Cheryl Snell's Blog, page 31
June 25, 2011
PROGRESS
A poem from the new collection, Dream House. The video was first published in Soundzine.
Salon
There's a story on classical Indian house concerts in the WaPost today. Not so different from the ones we used to give in our home, minus the donation of course. I was just grateful for the ears.
June 23, 2011
June 22, 2011
Magic Squares Explained
In my novel Rescuing Ranu, I have the main character Nela bond with Ranu over Indian mathematician Ramanajun's "magic squares".
Nela asked, in Malyalam, "Can you read?" She flipped open a page, ran her finger down the margin. The girl patted the pad as if it were a pet, then shook her head and backed away.
"Don't be afraid," Nela smiled. "The words can't hurt you. Do you know your numbers?" The girl nodded. Of course she must—it was probably up to her to haggle over prices at the market. She must have learned to add, subtract, multiply, and divide, at a young age.
A game the young Ramanajun had played with his schoolmates--his "magic squares" might appeal to the girl, so Nela pulled out a blank sheet of paper, scored it with three columns, and wrote numbers in each square. The columns added up to the same number, in all directions. The girl laughed with delight. She wanted to try it, too. Nela pushed the paper and pencil toward her.
"What is your name?" she asked.
"I am Ranu," the girl said.
Here is a description of magic squares from the Asia-Pacific Mathematics Newsletter:
Note that in a magic square, the sum of the elements in the columns; the sum of the elements in the three rows; and the sum of the three elements along the diagonal and the skew-diagonal all add to give the number. Above, the 3 x 3 magic square is filled with the first nine natural numbers 1 to 9. The interested reader can try to form 3 x 3 magic squares for any number greater than 15 and realise that this is recreational mathematics.
One can form also 4 x 4 (Date) magic squares and higher dimensional magic squares. Only Chapter 1 of his first Notebook has a title: "Magic Squares", all other chapters in his Notebooks are untitled. Chapter 1 of his first Notebook has 3 pages devoted to this topic and Chapter 1 of his second Notebook, has 8 pages, with 43 entries. While his first Notebook has 16 chapters and 134 pages, his second Notebook has 21 chapters and 252 pages. So, experts consider the second Notebook a revised, lengthened version of the first Notebook. Turning the second Notebook around, Ramanujan wrote down some more entries in an unorganised manner (unlike in his well-organised first and second Notebooks) and this is considered as his third Notebook which has 33 pages, containing about 600 theorems and proofs are being provided in an ongoing project by Bruce Berndt and George Andrews.
Again, in retrospect, we may conjecture that magic squares is perhaps his first introduction to partitions of integers. For, can we not say that he is looking at the partitions of 15 in 3 parts and the problem is equivalent to solving a set of equations, which is a consequence of:
a + b + c = d + e + f = g + h + i = a + d + g = b + e + h = g + h + i = a + e + i = c + e + g = 15?
An admirer and friend of Ramanujan took him to see his Uncle, Dewan Bahadur Ramachandra Rao, who was the Collector of Nellore, stationed at Tirukkoilur. On the first 4 occasions, they were unable to meet the Collector, and it was only on the fifth occasion that they met him. Although Ramachandra Rao was initrally highly skeptical about the prowess of Ramanujan, when he saw the mathematical entries in Ramanujan's 2 thick Notebooks, he could neither make head or tail of the gamut of notes/entries he saw in them. Note that Ramachandra Rao considered himself very knowledgeable as compared to a school boy as he was a MA in mathematics.
Nela asked, in Malyalam, "Can you read?" She flipped open a page, ran her finger down the margin. The girl patted the pad as if it were a pet, then shook her head and backed away.
"Don't be afraid," Nela smiled. "The words can't hurt you. Do you know your numbers?" The girl nodded. Of course she must—it was probably up to her to haggle over prices at the market. She must have learned to add, subtract, multiply, and divide, at a young age.
A game the young Ramanajun had played with his schoolmates--his "magic squares" might appeal to the girl, so Nela pulled out a blank sheet of paper, scored it with three columns, and wrote numbers in each square. The columns added up to the same number, in all directions. The girl laughed with delight. She wanted to try it, too. Nela pushed the paper and pencil toward her.
"What is your name?" she asked.
