Name: La solitudine dei numeri primi
Rating: 3.595588235294118 (68 reviews)
ISBN: 9788852014062

Paolo Giordano

La storia dolorosa e commovente di Alice e di Mattia, e dei personaggi che li affiancano nel loro percorso. Una scrittura di sorprendente fermezza e maturità, una materia che brucia per le sue implicazioni emotive.

La solitudine dei numeri primi

cedar winslow

Misfits Alice and Mattia bond as teens over shared experiences of suffering before mathematically gifted Mattia accepts a research position that takes him far away, a situation that restores their isolation before they meet by chance years later.

The Solitude of Prime Numbers

Edwin Lang

Like Graeme Simsion’s The Rosie Project this is also a very simple story of a man and of a woman, who are each wired differently, and not necessarily because of some underlying disease like autism – specifically Asperger’s – but because of some trauma endured in their childhoods. Unlike Simsion who created a fine and interesting main character, Giordano focused exclusively on who they were not, the humanity that was absent from each character’s life. In a way they seemed irredeemably monstrous. This did not come across during the read – except in a specific chapter here, when for example Alice was cruel to a former childhood acquaintance, Viola, who had been especially cruel to her – which from beginning to end was enjoyable and even riveting. But by the end I felt left with feeling Good Grief! I know too well that most of us are broken in some way, and we muster along for the most part quite well, but that some broken people are more like Humpty Dumpty, and whether it’s because of a breakdown, or some terrible assault or some wire that has become loose, these individuals in our midst become simply unreachable. It’s not so much helping, except perhaps through a kind word or gesture, but of simply being unable to get through, to help in some fundamentally good way. And unlike the wide open spaces described in The Virginian, there is no place for people to wander, no way they can touch the earth or let the earth touch them, to be made if not whole then maybe human again. Perhaps that’s the tragedy of our increasingly mega-sized cities, that while it’s romantic to think we can become lost in such a crowded milieu, all that happens is that we can become alienated, and unloved. Nonetheless I found the book interesting and rewarding, again, in spite of the seriousness of the topic and the constant threat of disaster. In this Giordano did a good job at creating characters that seemed so real. My only remaining thought was whether Paolo Giordano, say a quarter century from now, after he is fully grown up and perhaps (as The Virginian might say) less a Romeo and more of a real man like Mercutio, would he write of these characters, Mattia and Alice, in the same way? While perhaps more cynical, would he not also be kinder, perhaps more insightful and more ingenious in how life treated each of them and each other and they treating those around them. Edwin

a novel

The solitude of prime numbers

un libro que no se olvida fácilmente. me persigue desde hace años 

rebi🦇

Izza

First book read for Aayla and my "book club"!
Review coming soon

The Solitude of Prime Numbers by Paolo Giordano is a beautifully written novel about two broken souls trying to make it into this unforgiving world. The writing style is quite unique; the author isn’t afraid of words and he doesn’t try to spare our feelings. As this his is first novel, it sets the bar pretty high for his other work, and I’m not surprise this book won the Premio Strega which is Italy’s most prestigious literary award.

For me, the first few pages set the tone, and my mood synched itself with it, just like that, without me being able to do anything about. For 24 hours, I felt sad and heavy. When I wasn’t reading it, I caught myself staring into nothing and sighing. There was this heavy sadness in my stomach, and I wanted to cry, to just let it all out, as if Alice (or Mattia?) had possessed me. That is why Paolo Giordano is one of my favourite authors.

