Math City by Ahmad Amani, illustrated by Mehdi Anoshivani

I am one of those many people who has a lifelong fear of mathematics brought about by some shockingly bad teaching at primary school that left me unprepared for the horrors of algebra, geometry and worse once I got to secondary school. I can still vividly remember the nightly tears as my dad tried patiently to help me understand my maths homework (he was unsuccessful). Despite trying extraordinarily hard, I failed my maths mock O’ Level exam and so, to everyone’s relief, I was not allowed to take the exam. I have so far managed to get through life without the qualification and am pretty certain that I would fail it again even today – some things are just not meant to be.  Given my problem, I approached this rather quirky young adult novella with some trepidation. The idea of living in something called ‘Math City’ sounded like my worst nightmare but perhaps reading about it might help me to feel more comfortable with the subject?

The Kurdish author is a graduate of the Art University in Tehran who still lives in the Middle East and has worked as a journalist for many newspapers in Iran and Iraq. He explains that he is interested in how fantasy worlds can help to make young people think about complex subjects. Math City is a place within a Maths text book, and the pages of the book are it’s streets. The story begins by introducing the character Horizontal Line who comes from the Minus family, (so far so good because I can just about cope with the basics of subtraction). It appears that he is not welcome in Math City precisely because of his distinctive qualities and a public warning is put out:

‘Beware! A minus, called Horizontal Line, is prowling about. Avoid him! You will change to zero if he finds you!’

He wasn’t always so unpopular because in the past he had helped various numbers with their personal problems. However, resentment has grown because he just doesn’t know when to stop subtracting. For instance he ate away at Ms Fifty – Five Thousand with her full co-operation  until eventually she was reduced to being Number Six, and had also changed into a man. Here I became slightly confused as to why this happened and at what point? It seems that in Math City, it is a huge advantage to be a man as the people ‘never took women’s ideas seriously’. Early on in this curious story we are introduced to Comrade Zero who has been reduced to a barely existence with all the other Zeroes who have no status in the city, although they do all the important work. In contrast, many of the big fat numbers have become so heavy that they can no longer walk and it seems that they might welcome help from Horizontal Line:

‘What a good boy you are! Please come a bit closer to lessen our pain’!

This is a political book because there are clearly lots of challenging metaphors about inequality and oppression to stimulate some interesting discussion. For instance, one of the most influential fat numbers is a dentist who likes extracting teeth as a punishment:

‘Moreover, if one of the thins objected, the dentist did it without anaesthetic’.

When civil unrest breaks out:

‘some numbers at the corner were beating one of the numbers to death in the name of justice’

Although it is packed full with numerical puzzles which would probably inspire young people who already have a strong mathematical bent, it is mostly an adventure story with violence and war at its heart. Eventually the city is colonized by Physics City and together they begin to work towards freedom, fairness and justice. However, towards the end of the story, the rise of another enemy called Second Vertical H. Line threatens the fragile peace and so the puzzle of life in Math City continues.

I’m not quite sure how much I missed because of my mathematical handicap or whether the plot was over complicated. It is an interesting premise for a story which you will need to judge for yourself. 

 Karen Argent

September 2017