"I am Ranu," the girl said.
Here is a description of magic squares from the Asia-Pacific Mathematics Newsletter:
Note that in a magic square, the sum of the elements in the columns; the sum of the elements in the three rows; and the sum of the three elements along the diagonal and the skew-diagonal all add to give the number. Above, the 3 x 3 magic square is filled with the first nine natural numbers 1 to 9. The interested reader can try to form 3 x 3 magic squares for any number greater than 15 and realise that this is recreational mathematics.
One can form also 4 x 4 (Date) magic squares and higher dimensional magic squares. Only Chapter 1 of his first Notebook has a title: "Magic Squares", all other chapters in his Notebooks are untitled. Chapter 1 of his first Notebook has 3 pages devoted to this topic and Chapter 1 of his second Notebook, has 8 pages, with 43 entries. While his first Notebook has 16 chapters and 134 pages, his second Notebook has 21 chapters and 252 pages. So, experts consider the second Notebook a revised, lengthened version of the first Notebook. Turning the second Notebook around, Ramanujan wrote down some more entries in an unorganised manner (unlike in his well-organised first and second Notebooks) and this is considered as his third Notebook which has 33 pages, containing about 600 theorems and proofs are being provided in an ongoing project by Bruce Berndt and George Andrews.
Again, in retrospect, we may conjecture that magic squares is perhaps his first introduction to partitions of integers. For, can we not say that he is looking at the partitions of 15 in 3 parts and the problem is equivalent to solving a set of equations, which is a consequence of:
a + b + c = d + e + f = g + h + i = a + d + g = b + e + h = g + h + i = a + e + i = c + e + g = 15?
An admirer and friend of Ramanujan took him to see his Uncle, Dewan Bahadur Ramachandra Rao, who was the Collector of Nellore, stationed at Tirukkoilur. On the first 4 occasions, they were unable to meet the Collector, and it was only on the fifth occasion that they met him. Although Ramachandra Rao was initrally highly skeptical about the prowess of Ramanujan, when he saw the mathematical entries in Ramanujan's 2 thick Notebooks, he could neither make head or tail of the gamut of notes/entries he saw in them. Note that Ramachandra Rao considered himself very knowledgeable as compared to a school boy as he was a MA in mathematics.
June 21, 2011
June 20, 2011
Author Interview
Thanks to Cathy Stucker for hosting this Q & A about my novel Rescuing Ranu. Hope you enjoy the As as much as I enjoyed the Qs!
Red Room's Book of the Day: Dream House
My new release of selected poems, Dream House, was just chosen Book of the Day at Red Room! Thank you! I am delighted,disarmed,indebted...
June 19, 2011
for Father's Day
A man knows he is growing old because he begins to look like his father.--Gabriel Garcia Marquez Old as she was, she still missed her daddy sometimes. ~Gloria NaylorSherman made the terrible discovery that men make about their fathers sooner or later... that the man before him was not an aging father but a boy, a boy much like himself, a boy who grew up and had a child of his own and, as best he could, out of a sense of duty and, perhaps love, adopted a role called Being a Father so that his child would have something mythical and infinitely important: a Protector, who would keep a lid on all the chaotic and catastrophic possibilities of life. ~Tom Wolfe, The Bonfire of the VanitiesIt kills you to see them grow up. But I guess it would kill you quicker if they didn't. ~Barbara Kingsolver, Animal DreamsFather! - to God himself we cannot give a holier name. ~William WordsworthOne father is more than a hundred Schoolemasters. ~George Herbert Blue Hour Descending The world, revealed through thumbprint glass, laid out as if embalmed. Silhouetted against bruised sky, pirouetting leaves. I watch colors turn like an indifferent cheek. The wind has never whispered anything amounting to a word. Years of days pass with no explanation. Time, heavy with amulet, slides along in the company of secrets too embedded to pry apart. In my maze of dreams, I search for misplaced detail. My rhythm breaks; my breath goes galloping off. The image of a child in mid-flight, yellow braids struck off her head like exclamation points, ambushes me. She tumbles downward. At the foot of the stairwell stands my father, ready to receive her like a last chance, like a sacrament. I wake, remembering, while she falls forever into Father's catcher-mitt palms.(-first appeared in Miller's Pond)
June 18, 2011
Rescuing Ranu
Another wonderful surprise this AM! Carla Sarett wrote this reader review about my second novel Rescuing Ranu:
An entertaining read that makes you think! It's hard to write a novel of ideas in which the ideas matter-- but Cheryl Snell has managed to do that. An Indian professor --and her lover -- in a rocky relationship of their own, try to help a little girl. There are so many twisty moral dilemmas in this story- and you'll think about them after you put the book down.
