Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions

Flatland is a story about a two-dimensional land populated by triangles, squares, pentagons, and such, all of whom see each other as shaded lines (because they live in the flat plane). It investigates what happens when a three-dimensional shape (a sphere) enters this land and tries to convince a two-dimensional being that there is more.

First published in 1884, Flatland brings an imaginative story to what is essentially a mathematical concept. Or maybe it’s the other way around: it brings mathematical concepts to an imaginative story. 😉 Despite its short length (58 pages), it takes a few hours to read due to its dense prose (over 34,000 words is unusually high for the page count) and abstract subject.

I started reading this based on a recommendation and initially had a hard time getting into it. The first part of the book mostly describes the Flatland world and the relationships between its archetypal classes in a pretty archaic writing style - likely due to the book’s age. The second half of the book has more plot, which made it more enjoyable. Not an easy read, but interesting nonetheless. Three and a half stars, rounded up.