On page 97 the text claims (incorrectly) that a dodecahedron has 20 sides. This is an editorial mistake so basic and glaring that I question the seriousness of the whole work.

This memoir is of the genre "post middle-aged male writer muses about things he's read as they relate to some project he's doing." I was reminded a little bit of Alberto Manguel's The Library at Night and William Styron's Darkness Visible. The genre as a whole is sort of inherently tedious for obvious reasons. A Divine Language is on the heavier side on the tedium scale.

The main trouble I have with this book is that he spends an awful lot of time telling us what a hard time he's had learning mathematics; he spends an awful lot of time telling us the history/philosophy/quirks of mathematics (stories that you'll find in most every prose survey of math); but he never seems to get around to /showing/ us what he's learned.

I'm really eager to read a book about re-learning math, but I would rather have him explain what problems he's having and how he went about overcoming them. I want to see the struggle, not just hear about it. Instead he prefers to focus on whatever comment from his niece was most unhelpful, before veering into vague descriptions of wrestling some monster. Speak concretely, dude! There's just a lot that feels inconsistent and half-baked here.

[this review originally appeared on goodreads]