Simon: The Genius in My Basement

Masters (Stuart: A Life Backwards) adds to his biographical gallery of English eccentrics with this sprightly portrait of a math prodigy matured into squalid serenity. He profiles Simon Norton, his erstwhile Cambridge landlord and a once famous mathematician who made pioneering contributions to group theory, now the picture of uncouth, unworldly genius. Writing in a droll, quirky style festooned with cartoons, diagrams, and candid snapshots, the author wallows in Simon’s splendid oddities: the cave-like basement apartment (or “excavation”) crammed with trash, paperbacks, and expired transit timetables; the grungy clothes, shaggy hair, and revolting fish and rice diet; the articulate grunts and bizarre non sequiturs; the stealthy approach and fixed gaze that make women shriek in startlement; the obsessive traveling on, mapping of, and campaigning for the British bus and rail system. (The book includes engaging chapters on the rudiments of group theory, but Simon’s mathematical theories are too abstruse for laymen and the author merely gestures at them to convey his blinkered brilliance.) Masters mines what is clearly a galloping case of Asperger’s for insights into the nature of genius, with only limited success. Still, his hilarious and supple prose, vivid observations, and exasperated affection for Simon make for a fascinating study of an improbably happy life. Photos. Agent: George Lucas. (Mar.)