Flatland

Reading Flatland was pretty interesting. I was only familiar with the concept of Flatland as an explanation of dimensions and why we have trouble imagining or describing what a fourth dimension might be like. I had not realized that the original story was more about politics and society than mathematical ideas.

I'm no expert on class hierarchy issues of England in the 1800s, but a couple of things stuck out to me about the society of Flatland. One was the importance of recognizing someone's class or occupation on sight. There mas much more concern for that than for recognizing an individual. The other was the idea that shapes act the way they do because of the shape that they are. In part seven the narrator dismisses the idea that an Irregular shape might behave badly because they are mistreated, rather than because they are irregular. That's still a relevant issue now -- are people just products of their environment? How much of someone's behavior is an inherent trait?

I also like that the narrator breaks the fourth wall and talks to the reader as a citizen of “Spaceland.” He talks about how wonderful the third dimension is, since it has light and shadow, etc. It makes “Spaceland” seem like an alien universe, like we might imagine a fourth dimension would be. It also gives a little perspective on how much changes between two dimensions and three.