Credit: Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth
ATHENS: Mathematics theory hardly sounds like comic book material, but a pioneering Greek graphic novel on maths in early 20th century Europe has become an unlikely hit.
"Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth" tracks the battle of mathematical minds - often against madness - before the invention of the computer.
The narrator and hero of the book - in the Top 10 of both Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk this month - is none other than British philosopher, logician and pacifist Bertrand Russell (1872 - 1970).
Tortuous quest
Running at more than 300 pages, it chronicles Russell's tortuous quest for the foundations of mathematics, and his search for logic as a shield from the insanity that consumed other members of his family.
The story takes in his relations with thinkers and mathematical giants of the era, two of his four marriages, and his hidden feelings for the young wife of fellow mathematician Alfred North Whitehead.
The microcosm of great minds is played against the backdrop of broader events in Europe, as the rise of Nazism directly threatens some of the protagonists.
"We wanted a narrator and Russell was ideal," said writer Apostolos Doxiadis, who co-authored the story with computer science professor Christos Papadimitriou at the University of California, Berkeley.
"Not a mega-nerd"
"By the very nature of his career and the timeline of his life, he saw more and participated in more of the story than anyone else... and secondly, he was the only one of these characters who was not a mega-nerd," said Doxiadis. "He was a political activist, a womaniser, traveller, adventurer, great talker, a wit and a dandy."
Born into a liberal aristocratic English family and the grandson of a former British prime minister, Russell is considered one of the 20th century's most important philosophers. He was also an early advocate of sexual freedom. He was jailed for pacifism during World War I and later campaigned against nuclear proliferation and the Vietnam War.
Crafting the unlikely novel about him took seven years, from discussions between the creators to five years of feverish scripting, drawing, inking and colouring. "It was a super-marathon," Doxiadis said.
