Just right: A Universe of Sufficient Size

A Universe of Sufficient Size by Miriam Sved

Picador

Pp. 311

Spanning continents and three generations, this rich novel of mathematics, politics, friendship, family, sexuality and love, features numerous time and narrative shifts. Illy discovers a diary written by her mother, who has left it deliberately where she can find it, and reading it changes Illy’s perception of history and her self. It takes her back to 1930s Hungary, when Jews are barred from attending university, so a group of five friends and mathematicians (two couples – Ildiko and Levi; Eszter and Tibor; and Pail) meet beneath the statue of Anonymous in Budapest to expound upon their theories.

This desire for anonymity is unusual as nationalities fight to be the one to make mathematical breakthroughs that can be given military applications. Ildiko considers how one can know what future use will be made of the science, maths and physics they think they are discovering in isolation.

The friends cannot know that the Holocaust is coming, but they are aware that the future will be dangerous and that their group will dissolve. They can’t imagine marriage or children, because they live in such uncertain times. They all, particularly Eszter, want to protect Pail from the real world and shield his genius, worrying that he is not equipped to deal with the coming war and its consequences. While Pali remains entrenched in his theoretical problems, not all of the friends agree he needs extra attention. Ildiko tells Eszter, “Someone will always look after Pali, because he is brilliant and hopeless at the same time. I have noticed that people can’t resist the combination of brilliance and hopelessness in men.”

This world is echoed in the present when Josh, Illy’s son, attempts to find applications for his version of theoretical mathematics. He is aware of the work of Pali Kamar, but thinks the internet provides practical applications, which he explains to his grandmother, Nagymama, not knowing she was a friend of Kali’s. Josh is excited by finding order in chaos; to understand the universe; to feel less insignificant, which he (and Pali before him) demonstrates through Euclidean planes. Josh searches for order and predictability, trying to shape the situation to fit.

Everyone in the novel tries to find their own pattern and shape their own narrative, while accepting difference and factoring it into individual and societal equations. When Nagymama moves to America, “It still surprises her how everything in this ridiculous country seems brighter, bursting with its own youth; even the vegetables have a juvenile optimism.” Infinite possibilities provide exciting concepts, but is it necessary to try and define them when there are constant breakthroughs and alternate opinions which subvert preconceived notions about everything from sexuality and religion to mathematics and astrophysics?