Thanks so much, Carla!
While we're on the subject of Rescuing Ranu, here is a Q & A, courtesy Cathy Stucker:
*Tell us a bit about your book.
It's a multicultural literary novel called Rescuing Ranu. It follows the headstrong mathematician Nela Sambashivan from my first novel, Shiva's Arms, into her a new crisis: what sacrifices will she make to save ten year old Ranu from a forced marriage in a backward village governed by a man who believes everything is for sale? Will she give up her marriage, her home, her university work for the sake of a child not her own? This book explores the theme of altruism the way Shiva's Arms explores the Rashomon effect on multicultural relationships.
*Tell us something about yourself. (Where are you from, what is your background, how long have you been writing or anything we might find interesting about you.)
I'm a classical pianist who came to writing late in life, at fifty, first as a poet and then a fiction writer. I'm married to a South Indian mathematical engineer whose research in collectives sparked my own in subjects that inform the structure of Rescuing Ranu -- so you could say that I'm married to my muse.
*What inspired you to write this book?
Sometimes a writer is just not finished with a character. I wanted to know what Nela, after being ousted from her family and developing a life of her own design, would do when her hard-won independence was threatened, and her idea of what she really wanted was challenged.
*How did you choose the title?
Both sound and sense come into play. The child who causes Nela's transformation is called Ranu, and the theme of altruism is highlighted in the act of rescuing her.
*How did you know you wanted to be a writer? How did you get started?
I always loved language and wrote for my own pleasure, but I also loved music. I trained as a classical pianist, performing in recital halls throughout my twenties. I turned to writing again only when I married my South Indian husband. It was a way to understand my new community. I suppose. Didn't Faulkner say, "I never know what I think about something until I've written on it." Amen to that.
* Do you have any writing rituals?
I start each session by playing Bach on the piano. There's something about his nuances of harmony that transcend the ego and ground me at the same time. Music and writing have so many elements in common-- line and dynamics and rhythm, that it's difficult to assign value. I'm immersed in all of it, and the process of mastering a piece of music is not unlike getting a piece of writing right. When at last I set whatever it is aside, the work continues underground.
* How do you come up with the names for your characters?
For fun, I might initially name a character for one of the in-laws, but I usually change it to another South Indian name.
*How is writing poetry different from writing a novel?
"In the novel or short story you get the journey. In a poem you get the arrival," May Sarton wrote.That's not to say that it's an orderly progression. When characters run amok, and suddenly have their own plans, it's hard to force them back into the author's. Mary Lee Settle advised that empathy without identity is one way to keep control of a character, but it's difficult to maintain that distance. Transformation, the way the characters change, what conclusion the narrator comes to, are born out of writing one's way into the piece again and again, trying on different plots, tone, voice. In both forms, I feel my way.
*What types of books do you like to read? Who are your favorite authors? Why?
Literary fiction and contemporary poetry, since that's what I write. My favorites are always changing, and on my nightstand right now, I've got novels by poets James Schulyer, Kenneth Patchen, Djuna Barnes, Tobias Hill, and Elizabeth Smart.
*What is the best advice you could give other writers about writing or publishing?
Write every day, read more than you write, and remember what Samuel Beckett said: Ever tried, ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.
* Who is the perfect reader for your book? (Please do not say "everyone." ;o) )
People who like literary writing, who care about language.I pull my poetry right into my prose, so my books are certainly not for everybody. I think that's as it should be. My readers needn't know details about the Indian culture to enjoy my books, or the scientific,religious, or philosophical concepts that underscore my work. I tell you everything you need to know as we go along. Trust me.
*Where can readers learn more about you and your book?
Here is the link to my Amazon Author Central page . My blogs feed right into it. One more thing --I should mention that Rescuing Ranu been on a Kindle Bestseller List in the category of mathematics>research since November. It's hanging tough at #17.
