Mathematique Author:Jacques Roubaud Longtime Oulipo member Jacques Roubaud's homage to one of the great passions of his life: mathematics . . .The third ?branch? of Jacques Roubaud?s epic, Proustian Great Fire of London, Mathématique: is also an excellent entrance into the series. Adopting math as a career relatively late in his studies, Roubaud here narrates his difficulties both... more » personal and pedagogical, while also investigating the role of mathematics in his life as a remedy to all the messiness of lived experience. ?I sought out arithmetic,? he writes, ?to protect myself. But from what? At the time, I would probably have replied: from vagueness, from a lack of rigor, from ?literature.?? But mathematics also provide a refuge from human fears, and from coping, eventually, with tragedies like the death of his wife Alix. As with the previous volumes of The Great Fire of London, Mathématique: is a riveting and humorous anecdotal memoir as well as a fiendishly digressive fiction about the functions of memory and the written word.« less