Customer Reviews

Mrs Einstein Pb

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I just finished this excellent little book. I've read the other reviews in this section and count myself fortunate for not taking the book too seriously. Perhaps that is why I so thoroughly enjoyed it. The author has created a marvelous central character in Lieserl. She is exquisitely drawn, the matrix of her emotions and motivations crystal clear without being tedious. There are two stories running in tandem here; the apocryphal story of Einstein's daughter and her integral involvement in the development of the atom bomb, and the story of this extraordinary woman's personal development through soul-numbing deprivation and loss. And it's funny. The "science" of the first story is beautifully foiled by the spirituality of the second. Sure we've seen this story before, though not lately, and as far as I know NEVER with a woman as the central character. I do not hesitate to recommend this book with the following caveat; if you take it too seriously you may throw it down in disgust within the first 50 pages. I have a feeling the author would agree.

This novel joins Michael Ondaatje's "The English Patient" in raising important questions about the development of nuclear weapons and the decision made to use them at the conclusion of World War II. It is time for our literature to begin examining these issues. We have countless fictional works based on the holocaust in Germany, and certainly, we need these works. We need to understand what happened, and how it could have happened. Too often, however, American and British authors find the answer all too easily. They simply create a fictional universe in which the German people share a passion for sadism carried to extremes and an average IQ of about 50. So much of this literature becomes formulaic, and finally, silly. You do not have to scratch "Winds of War" too deeply to discover Colonel Clink. Meanwhile, we have our own unpardonable act, which we have not until recently brought into critical focus. Ondaatje lulls his readers' attention away from the horrors of war in the charmed atmosphere of the abandoned hospital where the English patient lays. This idyll shatters suddenly with the sapper's undeniable utterance. "You would not have dropped this weapon on a white people." McGrail's novel moves in a similar way. Einstein's abandoned, illegitimate daughter Lieserl slowly ceases to be a human character, and becomes instead that aspect of human intellect that made the bomb possible. She is the mathematics. She has no morals, no religion, no values. She is not impeded by national boundaries or physical limitations. She is a force, supposedly driven by revenge, but that motive cannot be examined too closely. In fact, Lieserl does not work as a character with human motivations, and limitations. The reader has to accept her as a type of abstraction or the story becomes entirely implausible. This woman can change her identity and nationality by the simple act of changing her name. She and her companion sail across boundaries and easily assimilate into the most closed communities. In the context of the American project to create the bomb, Lieserl becomes the cloud that obscures the light of ethical considerations from the teams of scientists working on the project. She is the abstract knowledge, blameless yet responsible. After the unthinkable occurs, however, Lieserl has a moment of self-awareness. She suddenly realizes that once they had the bomb, the politicians, ignorant of its actual power, incapable of understanding anything close to its destructiveness, would certainly use it, and use it proudly. The novel brings home the fact that some of those working on the project knew exactly what they were unleashing on the world. We need to ask ourselves, "What can they have been thinking? Why did they pursue this unwelcome knowledge? Did they really imagine that the politicians would refrain from using it?" Once the moment of revelation is past, however, the novel does not hold together. McGrail tries to return her character to the mundane considerations of domestic life, and she really cannot do that. Lieserl's has to remain figurative in order to be believable. This is really a minor problem, however. The development of this interesting figure for a mysterious aspect of the human intellect rewards the reader amply.

If you're in the right mood for it, this story will just pick you up and carry you along. It covers a whole century, several continents, an ever-changing cast of characters, and all takes place just at the edges of major historical events. It will give you a different view of the breakthroughs in physics over the past one hundred years, and also give you an idea of what it must be like to live a life in the grips of an obsession.

I've never read anything that gives such an odd revisionist take on history written so well before - and the writing will certainly engage you.

I agree totally with the writer from SC--if you decide to villify a personality that has reached such a positive iconic status in our culture, you better be able to back it up with some real emotions as motivators. The writer does not.

This is a fast-reading book. It's amazing that this book was written from only a few factual events of Einstein's daughter's existence. But then....that's fiction. I thought the "scientific" thread running through the book was too fundamental: pre-physics 101. I had the feeling that the author assumed I wasn't capable of grasping something a little heavier.