An entertaining read that makes you think! It's hard to write a novel of ideas in which the ideas matter-- but Cheryl Snell has managed to do that. An Indian professor --and her lover -- in a rocky relationship of their own, try to help a little girl. There are so many twisty moral dilemmas in this story- and you'll think about them after you put the book down.
Thanks so much, Carla!
While we're on the subject of Rescuing Ranu, here is a Q & A, courtesy Cathy Stucker:
*Tell us a bit about your book.
It's a multicultural literary novel called Rescuing Ranu. It follows the headstrong mathematician Nela Sambashivan from my first novel, Shiva's Arms, into her a new crisis: what sacrifices will she make to save ten year old Ranu from a forced marriage in a backward village governed by a man who believes everything is for sale? Will she give up her marriage, her home, her university work for the sake of a child not her own? This book explores the theme of altruism the way Shiva's Arms explores the Rashomon effect on multicultural relationships.
*Tell us something about yourself. (Where are you from, what is your background, how long have you been writing or anything we might find interesting about you.)
I'm a classical pianist who came to writing late in life, at fifty, first as a poet and then a fiction writer. I'm married to a South Indian mathematical engineer whose research in collectives sparked my own in subjects that inform the structure of Rescuing Ranu -- so you could say that I'm married to my muse.
*What inspired you to write this book?
Sometimes a writer is just not finished with a character. I wanted to know what Nela, after being ousted from her family and developing a life of her own design, would do when her hard-won independence was threatened, and her idea of what she really wanted was challenged.
*How did you choose the title?
Both sound and sense come into play. The child who causes Nela's transformation is called Ranu, and the theme of altruism is highlighted in the act of rescuing her.
*How did you know you wanted to be a writer? How did you get started?
I always loved language and wrote for my own pleasure, but I also loved music. I trained as a classical pianist, performing in recital halls throughout my twenties. I turned to writing again only when I married my South Indian husband. It was a way to understand my new community. I suppose. Didn't Faulkner say, "I never know what I think about something until I've written on it." Amen to that.
* Do you have any writing rituals?
I start each session by playing Bach on the piano. There's something about his nuances of harmony that transcend the ego and ground me at the same time. Music and writing have so many elements in common-- line and dynamics and rhythm, that it's difficult to assign value. I'm immersed in all of it, and the process of mastering a piece of music is not unlike getting a piece of writing right. When at last I set whatever it is aside, the work continues underground.
* How do you come up with the names for your characters?
For fun, I might initially name a character for one of the in-laws, but I usually change it to another South Indian name.
*How is writing poetry different from writing a novel?
"In the novel or short story you get the journey. In a poem you get the arrival," May Sarton wrote.That's not to say that it's an orderly progression. When characters run amok, and suddenly have their own plans, it's hard to force them back into the author's. Mary Lee Settle advised that empathy without identity is one way to keep control of a character, but it's difficult to maintain that distance. Transformation, the way the characters change, what conclusion the narrator comes to, are born out of writing one's way into the piece again and again, trying on different plots, tone, voice. In both forms, I feel my way.
*What types of books do you like to read? Who are your favorite authors? Why?
Literary fiction and contemporary poetry, since that's what I write. My favorites are always changing, and on my nightstand right now, I've got novels by poets James Schulyer, Kenneth Patchen, Djuna Barnes, Tobias Hill, and Elizabeth Smart.
*What is the best advice you could give other writers about writing or publishing?
Write every day, read more than you write, and remember what Samuel Beckett said: Ever tried, ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.
* Who is the perfect reader for your book? (Please do not say "everyone." ;o) )
People who like literary writing, who care about language.I pull my poetry right into my prose, so my books are certainly not for everybody. I think that's as it should be. My readers needn't know details about the Indian culture to enjoy my books, or the scientific,religious, or philosophical concepts that underscore my work. I tell you everything you need to know as we go along. Trust me.
*Where can readers learn more about you and your book?
Here is the link to my Amazon Author Central page . My blogs feed right into it. One more thing --I should mention that Rescuing Ranu been on a Kindle Bestseller List in the category of mathematics>research since November. It's hanging tough at #17.
