A Few Nice Things and a Few Problems with "The Kekulé Problem"

Abstract

abstract:Peter Josyph considers McCarthy's most recent work, a nonfiction essay titled "The Kekulé Problem" and published in Nautilus in 2017. He reads it as a kind of memoir, "notes of a mental traveller," and more revealing of direct personal experience than any of McCarthy's writing to date. Josyph considers the background of the story about the German chemist Frederich August von Kekulé that's at the heart of the essay and how McCarthy engages with the ideas it presents.