MATHEMATICAL FICTION:

a list compiled by Alex Kasman (College of Charleston)

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Odile (1937)
Raymond Queneau
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A humorous semi-autobiographical novel by this famous, French, surrealistic author.

Contributed by Larry D'Antonio, Ramapo College

Queneau seems to have had some training as a mathematician and was friends with several leading French mathematicians. This book is generally considered a satire of the Surrealist movement (of which Queneau was an early member). But one of the main characters is a mathematics student and has a long discussion with one of his friends about mathematics.

(Not a work of fiction, but worth mentioning: Queneau wrote a poetry work entitled 100,000,000,000,000 Poems. It consists of 10 sonnets with the property that any line of any sonnet may be substituted for any other, similarly numbered, line to create a new sonnet. Hence there are 10^14 different possible poems.)

Queneau's writing is also featured in Mathematical Magpie where there is reproduced three humorous excerpts:

  • In Excercices de Style, a scene on a bus is redescribed in 99 different ways. One of the ways is mathematical (e.g. "In a rectangular parallelepiped moving along a line representing an integral solution of the second-order differential equation...").
  • In Cahiers du College de Pataphysique No 1, Queneau notes that "All attempts, from earliest times to the present day, to demonstrate that 2+2=4 have failed to take into account the velocity of the wind"...and proceeds to fill that gap.
  • And in "At the Edge of the Forest" he uses limits to make a talking dog disappear.

More information about this work can be found at www.amazon.com.
(Note: This is just one work of mathematical fiction from the list. To see the entire list or to see more works of mathematical fiction, return to the Homepage.)

Works Similar to Odile
According to my `secret formula', the following works of mathematical fiction are similar to this one:
  1. Het gemillimeterde hoofd (The Cropped Head) by Gerrit Krol
  2. Slightly Perfect / Are you with it? by George Malcolm-Smith (Novel) / Sam Perrin (Script) / George Balzer (Script)
  3. The Murdered Mathematician by Harry Stephen Keeler
  4. The Sinister Researches of C.P. Ransom by Homer C. Nearing Jr.
  5. And Be a Villain by Rex Stout
  6. Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
  7. The Papers of A.J. Wentworth, B.A. by Humphry Francis Ellis
  8. Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, The Gentleman by Laurence Sterne
  9. Arithmetic Town / Arithmetic by Todd McEwen
  10. Le théorème de Travolta by Olivier Courcelle
Ratings for Odile:
RatingsHave you seen/read this work of mathematical fiction? Then click here to enter your own votes on its mathematical content and literary quality or send me comments to post on this Webpage.
Mathematical Content:
1/5 (1 votes)
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Literary Quality:
4/5 (1 votes)
..

Categories:
GenreHumorous,
Motif
Topic
MediumNovels,

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Where are the new works of mathematical fiction?: As you can see from this chronological listing, this database includes many works of mathematical fiction for each year from 1990 to 2025. Strangely, only two are listed for 2026, so far. Either less mathematical fiction is being published than in previous years or I'm just having more trouble finding it. If you know of any works of fiction that should be added to this list, especially recently published ones, please let me know. (Keep in mind that I do not include self-published works or children's fiction that just covers elementary mathematical concepts.) Thanks!

(Maintained by Alex Kasman, College of Charleston)