A Doubter's Almanac

"Genius is a true degenerative psychosis." These words, a quote by Cesare Lombroso and spoken by a character in "A Doubters' Almanac" sums up this book quite efficiently. In this character study by Ethan Canin, we see how the pressures of genius can turn ambition upon itself in self-destructive fury.

As the story begins, we meet young Milo Andret, a bright young man being raised by indifferent parents. Milo skips grades, is socially indifferent, and spends his free time by himself in the woods. As Milo begins high school, he realizes his potential as a mathematician (heretofore unrecognized by himself or his parents). Milo heads to college at no less an institution than UC Berkeley, where he is brought under the tutelage of brilliant show more mathematician Dr. Borland. Borland is determined to rope Milo into his preferred field of topology. Pressure mounts as Milo's genius is taken as a given, and we hear the repeated refrain that mathematicians either make their mark early or they fizzle out. Milo decides to focus his intellect on the Malosz Problem, which has baffled the greatest minds in mathematics.

And it is here that we begin to see the self-destructiveness of Milo's vast intelligence. He becomes obsessed with solving the Malosz Problem, and it becomes the pivotal point of his college career. Milo's obsession with solving the unsolvable continues to haunt his choices later, when he has achieved a professorship at Princeton University. Throughout the book, we see how the pressures of genius coupled with substance abuse combine to form a toxicity that will damage Milo and his family for decades to come.

This book is certainly not my normal fare. I tend to read things of a more escapist bent. I received this book as part of Powell's Indiespensable (Vol.58), and this is one of the reasons I value the program so highly: it introduces me to books outside of my comfort zone. This book was well-written, the characters very vivid, and the plot skips backwards, forwards, and sideways in time. And while it's certainly a far cry from my usual historical-sci-fi-mystery choices, I found myself enjoying it quite a bit. I will say I had to stop midway through and take a break to read a historical-sci-fi-mystery fun book (A Perilous Undertaking if you must know) to keep my spirits up.

The slog through the destruction of a family becomes disheartening at points, but with some well-earned escapism out of the way I can say that I'm quite glad to have read this book.Even the high math references going (way, way, way) over my head didn't detract from the plot

If you're generally a fan of soul-searching family and personal drama, or a math nut (which I am not) then you'll most likely enjoy this book. Ethan Canin is a fine craftsman with words and his story is quite compelling. I definitely recommend this as a heavy read.

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I’d read anything Ethan Canin writes. In fact, I have read everything I can get my hands on.

What I think distinguishes him is his empathy with his characters. He writes from deep inside his characters, spanning a remarkable diversity, from older women to young men, to, in this case, an obsessive, self-destructive mathematical genius.

The intensity makes the story almost painful to read at times. Milo Andret is a genius at topologies. As a withdrawn child, he carves a topological masterpiece, a wooden chain with no seams or joins, from a wood stump in the forest near his house. The chain follows him through his life, as he stars in grad school at Berkeley, solves one of the long standing conjectures of mathematics, accepts a position at show more Princeton, wins the Nobel-equivalent for mathematics, and takes on his next challenge in what amounts to competitive mathematics at the highest level.

At the same time, though, he sputters through relationships, burdened by an emotional obtuseness that Canin portrays subtly and devastatingly. Relationships include a kind of mathematical muse at Berkeley, a frustratingly laid-back competitor both in mathematics and romance, colleagues he occasionally disrespects in furious tones, and ultimately a family of his own that tries to deal with their inheritance of his extreme flaws and virtues.

Milo is always on a path to self-destruction, physically, emotionally, and socially. The only question is collateral damage. Milo can’t stop thinking. His mind is not his own, ironically flipping Descartes’ cogito ergo sum on its head — Milo thinks unceasingly, obsessively and carries himself constantly away from himself and from other people. His genius is a cancer — “God’s revenge”, his doctor says.

His escapes are drinking, rage, and sexual affairs. Not really a great recipe.

The story is told in events, but, in keeping with Canin’s strength, it is more a portrait than a play-by-play. That’s where things get a little painful. Milo is doomed.

