The Goddess of Small Victories
- Author Yannick Grannec
- Narrator Emily Woo Zeller, Dawn Harvey
- Publisher Blackstone Publishing
- Publish Date 14 October 2014
- Run Time 13 hours and 17 minutes
- Format Audio
- Genre Biographical fiction, Fiction: general and literary, Historical fiction.
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What to expect
Princeton University, 1980. A young and unambitious librarian named Anna Roth is assigned the task of retrieving the records of Kurt Gödel—the most fascinating and hermetic mathematician of the twentieth century. Her mission consists of befriending and ultimately taming the great man's widow, Adele, a notoriously bitter woman set on taking belated revenge against the establishment by refusing to hand over these documents of immeasurable historical value.
But as Anna soon finds out, Adele has a story of her own to tell. Through descriptions of Princeton and Vienna after the war, the occupation of Austria by the Nazis, the pressures of McCarthyism, the end of the positivist ideal, and the advent of nuclear weapons, Anna discovers firsthand the epic story of a genius who could never quite find his place in the world—and the private torment of the woman who loved him.
Critics Review
“The Goddess of Small Victories is a pitch-perfect comedy of
manners set on an intellectual Mt. Olympus in mid-twentieth-century New
Jersey. Albert, Oskar, Oppie, Johnny, and Kurt are the reigning deities.
Mathematical gossip and conspiracy theories are served up with
birdbath-sized martinis and three-inch steaks. Domestic relations appear
to be governed by Godel‘s Incompleteness Theorem. Yannick Grannec‘s
portrait of the marriage-of-opposites at the heart of the novel is pure
genius.”
“A fascinating portrait of a marriage…tracing the
Gödels’ tumultuous past and the sad decline of a brilliant mind.“
“An important meditation on those forgotten by history…A fascinating read.”
“A model of novelistic efficiency which intelligently
combines history, theorems, passion, and flamingos.”
“Suffice it to say that The Goddess of Small Victories is an astonishing novel.”
“A first novel as ambitious as it is accessible.”
“Breathtaking.”
“Painstakingly researched, seamlessly translated, this is historical fiction of exceptional daring.”
“In French author Grannec’s first novel, which focuses on real-life
couple Kurt and Adele Gödel, love is more powerful than anything, from
family disapproval to mental illness…The book offers insight into a little-known historical figure,
as well as a portrait of Kurt’s close friend, Albert Einstein. And
Adele, who always lived in her husband’s shadow, rightfully takes center
stage, with readers marveling at how love can survive when it receives
no nourishment.”
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