PositiveScientific AmericanKaren Olsson paints vivid portraits of both siblings ... she invites the reader to sit with the Weils, to appreciate their relationship and ponder what their lives and work say to contemporary writers and mathematicians. The book is not a biography of either Weil or a detailed look at any of André’s math, which was what I was expecting to some degree based on the title. It is more impressionistic than that, with Olsson weaving other historical vignettes and her own relationship to math and writing in with the story of the Weils ... The book feels deliberately fragmentary ... The quick changes can cause a little bit of whiplash and could probably have been deployed a bit more sparingly. On the other hand, some of her insights about the process of writing or mathematics are sharper for having been juxtaposed so closely with relevant parts of the Weils’ story.
