Writing in the inventive, playful tradition of Calvino and Borges, Mr. Crumey blends history, fantasy, fable and metaphysical speculation in a confection that is at once elegant, provocative and thoroughly entertaining. -- Wall Street Journal
The senseless passion of 18th-century French mathematician Jean le Rond D'Alembert for his friend Julie de L'Espinasse (hinted at in Diderot's satire D'Alembert's Dream) is the subject of the strongest of the three interrelated novellas that make up this volume from Scottish author Crumey. Diderot implied that they were lovers; tragically, for D'Alembert, L'Espinasse never returned his passion. Instead, she fell for a number of other, physically imposing men. D'Alembert learns this from her letters after her death, and the claims of reason come tumbling down as he probes the logic of his passions. Crumey deftly outlines D'Alembert's life and times, albeit in broad, rather prim strokes. In his less compelling, oddly humorless second novella, a series of variations on the paradoxes of solipsism, Crumey follows the windings of an 18th-century author who appears and disappears in the text of his semifabulous book. The third, fortunately, goes for less heavily theoretical territory, returning to the characters of his acclaimed previous novel, Pfitz. A jeweler named Goldman in the city of Rrheinstadt gets thrown into prison with a beggar named Pfitz, and the beggar tells him a series of improbably scabrous tales. The loopy dialogue between Pfitz and Goldman is reminiscent of the Tortoise and Achilles sections in Douglas Hofstadter's Godel, Escher, Bach. Crumey is described as a postmodernist, but he isn't anything so terrifying: he's simply reviving that old Enlightenment pastime, the philosophical jeu d'esprit. (Nov.) FYI: Crumey's first work, Music, in a Foreign Language, won England's Saltire Prize for Best First Novel.
Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly
D'Alembert's Principle is actually three stories, including the title story, "The Cosmography of Magnus Ferguson," and "Tales from Rreinstadt." Each represents an aspect of D'Alembert's definition of knowledge: memory, reason, and imagination. The stories are set in the 18th century, when D'Alembert worked with Diderot on his famous dictionary. The first story uses D'Alembert's memories to illustrate his great success with mathematical theories but his failure in love. The second story, representing reason, is an exploration of empiricism. "Tales from Rreinstadt" is narrated by Pfitz, the beggar who also appeared in Crumey's earlier novel, Pfitz (LJ 9/1/97), while Pfitz is temporarily imprisoned by a wealthy jeweler. Crumey, a Scotsman, has cleverly interwoven aspects of human thought with entertaining stories. The details and tone of the stories aptly convey the tenor of 18th-century rationalism. For academic and public libraries where intellectual fiction is enjoyed.--Ann Irvine, Montgomery Cty. P.L., Silver Spring, MD
A master of the postmodern fable, Crumey follows his exceptional novel Pfitz (1997) with a related, albeit more obscure, trio of interlocking stories derived in part from the troubled life of mathematician and philosopher Jean D'Alembert. Organized around to the same three categoriesþMemory, Reason, and Imaginationþused by Diderot in his 18th-century encyclopedia, to which D`Alembert contributed extensively, this collection begins with the scientist reviewing his past on the day of his death, focusing particularly on the one nonscientific love of his life: Julie de L'Espinasse, about whom he believed no scandalous rumor (and was mistaken). His reflections alternate with observations of his maid, Justine, who is summoned from her reading of her master's papers by a madman at the door. Said madman leaves her with a manuscript supposedly refuting D'Alembert's lifework. This, "The Cosmography of Magnus Ferguson," forms the second story, in which one Magnus Ferguson struggles to understand how he came from a different dimension to Scotland, taking the place of his twin in this dimension. Finally, the character Pfitz, whose existence was denied in the novel named for him, appears as a beggar in the streets of Rreinnstadt to regale a passerby with tales, the first of which lands them in prison. His subsequent tales concern matters as diverse as a Dictionary of Identity, never completed, and a marvelous clock never fully understood. Once the reader's head stops spinning from trying to follow the intricate mechanics of the tale here, there is much to be enjoyed and admired. Still, Crumeyþs effort doesn't measure up to its less fragmentary predecessors. Somethingþsgone awry with the charm of his storytelling.
"The legacies of D'Alembert, Gerguson and Goldmann, a principle, a vision and a story, combine to create a portrait of the 18th century European mind stretched thin between the heart and the stars."—Los Angeles Times
"Inventive, playful...[D'Alembert's Principle is] a confection that is at once elegant, provocative and thoroughly entertaining."—Merle Rubin, The Wall Street Journal
"Proceeding from poignancy to awe to hilarity, the three parts constitute an intellectual treat."—Booklist
