Contributed by
Gregory L. Cherlin
You probably recall Ratnakar whose interest is neuroscience, but also
takes a strong interest in using mathematical ideas in her writing.
Just out in Clarkesworld, is
"Fractal Karma".
According to the review by A.C. Wise in Locus:
Excerpt From Locus, December 2024, Locus Publications:
“‘Fractal Karma’’ by Arula Ratnakar is a novella that feels like a
spiritual successor to the author’s previous novella, ‘‘Axiom of
Dreams’’, published in Clarkesworld last year. Both explore the
mind-altering possibilities of math when combined with drug use and
technology. In this case, the experimental drug is known as
Klein-bottle, and the technology is a three-way headset that allows
(or forces) users to share memories and erases the boundaries between
self and other. Leela signs up for an experimental study to earn
money, but quickly begins to lose herself in her past. The story is
effective in its exploration of memory, guilt, the idea of being truly
perceived, and how we frame the narrative of our lives.”
|
I've now read that story. As mentioned, it makes use of a mix of drugs,
speculation about cognition, and mathematics. The last line of the
review is on point - it is not really "about" any of its constituents;
they are raw material. More so than in the previous story.
However: the central technological device, a shared headset, is in some
sense supposed to be modeled on the Borromean rings and leads eventually
to a Klein bottle, and
the idea of being trapped in an emotional cycle is viewed as an
attractor in a dynamical system, while the Sierpinski triangle gets
woven in to the story fairly intimately.
Also turning up in the narrative is a recent article (2022):
whose connection to the text seems pretty loose.
The mathematics is used primarily in what one might call a geographic
manner: it is set in mathematics the way a story might be set in Chicago.
The individual elements don't seem to be intrinsically connected with
each other.
But the setting is certainly pervasive, and the relative centrality of
the metaphor of the Borromean rings may make this a candidate for your
database.
No doubt in due course we'll be seeing more in this vein from Ratnakar,
with more or less prominence given to the various cognitive,
mathematical, and pharmacological aspects that Wise notes.
(I note that for Wise, the effect of the story is that the mathematics
is actually carrying the narrative along; there is a bit of sleight of
hand involved there, but that's what writers generally
are supposed to aim at, particularly in speculative fiction.)
NB. I notice incidentally that the psychologist Lacan was also prone to
invoking both the Borromean rings and the Klein bottle, but I couldn't
say offhand whether Ratnakar is aware of that.
Lacan's perspective does not appear to play a role here (for Lacan, the
rings are "the symbolic, the imaginary, and the real" and he tended to
use mathematical metaphors rather casually).
|