Italian author Paolo Giordano is a celebrated writer and a particle physicist.
Paolo Giordano blends math and relationships in The Solitude of Prime Numbers
It’s been a whirlwind and hectic few years for Paolo Giordano the youngest writer to win Italy’s most prestigious literary award the Premio Strega. Giordano started writing his debut novel The Solitude of Prime Numbers at 23. Now 27 Giordano’s book has been translated into more than 30 languages made into a movie by the same name in Europe and he’s just finished his PhD (did I mention that he’s a particle physicist?).
When did you find the time to write this book in the midst of doing your PhD.?
I wrote it usually late at night or late evening. Actually it was one of the busiest times at university because I was finishing up with my graduate degree and then starting my PhD. I was so busy I thought “My work is really intense and I can’t enjoy myself in any case so I might as well work a bit harder and write a book.” I wrote usually between 10 p.m. and midnight every night plus on weekends.
What prompted you to start writing a novel and when did you start writing in general?
Well I started writing in general when I was 21 — I started with short stories but I started this novel at 23. I think I started out of boredom for what I was doing since before writing my life was totally consumed by science for many years and I felt that some part of my brain was not fully working as a result. I had always had this ambition to start a novel but I couldn’t find the courage to start at first and I thought I would not be able to do it. At some point I just couldn’t help doing it though so I continued to write.
Is that also a fear that was expressed in the book the fear of failure for instance with the character of Alice — who hated competitive ski racing and hence sabotaged her efforts in the sport so that she could finally be free of having to continue it in order to please her father?
Yes exactly. Though more accurately my fear is that of competing with other people. I’m not really scared so much by fear of my own failure. It’s mainly the competition — I don’t like competing with others at all. I don’t have fears or trouble around competing with myself however; in fact I can compete with myself voraciously.
How did you come up with the idea to relate the concept of prime numbers to human relationships?
I knew I always wanted to make this connection between something mathematical and humans and one of the protagonists Mattia he’s a mathematician — so it was really his idea. He sees himself and Alice to be two prime numbers and twin primes in particular — prime numbers that are close together separated only by one even number. I had a sort of allegorical idea of mathematics and I associate numbers and mathematical topics with identity. Prime numbers are solitary; they’re kind of snobby in fact. They don’t want to associate with others. They aren’t divisible by any numbers other than one and themselves so there is an exclusiveness about them.
There are many instances in the story where Mattia starts thinking about the angles between objects especially when he gets nervous or emotional about something.
Yes I do that (laughs). That is something both him and I have in common. It’s a way he distracts himself from whatever may be happening at the moment that might be overwhelming.
In your opinion is the language of math lonely and bleak?
The activity of mathematics is quite solitary. It’s not really a language that helps you to relate with the world; it’s more a language that helps you to analyze the world. So yes in that way it has a connection to loneliness.
Are there any other personal fears reflected in the novel — either of people you know or your own?
For instance Mattia at some point leaves Italy and goes someplace in northern Europe — that was something I was quite afraid of because I knew I would have to do it after my studies at some point and I really didn’t want to. Also I had the fear of getting fat something that came through in Alice’s anorexia. This book was a way for me to analyze some of my fears not necessarily to get rid of them but to observe them which is already something.
Fame has come to you early in life and now your book has been made into a film. How do you feel?
I’m still trying to figure it out…. It’s been quite hard to face all this in the last two years. I was really not prepared for most of it. I oscillate between satisfaction and also a big sense of freedom for what I can do now. But there is a sort of oppression about it. I didn’t even expect to publish this book originally. That’s how far the reality is from what I imagined could be.
