The French Mathematician

If Evariste Galois--a boy genius cut down in a romantic duel--had only been a painter, his life might have been penned by Irving Stone and played by Kirk Douglas in the movie version. But since he was a mathematician, he has had to wait 166 years, since his death in 1832, for this valiant but strained debut from Australian playwright and fellow mathematician Petsinis. We meet narrator Evariste in 1827, when he is a sullen teenager at the Louis-le-Grand school in Paris. In his first class in geometry, he experiences an almost religious vision of mathematical order and henceforth dashes his parents' hopes for a respectable career as a provincial schoolteacher. When Evariste's father, a beleaguered liberal politician and small-town mayor, commits suicide, however, Evariste turns from mathematics to revolution. Though his efforts are earnest, Petsinis never finds a style that can combine the language of mathematics and the language of passion. When, for example, Evariste receives the news of his father's death, we get this bit of misplaced erudition: ""I bit my lower lip, checking the swell of emotion by bringing to mind my recent findings: The essence of an equation could be brought to light through the nature of the group formed from its coefficients."" Although the world may owe a debut to Evariste Galois for his discovery of group theory, readers who make it to the end of this novel may feel they've paid more than their fair share. (Sept.)