Trinity College, Oxford
During my trip to England earlier this month I made a quick visit to a friend who’s teaching in my college’s summer program at Oxford University. When I showed my 5-year-old my pictures of the trip, like this one of Trinity College, she asked me why the buildings in England are all so pretty. It’s a fairly accurate assessment, at least as far as Oxford is concerned!
When, only two days after my visit, I saw Guillermo Martínez’s The Oxford Murders (2005, translated by Sonia Soto) at Foyle’s I knew I just had to pick it up, and I read the whole thing on the plane on the way home. It’s the story of a South American mathematician who gets a scholarship to study in Oxford for a year; only a few days later his landlady, Mrs. Eagleton, is murdered in the beginning of a series of mysterious deaths that have a mathematical connection. The narrator, along with famed logician Arthur Seldom, works to figure out what the symbols, left in notes by the killer, mean in order to predict — and prevent — the next murder.
The math (or should I say “maths”?) and logic part was less off-putting than I feared, and it’s more than counterbalanced by the narrative — regarding not only the murders but also the narrator’s experiences as he settles in at the university. The story is sprinkled with references to such Oxford landmarks as the Eagle and Child, High Street, the Covered Market and the Bodleian library. For that reason I’m passing it on to my friends who’ve taught in the Grady at Oxford program over the years, but I’d recommend it to anyone who loves universities and an intellectual challenge.
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