The Genius of the World [Paperback]

Alice Lichtenstein (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 2000

Ira Stein is a brilliant, troubled boy who repudiated everything his grandfather stood for and turned to Buddha. Abby Stein, Nobel Prize-winning physicist, was present as they detonated the first atomic bomb. Twenty-six years later he visits his grandson, dying of cancer at the age of twenty-one. He is incensed by Ira's inner calm and acceptance. Ira's sister Phoebe is the fulcrum on which these two poles of the family teeter back and forth. The Genius of the World is a sensitive and spiritual novel about bridging the gap between faith and reason.

"The Genius of the World is a shattering story told with astonishing insight and redemptive clarity. This bold novel is a journey of the body and the spirit."-Melanie Rae Thon

"This is a compassionate and beautifully written first novel. It is a fine and sensitive portrait of an idiosyncratic family confronting the ironies and inevitabilities of fate."-Tony Eprile

An excerpt: Phoebe, 1976

1.

This is my theory: everyone everywhere is lying almost all the time. I am anyway.

Example. Wrote to Ira today. Told him I was happy. Told him I was beginning to see the Buddha nature, the good, in everyone and this was making me feel good.

Bull shit. I'm not seeing the Buddha nature. I'm seeing everyone's alive and oblivious to the privilege. I see that they're alive and he's going to die. I can't forgive all these blind people; can't forgive Ira for going about so calmly as if it's all a lie.

I DON'T WANT YOU TO DIE. That's what I should've written.

No one here to talk to. No one. Joanne tries, but I can't stand her tucked up in her desk chair like a cat, elbows on the desk and those reading glasses with the narrow rectangles reducing me in their lenses. Extending her forearms, she clasps her hands, leans her elbows on her propped thighs and peers at me over the rims. I swear it's some shrink trick she learned from her father. So obvious, so fake. She's only nineteen.

"How is your brother?" she asks in that whispery, throaty voice she's been cultivating all semester ("People tell me I sound like Greta Garbo," she says. In your dreams.)

That's my cue to cry, I know. To eject myself into her waiting arms, pay her her due. I stay put. N

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

From Princeton, N.J., to Berkeley, Calif., and a Buddhist ashram in San Francisco, Lichtenstein's slow-moving memoir-style debut novel chronicles the emotional dynamics of a mid-20th-century Jewish family. Alternating between the first-person perspectives of college-age Phoebe Stein, middle child and family peacemaker; her grandfather Abbey, Nobel-winning physicist and authoritative family patriarch; and her older brother, 22-year-old Ira, who, as Phoebe informs the reader in the first chapter, is dying, Lichtenstein weaves a heartfelt but dated tale. In endless back story, the reader learns of Ira's childhood learning disability and inexplicable attraction to the Buddha room in a local museum, of Phoebe's worship of Ira and Abbey's arrogance and long-term extramarital affair with the beautiful Diana. Like many of his '60s contemporaries, Ira searches for meaning in his life through drugs, and rebels against the establishment. When a friend has a bad trip, however, Ira calls the police and gives his real name. As a result, he is arrested and plea-bargained to a private drug-rehab facility. Escaping to San Francisco, Ira meets a group of bluegrass-playing Buddhists who live communally and invite him to join their band and share their religion. Ira at last finds purpose and peace, but his salvation is short-lived when he is diagnosed with a brain tumor. Ira's death and Abbey's redemption are handled movingly, but the overly familiar and tediously detailed story of a dysfunctional family prohibits the reader from engaging emotionally in the lives of the characters. (July)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

Alice Lichtenstein's first novel is an intimate record of love and loss. -- The New York Times Book Review, Nina Sonenberg

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Zoland Books; 1 edition (June 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1581950187
• ISBN-13: 978-1581950182
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,874,102 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a colorful tapestry of a modern American family, June 23, 2000

By 

"[e-mail]" - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Genius of the World (Paperback)

I enjoyed reading the book very much because it addresses many topics of interest to me: family life in America during the 60s and 70s, the struggles of youth, spirituality, religion, science, and death. I also liked the non-linear poetic structure of the book and style of writing. The relationships between the characters worked for me on many levels, and I found myself re-reading earlier sections to discover new meanings. I expect the additional insights from a second reading will make it worth the effort.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is the real thing., July 31, 2000

By 

Jon Fried - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Genius of the World (Paperback)

For me, great novels do two things really well: capture a time and a place, and capture subjective experience. A family saga captures a time and a place--or several times and places--and usually offers several subjective experiences as well. Genius of the World does all that, and does it brilliantly. But ultimately, I found the book to be about something else, something even bigger: the nature of faith and suffering in a world created by love and loss and the power of ideas. A book of heart, of power, of soul, of love; and a great read (a fast read, actually). As much as you can ask of any book. The mystery and emotion that are summoned by the ending get to me even now. A great novel.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Beautifully written, but incomplete, February 22, 2007

By 

Dijou (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Genius of the World: A Novel (Paperback)

I fully agree with the peview reviewer who said:

"As a reader, I often wanted more of Ira's world view than could reasonably be inferred from the vantage point of his younger sister. The author has attempted to give us more, I think, but the fullness with which Ira's character might have been fleshed out is never adequately realized."

Although I enjoyed reading the book (with the exceptions of those chapters written from the grandfather's perspective as I don't believe they added anything at all to the understanding of him or the other characters or the narrative), I was left feeling unsatisfied when I had finished.