Full review over @ the hungry bookster

Gulshan Hasanzada

Bu dəfə çox maraqlı insanla tanış oldum: maraqlı tərəfi odur ki müəllif Paolo Giordano heç də ədəbiyyatçı deyil, peşə olaraq nəzəriyyəçi-fizikdir. Yaşı da çox deyil, əsərin adı da lap peşəsinə yaraşanıdır)
Gələk kitabın özünə. Kitabın arxa tərəfindəki məlumatla ev kitabxanımızdan seçib aldım ki, o qədər must read siyahısını geridə qoyub buna başlayım. 
Hekayənin qısa məğzini verməyə gərək duymuram, məktəb vaxtından tanış olan və aralarında illərin uçurumu olan münasibətdən və onların fərdi olaraq yaşadıqları natamamlıqdan söhbət gedir. Məsələ odur ki, bu iki tərəfin münasibətlərinin arasında zaman anlayışı çox sürətli keçib gedir, buna görə də oxucunun ağlında xeyli suallar meydana gəlir.
Mövzu xoş bir mövzudur, maraq oyandırır, tez bitirməyə sövq edir, lakin hekayənin nəqletmə tərzi əksikdir. Azından mən oxuduqca suallarla boğuşdum. 1-cə balı ordan qırmaqla əslində xeyli əliaçıq davrandım. Çünki mükafat almış (Premio Strega) və xeyli sevilən əsərmiş)

"Sevmədiyimiz insanın sevgisi səthdə qalır və oradan da tez bir zamanda buxarlanır"

"Seçimlər bir neçə saniyədə edilir və cəzası geri qalan müddətdə çəkilirdi"

the solitude of prime numbers caught me up from the get go. there’s something about glimpsing into other peoples humanity that feels deeply comforting, despite the intensity of their stories. understanding how others process trauma makes me feel like it’s normal to be a human, and everyone copes one way or another. for how good this book started out, it sort of lost it by the second half. it became less gripping and less relatable. but perhaps that’s because the characters moved to a stage of life i couldn’t relate to. the ending was unsatisfying but hey, isn’t that life?

Stefanie Sugia

"Because she and Mattia were united by an invisible, elastic thread, buried under a pile of meaningless things, a thread that could exist only between two people like themselves: two people who had acknowledged their own solitude within the other."

It was 1983, the day when Alice dela Rocca had to face a terrible, traumatic experience in her early life. She hated ski school, but her Father forced her to keep doing it; and that day when Alice tried to get away from skiing, she got into an accident - which probably will change her life forever. Mattia Ballossino on the other hand, experienced a different kind of traumatic experience in his early life. Since he was young, he had to put up with his twin sister, Michela - who's practically different, and unable to relate with things around her. And one night, Mattia decided to leave Michela alone in a park so he could go to a party without having to be embarrassed by his sister. He never expected that Michela would be gone that day, lost without a single track - and he's responsible for that....

Read the complete review:
http://thebookielooker.blogspot.com/2...

Melody Izard

Started out strong and intriguing and mysterious and then finished off as just an average good read. I'm sorry I missed our book group discussion because I kept feeling I was missing some undertone or hidden root or buried nuance. But I think its basically a story of "misfits" (whatever that is supposed to mean) who clump along through life. Sometimes quite well, sometimes not.

romanzo

Francesca G

The three star rating is mainly because I remember not disliking this novel when I read it, but thinking back on it I see some things may have been a tad problematic, so I can't give it a 4+ rating because of that.

Magdalene Lim

I didn't read the synopsis nor the title properly so I thought it was a non-fiction book. When I started reading it, I thought it was a collection of short stories (which I don't particularly like - short stories, that is). Turns out, it wasn't. It's a sad story, one that hits you before you see it coming and all is over. Like being run over by a truck. A quick read.

Janet Doré

I finished it. That says something these days. I'm not sure why, but one of the side effects of my (positive) personal transformation of several years ago was the birth of a seriously harsh inner book critic. She's come to visit once again...

My (her) take on the characters of this depressingly psychological novel is...ENOUGH ALREADY! Enough feeling sorry for yourselves, enough dysfunction, enough wasting your lives! Yes, they both had awful things happen to them as children...and maybe I'm being massively cold-hearted...but, with each page, I just got wearier and wearier with Alice and what's his name. By the last page, I was downright disgruntled. I guess I was primed for an actual love story with a creative mathematical twist. I didn't get it, which pissed "her" off. 

I know of others who absolutely loved this book. It's well written...it's just one of those that either works really well for you or it doesn't.

La solitudine dei numeri primi

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