durick: it's true, two is prime....but two is company and the idea that company would be thought of as solitude is odd.... :-)

One is the loneliest number that you'll ever do. And two can be as bad as one. It's the loneliest number since the number one.

I have a feeling it's going to be a three dog night.

It's just the two of us…