OK, I read the first half of this yesterday and I'm definitely enjoying it. Few quick thoughts on what I've read and on what you lot have said already.
First, on the translation, am I missing something on this bit (page 19 of my edition) or is it a mistake or what?
"..wholesome, quadrangular, ,and weighty as Pythagoras's pants"
Also, when he's talking about the square root of minus one and it's described as irrational - surely that's not right? In fact his problem with irrational numbers doesn't really seem to make sense, how could he be a mathematician that can design a space rocket without using irrational numbers (pi for one)?
"Also - the style - notes sent to the future, from a ( from the narrators stance ) perfect society to less perfected civilisations"
I like this idea but I'm not sure he pulls it off perfectly. The first few pages of the book where he describes what is going on and how they have no feelings and stuff doesn't quite ring true - I don't think it ever can really. On the other hand it's very readable indeed and it immediately feels quite ambitious in what it's setting out to do and to reconcile those two things is difficult.
"Wrried about the women in the novel - reminded me of the problems i had with julia in 1984."
Think I'd agree with that - what's all that stuff when he starts going on about how "women are lips"?
"was interested in the bits where he 'died'"
This has only happened once so far but I wasn't exactly sure what it was supposed to represent.
"..and all Russian readers would know that Pushkin had a black great grandfather."
Ta, wouldn't have known that myself.
So far, I like the style, I like the story and I'm enjoying it. It has got a bit more confusing in the last few pages with the disjointed sentences and words and dot-dot-dots but I think that, at the moment at least, it's working for me as showing the narrator's increasing confusion, we'll see how it goes I guess.