Flatland - Buddy Read

[Pink]

Here's the discussion thread for our buddy read of Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin A. Abbott. We'll be reading in March and everyone is welcome to join. It's a very short book and available for free on project Gutenberg, so hopefully it should fit in our busy reading schedules!

[[deleted user]]

Thanks for setting this up, Pink, and the reminder :))) hope to join in on this

[Michele]

Yay!!

FYI, there's an animated adaption on YouTube. I don't think it follows the book very closely, thought.

[Bat-Cat]

I have started Flatland - reading and participation have been VERY slow going lately as things are super crazy busy in my life at the moment. I have gotten to 54% and am enjoying it. It is a bit challenging keeping up with the threads since my reading is so sporadic. Hopefully I can get to string a chunk of time together and read more then a few pages at a time. It's a very interesting blend of concepts though.

[Michele]

What do you think of the author's representation of women as triangles?

[Katy, Old School Classics]

I hope to sneak in this book this month also.

[Wreade1872]

Michele wrote: "What do you think of the author's representation of women as triangles?"

You mean Lines, Triangles are the lower class Military.

Oh i love this book have to get a reread in sometime, i took it to be a complete comedy/satire .
The women as Lines and (view spoiler)[ shaking their bottoms (hide spoiler)] so you can see them and don't accidentally kill yourself on them... soooo funny. If your reading it as satire, of course if you think the author is serious then obviously would be really insulting :P .

[Bat-Cat]

Yes, lines. As Wreade1872 says it is comedy, to a certain extent. I also found it kind of flattering and complementary in a strange way - that they (all the men shapes) find woman so much of a threat as to feel the need to keep us in our place. Also that we are potentially so dangerous that we can accidentally, or not so accidentally, kill others. Intriguing.

[Michele]

Wreade1872 wrote: "You mean Lines, Triangles are the lower class Military. ."

Oh yes, right. Thanks!

[Bat-Cat]

I just reread my last comment and realize that it might sound as though I am condoning the discrimination and sexism of the story. I am most emphatically not. Oppressive governments and societies know where their threats lay and those are the groups that they target first and most severely. In this tale it is the women who are oppressed the most. They are even lower than the lowest class of men, in my opinion because they are considered the biggest threat. What better way to control a society than to repress the ones who have the sole task of continuation of the species. As Margaret Atwood has said, "The control of women and babies has been a feature of every repressive regime on the planet." This tale, at least so far, is a very intriguing and unique way of elucidating these views and more in an enjoyable, often amusing way.

[Michele]

Flatland is, in part, about the efforts of a 2D being to understand 3D space, and how a 3D being could represent itself, or be represented, in 2D space.

Poking around Youtube this morning, I found these two fascinating video about the efforts of 3D beings (humans) to understand 4D space, and how a 4D thing could represent itself, or be represented, in 3D space. Parts of them are head-scratchers, but the visuals are neat:

What does VR reveal about 4D space?

Understanding 4D: The tesseract

[Michele]

Bat-Cat wrote: "In this tale it is the women who are oppressed the most. They are even lower than the lowest class of men, in my opinion because they are considered the biggest threat. "

It's kind of hilarious that the reason they're considered a threat is that they're so pointy and thus can accidentally kill people. I guess that could be a metaphor for being intellectually dangerous? Maybe Abbot, or rather the society he was parodying (the Victorians, right?) just found women scary in general :)

[Pink]

I read this a couple of days ago. I enjoyed the first few chapters, which were a satirical commentary on society and I found the concept of Flatland intriguing. However, I quickly began to lose interest, as it seemed to repeat the same themes and not really lead anywhere. It reminded me in tone of Gulliver's Travels, Herland and could easily have been written by H.G. Wells. Overall I'm glad to have read it, but I found it just okay.

[Michele]

Pink wrote: "However, I quickly began to lose interest, as it seemed to repeat the same themes and not really lead anywhere. "

Pink, could you elaborate on that a little bit? What themes did you think were being repeated?

[Pink]

The repetitiveness was in explaining the position of each shape in relation to one another, how they could or couldn't move up the social scale and then how the world could be viewed as 1D, 2D, 3D, or 4D. I felt that these themes of social status and how we view the world around us, were each accomplished in a few chapters, but the explanations, measurements and diagrams started to become repetitive after they'd initially got the point across. I think that's why I enjoyed the first half of the book more than the second.

[Nente]

I've started this one, too. Not sure I would like it - seems to be a rather laboured metaphor at times.

[Nente]

Done: my review.
I actually got the impression that the very definition of Flatland "women" is designed to show up the faults of Abbott's contemporary society in the women's rights area. Surely the geometrical figures have no other need for two sexes and sexual procreation (which I'd have liked to understand a bit more of, only it would be quite a different book then), and the division into "males" and "females" was made up from the start with the satiric possibilities in mind.

[Sarah]

I'm behind schedule on just about everything, but I did get started on this last night. I'll chime in once I've finished it.
I remember watching the animated movie version of this during a Math Team meeting in high school. Will be interested to read the story itself and see how much I remember/how close it kept.

[Sarah]

So the answer to the question of how close is not at all. We watched the 2005 version which throws large portions of the make up of Flatland out the window.
Ultimately I have no idea how I really feel about it. I spent much of it wondering what on Earth I was reading.
I know its supposed to be a satire, but I feel like a lot of what it was supposed to convey could easily be lost in how it was presented.

[Pink]

It looks like you had a similar reaction to me about this book. I didn't hate it, but did wonder what it was all about. It was very strange, but I'm still glad I gave it a try.

[Darren]

I felt is was more just a mathematical exercise to get you thinking about multiple dimensions - quite clever/unusual, but nothing to get over-excited about
I felt the social aspects (e.g. the "class" aspect of having more sides) were really just to make it a bit more relatable/entertaining, with any "satire" probably being unintentional (although the digs at women seemed a bit mean/gratuitous)

[Michele]

Darren, that's how I saw it too.

[Sara, New School Classics]

Please continue this discussion at the Flatlands threads here:

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...