This was an absorbing graphic novel. It is a rarity for me in this format—nonfiction. The subject of the biography, Alan Turing, was an inherently intriguing man. As a science fiction nerd I knew some things about him: he was English, he was a genius, he broke the Nazi's Enigma code, he created the test for artificial intelligence, and he was convicted of the "crime" of homosexuality in the 1950's. What I did not know, filled the rest of the book.
The book unfolds in an unusual way, alternating between Turing narrating his own life and "interviews" with people from his life. I'm not sure about these. They seem to interview people from different periods of his life. Who is questioning them is not made clear. I wonder if it was meant to be a representation of the imitation game that Turing himself created. Who is telling the truth? Who is lying? To what degree is it a lie or a different interpretation of events? Those being questioned are represented in shades of black and white. Turing, narrating the story, seems to be able to interact with them.
He was a genius. This was made clear. His grasp of mathematics was phenomenal. He made created of the foundational principles of modern computer science. He used his mathematical skills to decipher the Nazi's Enigma codes. This was fiendishly difficult to do. And he was in "competition" with another there who believed that people were superior to machines when it came to code breaking. The codebreaking project so impressed Winston Churchill that he instructed the military to provide them with whatever they asked for.
The topic of his homosexuality is handled tactfully. It was apparently an open secret during his time working for the government during World War II. He himself never seemed to understand that it was literally a crime. The laws have since changed, but that did no good for him. It was especially a tragic irony that his war service was still classified and his character witnesses could not tell the court what it was he had done for the country. Rather shabby treatment.
The math in the book was sometimes hard for me to follow. I am an English teacher, though, and used to math being hard to follow. I think I will be rereading this. I want to go back and try to better understand more of the details. Get to know Turing’s ideas better. Get to know Turing better.
I would definitely recommend this. It is well worth the reading.
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