Ratings28
Average rating3.7
Reviews with the most likes.
Brilliant graphic novel about the evolution of logic, centred on Bertrand Russel's earlier years, and providing tantalising references to the influence this movement would eventually have on the internet and computing.
7/10
Grand in scope but let down in part by the medium and some baffling decisions by the creators, Logicomix is still a fascinating read.
I've always loved it when serious topics are explored visually, whether in animation or books - but Logicomix overextends and underextends itself in turn. At the altar of brevity and mass appeal, it sacrifices accuracy, but this wouldn't have mattered so much if the crucial details covered were at the least in-depth, which they were sadly not.
A case in point is that Apostolos mentions Godel, Wittgenstein, Hilbert, von Neumann, and other giants, but he annoyingly glosses over their contributions. The book also repeatedly jumps out and into Athens or the ‘real world' instead of the comic world to explain some of its decisions to the reader - but this breaking the fourth wall is only partially effective since its novelty wears off quickly. It is utilized to excellent effect only near the end.
Where the book shines the most is letting its audience know, through comics, about Godel's incompleteness theorem of the first and second-order, Russell's paradox, and Wittgenstein's metaphysical theories - a sentence I could not imagine writing a day ago. And that fact alone is worth most, in not all of, the acclaim.
Overall an enjoyable telling of Bertrand Russell life and work. Took kinda forever for them to get to Gödel, and I'm not really a fan of the story within a story within a story. It feels like a cheeky incompleteness reference and is just unnecessary.
the interludes featuring the authors really get in the way of what is otherwise a really fascinating tale.