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Last weekend, I was wandering through my local bookstore when I chanced upon Alan P. Lightman's collection of essays DANCE FOR TWO. I remembered reading Lightman's EINSTEIN DREAMS and GOOD BENITO in college over 10 years ago, when I picked them up from the student bookstore because I liked the way the books felt in my hand, and, after reading them, I liked the way Lightman's prose stuck in my memory. So I added DANCE FOR TWO to my stack of purchases and read it over the last two nights. I was not disappointed. DANCE FOR TWO is a collection of 24 short essays that Lightman has published over the last 15 years in various magazines and journals. Each essay is written in a economical, nearly austere, style that is reminiscent of the clear, autumn days on the East Coast that must have influenced Lightman. Though the prose is spare and distilled, the essays themselves are strangely moving. In reading, "Smile", a boy-meets-girl story reduced to the mechanics of the eye, ear, and brain, I got choked up when I read the ending lines "All of this is known. What is not known is why, after about a minute, the man walks over to the woman and smiles." I still don't know why I got choked up. Unfortunately, like any collection of short works, some of the essays that would be quite enjoyable on their own pale in comparisons to the more beautiful siblings. While most of the essays here are excellent, one or two only rise to the merely good. The subject of these essays is ostensibly about the role of science in everyday human experience, and Lightman does a masterful job of communicating sometimes complex topics into common language. But, as the title of the collection suggests, a dualistic theme pervades throughout the book.Read more ›
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Few things are good enough to make me cry. This book did, and after reading the intro and first chapter. Some people are born with 'old souls': Lightman is one. A scientist explains how the universe works lyrically, and with passion. Some of finest prose on cosmology since Chaucer. Completely accessible. Damned near perfection. A keeper. Great material for bedtime stories, for all ages.
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful
These 24 essays, written during the past 15 years, were chosen because, on retrospection, they pleased the author. They are sure to please the reader, too. Their stage is the ever-fascinating interface between science and the arts. Have you ever pondered that the upward force generated by the churning electrons and protons in the molecules of the stage floor opposes and exactly counterbalances the downward force that the weight of the ballerina exerts on the floor? Or that as she completes her leap, the earth's orbit readjusts itself by a trillionth of an atom's width? Lightman has pondered these and other matters, and describes all in graceful, accurate and compelling prose. Several events in the book, like the building of a bomb shelter, appear in a fictional setting in Lightman's novel "Good Benito," leading me to wonder if other chapters of his first novel are autobiographical, also. Several humorous essays describe imaginary visits by Newton, Einstein, and others to Lightman's twilight zone. These visits always end with an unexpectd twist, leaving this reader gasping for reality--and for more. One of Lightman's many perceptive messages can be found on p. 95 where he says, "Science offers little comfort to anyone who asks to leave behind a personal message in his work." Of course, this impersonality is undoubtedly the key to the great success of science. But in bringing his own wry and perceptive slant to 'writing' about science, Lightman is able to have his cake and eat it too, conveying an entertaining message which is both scientifically informative and yet gratifyingly personal.
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Brilliantly written stories whose themes revolve around science and scientists and their interactions with art, society, history and life in general. Gives science a human touch, makes it more personal and approachable to anyone. Makes us think about the universe around us and the lives we lead and how everything untimately ties together. I liked it even more the second time I read it.
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many, if not most, scientists beleive in evolution and that science is the leading force of this universe. Alan Lightman so simply proves it not so. Through everyday circumstances he displays a larger force at work, a demonstration rarely seen, heard, or read. My career is in the science field and the internal battle between science and religion is constant in my life. Now I read 'Smile' and 'In His Image' when I question that. All of these essays are brilliant and insightful. I recommend this book not only to my friends, but my librarian as well.
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When I was a junior undergrad, a fellow student-a physics major-recommended Alan Lightman's _Einstein's Dreams_ as one of his favorite books. Having had a small taste of physics in a mechanics course that fall, I was hungry for more-especially since we stopped just short of an introduction to relativity. I picked up a copy to read over winter break, and that novel became one of my favorites, as well. Five years later, I've finally gotten around to reading more of Lightman's work.
_Dance for Two_ is a collection of essays centered on the interplay, differences, and similarities between science and art. "It seems to me," Lightman observes, "that in both science and art we are trying desperately to connect with something-this is how we achieve universality. In art, that something is people, their experiences and sensitivities. In science, that something is nature, the physical world and physical laws." And pure science, he believes, offers a kind of immortality akin to that of great art: "Hundreds of years from now, when automobiles bore us, we will still treasure the discoveries of Kepler and Einstein, along with the plays of Shakespeare and the symphonies of Beethoven."
The essays are themselves artfully written, sometimes vividly poetic, sometimes almost musical in their composition. The opening piece, "Pas de Deux," describes the physical forces acting opposite a ballerina with no less delicacy than we imagine of the dance itself. It is as if she dances not alone on stage, but with all of nature as her partner, each move paired in exquisite synchrony.
Lightman balances fictional narratives and beautifully detailed explorations of natural processes with autobiographical essays on his own journey as a scientist.Read more ›
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