The Dot and The Line

Lest you think this blog is nothing more than a shameless platform for plugging my own book shop (which you can find here, by the way), here is a book that I found in one of my favorite etsy book shops, Pipi Pompon.  We have our own copy, so when I saw this in her shop, I knew I had to blog about it, link back to her copy, and hope you love this post enough to purchase it from Pipi.

So here it is.

The Dot and The Line
a romance in lower mathematics

by Norton Juster

Meet Line.

He has a problem.  He's in love.  With Dot.  Who's in love,

with Squiggle.  "He is so gay and free, so unhibited and full of joy," she cooly informs Line, "and you are as stiff as a stick.  Dull.  Conventional and repressed.  Tied and trameled.  Subdued, smothered and stifled.  Squashed, squelched and quenched."

Poor line is despondant.  His friends try in vain to cheer him.  "She's not good enough for you," one says.  "She lacks depth," says another.

But poor Line just hangs his . . . well, never mind that.  He can't hang his head.  Neverthless, his friends' words fall on deaf . . . Blast, if that doesn't work either.  No head.  No ears.  The guy's upset.  You get the jist.

"Any way he looked at her she was perfect."

Line spends his time "dreaming of the inconstant dot and imagining himself as the forceful figure she was sure to admire -

THE LINE AS A CELEBRATED DAREDEVIL

THE LINE AS AN INTERNATIONAL SPORTSMAN

But it's no use.  Line decides it's time for a change.  He bends.  And makes an angle.

 

From there, life becomes wildly complex for our dear Line.  In short, Line comes to embody the stuff of mathematical vision.  Squares and triangles.  Hexagons and parallelograms.  Rhomboids and polyhedrons.  Nothing is too angular for our intrepid hero.



And all the while, Dot looks on,

and on.



 

"So, what happens?" you, dear reader may ask.  Does Dot show Squiggle the door?  Do Dot and Line live happily ever after?

 

Well, I'll never tell.