The reason for Lieserl's complelling desire to destroy a father she never met, was not brought out as strongly as her desire for that revenge. Something more important than "she felt abandoned" would have been nice. She sacrificed a husband, her children, and herself for some undefined reason. I guess that would make her worse than the father she sought to "destroy."

The parallel of Maja and she to the chaos/order of the universe was interesting. Maja had the ability to control the chaos and create a certain order in their own little cosmos. While interminably depressed Lieser! l simply accepted herself as a constant without the ability to change, Maja utilized everything available to alter the "inevitable." In many ways Maja was a more interesting and complex character. She was both pragmatic in home and education matters, yet she was a progressive female aware of her powers. The ending truly lacked credabilty. Lieserl lived entirely too long and the book should have ended 30 pages earlier.

I was engrossed while reading it, yet the book lacked a real story line. The author, however, is a poetic writer. Some of her prose is poetry. :>)

An excellent read - I couldn't put it down. It is very subtle and very clever. I know I'll read it again.

I must rebut the comments of the reader from Santa Clara who called this book "boring & predictable" and "written very poorly." MRS. EINSTEIN is certainly one of the most compelling and unusual novels of the past several years. Missing it would be a great loss. The scientific discussions of gravity and light, of relativity, and of nuclear fission are expertly woven into the thematic fabric of the novel, spun delicately into the order/chaos images that flow through the book. This, my friends, is an epic, moving from turn-of-the century Hungary through WWI, the influenza of 1918, the rise of the Third Reich, WWII and finally to Los Alamos. How can that be "boring" even from the pen of the most pedestrian writer? Anna McGrail has not only created a convincing and heartbreaking character in Leiserl, the illegitimate daughter of Albert Einstein, but developed one of the most original and fascinating friendships between two women (between Leiserl and her one-time German teacher and life-long confidente, the amazing Maja) in all of contemporary fiction. A true discovery, both this gifted writer and her unforgettable piece of work.

This book is so boring and predictable. The author's insertion of scientific knowledge is rather dull and elementary. It does not flow well with the story, she just puts an idea from general relativity theory in the middle of a paragraph without any intro or reference to it. This is a story of a mad woman who lives her life for the sole purpose of revenge and hatred toward her father, but the author does not really even clarifies the source of such strong emotions. This book is written very poorly, it's a mere anthology of facts, some made up story and lots of basic and painfully elementary scientific knowledge of the author.

Already in the UK, from where I review, this is a beautifully written, if challenging book. But its more your (America's) history than mine. (A similar treatment of Alan Turing would be welcome).

For those not farmilliar with the astonishing events which led to the Bomb, its morality, its characters and the science, this will faithfully take you through that journey.

For those already familiar it challenges the accepted historical record through believable construction. It was only on the thirdish reading (to check out if the allagories were consistent) that I became convinced that the principles of quantum and relativistic physics are embodied in the characters and their actions. If this was accidental it is good fortune, if meant its exceptional writing.

It works as a story and as an alagory. Its unusual to come across a book where the ending is so right, yet so unexpected.

I might have given it full marks, but the English cover is a bit too Yellowish.

There's much to admire in Anna McGrail's "Mrs. Einstein." The author has a good grasp of the major discoveries of 20th Century physics and their historical importance. She has created well-defined characters, and spun out their odyssey briskly. And she can evoke the feel of bygone times and places. It would seem that the ingredients for a superior novel are at hand.

But it doesn't quite jell--except possibly as a female parable. As mainstream fiction, "Mrs. Einstein" shows its superstructure and premises too nakedly, and fails to develop a life of its own. For some reviewers, this flaw seems to work as a kind of magic realism, and to enhance the book's power. But the story and style are as romantic as they are realistic, and the "magic" can get grating at times, particularly at the end, with its sudsy sentimentalism worthy of a new YaYa Sisterhood. All in all, though, "Mrs. Einstein" is a clever yarn that covers interesting ground. I'm glad I read it.