The last one hundred pages of the book are almost an epilogue, a postmortem on a man who hasn’t even died yet. You know it’s coming. It’s just a matter of how bad it’s going to be, how his wife, son, and daughter will learn and adapt to their own share of his affliction, and whether or not there will be any sign of Milo winning out over his demons.

This is not light. In its own odd way, it is affirming, because of the few rays of daylight that poke through Milo’s life. Canin put a lot of research into the story — the sociology of heavyweight mathematics, and the psychology of obsessive genius. Sure worked for me. show less

A DOUBTER'S ALMANAC may well be Ethan Canin's magnum opus. It's certainly a 'big' book, at nearly 600 pages. The truth is, I am simply in awe of this guy's writing. I've read five of his seven books now, and they are all simply terrific. But this may be his best yet.

It's a book about family, but mostly about fathers and sons. Milo Andret, a mathematics savant - a genius, perhaps - grew up an only child in the woods of northern Michigan. His parents pretty much left him to his own devices and he had few friend, so his childhood was solitary. He lived inside his own head. His mathematical skills got him to grad school in Berkley where he was championed by another recognized genius. He won the prestigious Fields medal and got an endowed show more chair at Princeton. But then alcoholism, his own strangeness, and lack of social skills cause it all to fall apart. After a stint at a backwater Ohio college, he ends up back in the Michigan woods. But the book is not just about Milo. It's equally about his family, and particularly his son, Hans (who narrates the story), who inherits his father's mathematical skills, but is plagued by his own addictions and phantoms.

When I picked this book up, I hefted it and thought, this is gonna take me a week or two. Nope. I finished it in just three days. Because the characters in here are so real, so multi-dimensional, that I could not wait to see what they would do next. And yes, it's about fathers and sons. There was a particular line that stopped me cold. It was Hans remembering his father years later, and remarking on how incurious he was as a boy about his father.

"That kind of curiosity - a curiosity about the man beyond the effects he had on my life - wouldn't arrive for years."

I had to pause after reading this line, thinking of all the things I wish I had asked my own father about his life, things I wish I knew now, but never will. My father has been dead for more than twenty-five years now. Fortunately, Hans does get another chance to know his father better, and those scenes, near the end of the book, are some of the most emotionally charged of the whole story. In one of them, Milo admits, quite unapologetically, "For that matter, I wouldn't have said that you kids were a big part of my life ... That's just how it was in those days. I was working. That's what we did."

Indeed, what I remember most about my father was how he was always worrying about how he could improve his business, make more money, better support his growing family. (I was one of six children.) He never had much time to spend with us kids. He "was working." That's what he did.

I know these are just a couple lines out of a book nearly six hundred pages long, but they hit home. And there were plenty more passages like that all through the story that kept me turning those pages, identifying with and caring for these characters. Of course I was never a math genius, nor was anyone in my family, but that didn't matter. There is one climactic scene, a family crisis, in the chapter, "Thomson's Lamp," that caused me to gasp at its explosive and unexpected violence, as Hans and his sister both struggle to protect their mother from their father's sudden fury.

And in yet another scene, unexpectedly tender, a drugged and dying Milo, in his suffering, breathes out this line, which Hans's wife recognizes is from a poem - "They do not ... tax their lives ... with forethought of grief."

I found this to be a line from Wendell Berry's poem "The Peace of Wild Things." And it fits, because there is something wild about Milo Andret, this tortured and driven man who grew up nearly alone, in the woods behind his childhood home, and is trying to find his way back there. Here is the Berry poem in its entirety.

"When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free."

Later, Hans says of his father, "I hope he went back to the woods. Back to the great leafy woods of his childhood, where he'd first known solace."

A DOUBTER'S ALMANAC is a tome to read and re-read, to treasure. Yes, it's a 'big' book, but I was sad to see it end. It is a wise and wonderful book about genius, family and the frailty of human life. It will make you think, and it may make you weep. I loved it. My very highest recommendation.

- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER show less

The Doubter's Almanac is the story of Milo Andret, a mathematical genius. He seems to be able to visualize complex spaces. A loner as a boy wandering in the Michigan woods he carves a chain with no seams from a single piece of wood. Is it a forgone conclusion he would specialize in topology?

Although mathematics is the backdrop for the story and the chapter headings are obscure (and sometimes in Latin) the book is not about mathematics. It's about the problem of genius, it's effect on you and your family. We who are not genius are, perhaps, lucky.

Milo's mentor tells him, "Topology is God's language ... you've been called to translate it." It's odd to say this about a character such as Milo, but he is almost spiritual (or is it mania?) show more in his mathematical quest:

"God is subtle but not malicious . . . success in mathematics is in good part a question of wanting badly enough to look ... To look inside the mind. .. For that is where God has thrown the universe - sometimes inverted and upside down...like a pinhole camera. Seeing it all is secondary to the love of looking and the faith that it is not unknowable."

Later in the book, Milo's Jesuit doctor posits that Milo's problems are God's revenge against spies such as he.

A very different and compelling book! show less

This book had so much promise... and I really enjoyed the first part of it, the part told from Milo's point of view. It was the tale of genius, with the mathematics, the period, the settings, and characters all engaging.

The second half quickly disappointed me. The son's character didn't seem plausible to me; he was like a character from a different novel. He so easily become an over-the-top success, kicked a serious addiction, and was able to forgive his father. And the long, long demise of Milo dragged on and on and on... the rallying of his family and friends on his behalf, given Milo's past behavior, did not ring true to me.

The author does write very well, and the way he wove mathematics into the story was exceptionally well done. show more The first half of the novel was both entertaining and thought-provoking. The second half, though, was frankly hard for me to finish reading. show less

This is a quiet, masterful novel about a brilliant man who peaks too soon. Milo Andret is a topologist who proves a long-unproven conjecture, and wins the coveted Fields Medal in mathematics. He gets a job in Princeton, marries and has two children, but his alcoholism and his general disregard for the needs and feelings of others constantly gets in his way. His son Hans is also a gifted mathematician, but uses his skills to make big money on Wall Street, and falls prey to addiction just as his father did. This all sounds grim; it isn't, really.

I love Canin's writing style. His prose is spare, yet the work is still very emotional. The characterization of the male characters is superb; the women are a little sketchier, but better sketchy show more than false, I suppose. The plot has its share of interesting twists which I've avoided in my review, but the real story is about the nature of genius, the spirit of discovery, and how people know or don't know each other. show less

“Mathematicians tend to bloom early and die early.” — Charles Krauthammer, “Things That Matter”

Milo Andret, the mathematical genius in Ethan Canin's novel “A Doubter's Almanac” (2016), lives too long, at least as far as he is concerned. Not only did his genius burn out years before, but he is haunted by the fear that his greatest work, for which he was awarded math's most coveted prize, may contain an error. Now he lacks the ability to find out for sure, and the doubt gradually destroys him.

The lengthy novel covers virtually Milo's entire life, his rise, his fall and his family. His two children (especially his son) and his two grandchildren (especially his granddaughter) are also math wizards, a fact that petrifies their show more mothers. For genius does not make for an easy life.

Milo's life is certainly not easy, although that is mostly his own fault. He succumbs early to the lure of strong drink and other men's wives. His genius makes him proud, so arrogant that his colleagues despise him. Before long he is booted off the Princeton faculty and is lucky to find a job teaching math at an obscure Ohio college.

The second half of the novel is narrated by Milo's son, Hans, who uses his own genius to make millions on Wall Street, despite a serious drug addiction. Later, as his father's health declines, Hans goes to the Michigan cabin where Milo, like a hermit, has spent his last years. While nursing his father, he learns to love him.

If the book's first half is difficult to read, the reader like Milo's colleagues finding him too obnoxious to bear, the second half (for those who stick with it that long) makes the early anguish worthwhile, for Canin gives us some beautiful and inspiring prose. show less