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This book was a bit difficult for me to get into, but once I did I found it to be extremely facinating. Truely, I am still absorbing all it had to say, but I have a few things I find to be very noteworthy.

The similarities between Flatland and Galileo are undeniable, almost to the point where I would say that this is simply Abbott's revision, rather than Brecht's, of the story of Galileo. Though obviously a much more abstract interpretation, Flatland portrays many of the same ideas.

I think that a lot of my fellow collegues have already noted the depressingly vivid degradation of women in Flatland, and I would just like to point out that Virginia in Brecht's Galileo is also portrayed as dull, unintelligent, and over emotional. Also, the whole premise of one scientific thinger seeking truth against the beliefs of the whole society he lives in is a quality that A.Square and Galileo share, except that A.Square is shown the way by the outside force which is the Sphere and is, at first, reluctant to believe these changes in perception himself, where as Galileo discovers the discrepency between common belief and the true orbit of the planets on his own, and immediately attmepts to spread the word.

In both accounts, the people of power are convinced that if such knowledge were to made known and accepted as true, the whole structure of their current society would crumble and perhaps break in to chaos - a chaos in which the individuals once held to their pre-destined social status would possibly be able to think for themselves and break out of there lowly conditions.

On of the most interesting sections of Flatland for me, I think, was the part about the Point which had no demention, no concept of anything other than himself. He is "One and All, being Nothing really" (75) I am still trying to figure out what exactly I make of this, but in some ways I see it as a statement against religion...though I'm not sure. Where he then goes on to say, "Yet make mark of his perfect self-contentment, and hence learn this lessonm that to be self-contented is to be vile and ignorant, and to aspire is better than to be blindly and impotantly happy and ignorant." (75) Well, I suppose it is to do with more than religion, but any blind following, whether that be religion or government or anything else. It is interesting that when A. Square speaks to Point, Point simply believes that it is was his own thoughts that he heard, and accepts them as his own...

Anyway, this is getting a bit long winded, this was a very interesting book and I am curious to see what others have to say about it in class, as I myself am still contemplating the many levels explored.