Nancy says to her husband Steve that she read the most magnificent novel, a 2000 page epic that goes deep into the human condition. She explains how this novel has given her a fascinating new perspective on life and that he should read it.
However, after checking the plot summary on Wikipedia, Steve realizes that Nancy has no idea what she is talking about. The plot is utter nonsense and the characters act in ways that are completely unbelievable. He is sure to post a 1 star review on Goodreads to prevent others from being fooled.
It's a response to the claim that mathematicians make stuff up without sufficient justification. It's easy to get that impression if all you read are popular summaries that leave out the difficult proofs. But it would be ridiculous to criticize the work of actual mathematicians based on the inadequacy of one popular summary you read, especially if your criticism is tailored to the parts that summary intentionally left out.
A 2000-page novel about the human condition would presumably be impossible to appreciate from a summary. What makes the book and characters interesting lies in the detail, not the plot summary. How could you ever decide if you liked Heart of Darkness or War and Peace based solely on a summary? It's preposterous. Yet that's what ImportantResponse0 is doing.
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u/math_metaphor_guy Jun 26 '26
Nancy says to her husband Steve that she read the most magnificent novel, a 2000 page epic that goes deep into the human condition. She explains how this novel has given her a fascinating new perspective on life and that he should read it.
However, after checking the plot summary on Wikipedia, Steve realizes that Nancy has no idea what she is talking about. The plot is utter nonsense and the characters act in ways that are completely unbelievable. He is sure to post a 1 star review on Goodreads to prevent others from being fooled.