Customer Reviews

Driving Mr. Albert: A Trip Across America With Einstein's Brain

5 star:		(34)
4 star:		(36)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(15)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

I read this book in a single day, laughing out loud every few pages and ignoring incoming phonecalls, visitors, and mealtimes along the way--whatever might come between me and Driving Mr. Albert. It's a quirky, sweet, smart, and sometimes sad tale built on the backs of three great characters--Michael Paterniti, Dr. Harvey, and Einstein's brain. The writing is stunning straight through, Paterniti's reflections on life and love belong in Bartlett's, and the mad trio's visits to Los Alamos, Vegas, and William S. Burroughs poise this book as the 21st century version of On The Road. A thrilling, fun read... I can't recommend it more.

I don't know where to begin . . . a spectacular journey across America and through the mind and heart of a redoubtable writer with a singular voice and vision, and with two of the most unique characters as mates - Einstein as you have never known him before, hovering like a giant sun over the passengers carrying his brain, and Dr. Harvey, an eccentric, enigmatic real life Frank J. Parnell ("Ever heard of the neutron bomb?"). I heard about this book on The Connection on NPR and immediately went out, bought it, and read it in two nights. It was far better than I even expected. The juxtaposition of Einstein's lack of intimacy and personal relationships with the writer's own need for it, and fear of leaving it behind, permanently, as he drives down America's highways with an octagenerian and a genius's brain in the trunk. The details of Einstein's life that provide a picture of Einstein as person and demigod. The trip itself, including a quintessentially William S. Burroughs moment with Mr. Burroughs himself. Truly engrossing reading. Once in a great while, a book like this comes out and redeems my faith that authentic, fresh storytelling as artform is alive and well. Brain jam through the latest great american road trip. I can't reccommend it enough.

This is an amazing and poetic work, almost as full of ideas as the legendary brain itself. Paterniti is a gloriously gifted writer, blessed with the ability to explore both big ideas and small moments in unnervingly fresh ways. I'd recommend Driving Mr. Albert to anybody fascinated by the highways and byways of the human brain or the American landscape, or to anybody who simply loves good writing.

This is a great rendering of one of the most bizarre folktales in scientific history..the fate of Einstein's brain. You simply can't spend a more entertaining few hours this summer than with this hilarious and poignant book..

"Driving Mr. Albert" will surprise you as it did me. The insights into Einstein's genius and his personal relationships (or lack of as it turns out) are facinating. However, the delightful surprise here is the encounters and digressions as Harvey and Paterniti (and Einstein's brain) make their way cross-country. The events are wild (dinner with a high, swashbuckling William Burroughs), weird ( Samual Dinsmoor's cement 'Garden of Eden' near Lucas, Kansas) and hilarious ( the off-the-wall Pakistani check-in man in Santa Monica and the ongoing fencing between the illusive Harvey and the writer as Paterniti trys to see the brain). You keep wanting more and Paterniti gives it to you all the way to California where Harvey's unexpected reaction upon finally meeting Evelyn Einstein is a stopper. All this is written beautifully by Paterniti with descriptions and philosophies of the road that make you reflect between laughs. This is a must read for summer.

'To be honest I thought it would be a caper. That's what I imagined. And I thought the old doctor was a true eccentric, which would be entertaining. And yet desire is a tricky thing. It can change a quick outing to the store for milk into a lifelong, shoeless quest through the Himalayas in search of enlightenment. It can put you on the road to Canterbury without your realizing it at first. And some version of that is what happened.' ---That is the first paragraph of Driving Mr. Albert by Michael Paterniti. And that is the opening hint of this madcap pilgrimage that he and an 84-year-old doctor took across America, Einstein's brain in tupperware between them like a religious relic. With all the incandescence of Einstein himself, Paterniti writes the song of America and sings how we live and hope and believe in this beautiful chaos, how we make a home in the world. It's the hero's quest brought up-to-date, the call to adventure, the road of trials, and the ultimate boon has been distilled into this elegant handbook for how we live now. Savor this one, you've never read anything like it.

A thoughtful and entertaining and totally unique spin on the classic road trip myth, Paterniti's work is rife with mind-spinning speculation and hilarious slices of American pie. A great book for either the beach or the think tank, DMA can be taken as lightly or as seriously as the reader likes. Either way, it's a compelling, thought-provoking read.

Super book - different than anything else I've ever read. I went into it without any preconceived notions and not really knowing where the book would go or what it was about with any detail, and just took the ride. If you are looking for an offbeat, satisfying book that makes you think a little, read it.

I bought this book with the intention of placing it in my bathroom for an occasional reading. I wound up finishing the book in a few hours and buying a couple copies as gifts for friends.

This book is a very entertaining tale, ideal for a trip to the beach.

Here's an ultimate meta-book: a memoir about driving across country with the man whose fame rests on having removed and kept the brain of Albert Einstein. The glow of the glow of the glow!

Thomas Harvey, the physician who performed the autopsy on Einstein, is himself, as sketched here, a somewhat melancholy character, and Paterniti himself is trying to find some meaning for his existence, which he achieves by marrying his long-time love Sara and by writing the memoir itself.

Along the way we get a fragmented thumbnail sketch of Einstein's life and loves, descriptions of Americana from Dodge City to Las Vegas to San Jose, and a meeting with Einstein's granddaughter.

The book is a meditation on fame and the meaning of life in post-Einstein, post-nuclear-bomb America. It sports some lovely poetic prose, poignant ironies, and memorable images.

I hope Michael Paterniti continues his meditations and next gives us a memoir about life in Portland, Maine.