Set between the late 19th century and the present day, the graphic novel Logicomix is based on the story of the so-called "foundational quest" in mathematics. Logicomix intertwines the philosophical struggles with the characters' own personal turmoil. These are in turn played out just upstage of the momentous historical events of the era and the ideological battles which gave rise to them. The narrator of the story is Bertrand Russell, who stands as an icon of many of these themes: a deeply sensitive and introspective man, Russell was not just a philosopher and pacifist, he was also one of the prominent figures in the foundational quest. Russell's life story, depicted by Logicomix, is itself a journey through the goals and struggles, and triumph and tragedy shared by many great thinkers of the 20th century: Georg Cantor, Ludwig Wittgenstein, G. E. Moore, Alfred North Whitehead, David Hilbert, Gottlob Frege, Henri Poincaré, Kurt Gödel, and Alan Turing. A parallel tale, set in present-day Athens, records the creators’ disagreement on the meaning of the story, thus setting in relief the foundational quest as a quintessentially modern adventure. It is on the one hand a tragedy of the hubris of rationalism, which descends inextricably on madness, and on the other an origin myth of the computer.
Jim Holt reviewed the book for the New York Times and says the story "is presented with real graphic verve. " although he does note "one serious misstep" involving the overplaying of the impact Russell's paradox had on mathematics. A review at The Guardian said that the "authors tell the story with a humour and lightness of touch that pokes fun at the philosophers and mathematicians involved, but never trivialises the philosophy or the mathematics" concluding that "Doxiadis has shown that by using fiction to provide an emotional context to mathematical discoveries it can make for a gripping read. Uncle Petros was a bestseller and the much more ambitious Logicomix deserves to be one too." The book was recommended by the New Statesman in late September. On October 2 the book made the New York Times, Sunday Book Review, Editor's Choice list and the next week it was #1 on the NYT Graphic Novel Best Seller list. The book sold out on the day it was released in the United States and United Kingdom, and also got into the Top 10 on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk, leading the manager of a major Athens bookstore to say "No Greek book has sold abroad like this in 30 years."
Historical accuracy
At the beginning of the book there is talk of "the non-aggression pact between Nazi Germany and the United Kingdom", signed in Munich, which led to the invasion of Poland, with a section from the book showing an infuriated Polish soldier accusing a Briton of being the culprit of such a crime. In fact, the only "non-aggression pact" from the era was between Nazi Germany and the USSR, which led to the invasion of Poland — with the UK then declaring war on Germany. According to Paolo Mancosu in The Bulletin of Symbolic Logic, the authors "admittedly take liberties with the real course of events", for example with reference to the alleged meetings Russell would have had with Frege and Cantor. Although "such departures from reality can be fruitful for narrative purposes", according to Mancosu, in some cases they are objectionable, as the portrayal of Frege as a "rabid paranoid antisemite", and the "constant refrain of the alleged causal link between logic and madness". From "the conceptual point of view, some of the major ideas about the foundation of mathematics are conveyed with reasonable accuracy", although sometimes errors, mistakes, and inaccuracies occur. However, the global judgement by Mancosu is positive:
Reviews
, Publishers Weekly, April 14, 2009
, The Independent, September 2, 2009
, Financial Times, September 5, 2009
by Paolo Mancosu, pp. 1–14, U.C. Berkeley, January 2010
