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Obsessive Genius: The Inner World of Marie Curie (Great Discoveries)

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Obsessive Genius is an utterly fascinating portrait of a hallowed and difficult subject. If you are a fan of Goldsmith's work, (I am) you will immediately see that she is the perfect person to give Curie the complexity and dimension she deserves --as a scientist and as a woman. It's a short book which is by turns moving, informative, and intriguingly unexpected. I couldn't put it down.

The author has discovered the truth of Marie curie's impoverished, Dickensian , childhood, has read papers sealed for 60 years (some radioactive!) to get this incredible story, the truth behind the legend. Every library should have this sensational and deeply inforrmative book and so should book clubs and anyone who wants a great read. A bestseller for sure. If there were more than five stars that's how I'd rate it.

A must read!!!

I learned of this book in the magazine section of my Sunday newspaper. I strongly doubted that a nonfiction book would be able to hold my interest for long as they can be so dry and tedious, but the topic sounded interesting, the review was promising and as I am a huge historical fiction reader I thought it might be worth a try. I am so grateful that I ran across that recommendation or I would have missed out on a real gem!

The story grabbed me in right from page one. I couldn't wait to find some free time to be able to get back to reading! While definitely written as nonfiction, the story at times reads like a simple novel with short dialogue, letter excerpts and diary entries. These personal touches add a wonderful element to the book. The scientific explanations were presented very simplistically and were easy enough to understand. They too, added a wonderful and important element to the story.

Marie Curie's life was fascinating: a woman of rare intelligence and genius, she was also plagued by severe depression (especially after the loss of her beloved Pierre) and faced the constant struggle to prove herself and receive her much deserved credit in what was a very male-dominated field. Yet despite these struggles, her devotion to science and her world-changing discoveries never diminished; they enveloped her very soul. I must admit that at times, when reading about her accomplishments and the ease at which science came to her, I felt alittle inadequate and less than intelligent. She was an inspiration!

I was very happy to discover the wonderful coincidence that while I was reading this book, the anniversary of Marie Curie's discovery of radium and radioactivity took place. I strongly recommend this book to anyone that has an interest in science, history, women's rights, medicine or just plain life!

Kudos to social historian and biographer Barbara Goldsmith for her newest achievement, the insightful and compelling "Obsessive Genius: The Inner World of Marie Curie." This is no dry scientific treatise merely listing Curie's accomplishments in science, but an in-depth study of the very human side of this extraordinary woman and subsequently, the coterie of family, friends and peers who entered her realm. Ms. Goldsmith does make complicated scientific material accessible, indeed, understandable; however, she goes much further, examining the forces which aligned to create the eponymous Curie's character and enormous drive to achieve, which directed every aspect of her life. Through access to Curie's personal diaries and papers, previously unavailable for the past 60 years, as well as copious additional material, Ms. Goldsmith has culled a most fascinating portrait of a most fascinating personality. This book demands that yet another feather be placed in Barbara Goldsmith's literary cap (her previous titles include: "Other Powers: The Age of Suffrage, Spiritualism, and the Scandalous Victoria Woodhull," "Little Gloria...Happy At Last," "Johnson vs. Johnson," and "The Straw Man"). I highly recommend this biography to anyone interested in science, women's struggle for equal rights, the psychology of genius.......in short, anyone interested in an informative and thrilling "read!"

It is difficult now to imagine that women were once regarded as categorically unable to fulfill certain careers. When there is a large scientific meeting now, no one is surprised that women should be in attendance, although it can be argued that women's participation in science is still limited or lacking in recognition. The archetypal woman scientist is the one who broke all the rules of her time, Marie Curie, but even so, she didn't win all her battles. When she and her husband Pierre jointly won the Nobel Prize in 1903, she was forced to sit among the audience while Pierre gave the lecture of acceptance. There were many such episodes in her life, and that she didn't furiously withdraw from her busy research due to such rebuffs is remarkable. There is certainly a feminist message in her story, and in _Obsessive Genius: The Inner World of Marie Curie_ (Atlas Books / Norton), Barbara Goldsmith has allowed the life to deliver the message, realizing that editorializing on the matter is unneeded. Not only did Marie overcome social obstacles, she overcame her own cycles of profound depression that troubled her throughout her life, to become an enormously productive scientist. Goldsmith's book is a welcome recall of an inspiring story.

Marya Salomee Sklodowska was born in 1867 in Russian-occupied Poland. Marie was an extremely bright student, and eventually was one of two women getting science degrees at the Sorbonne in Paris (Warsaw schools did not admit women). She had vowed never to let passion triumph over her research, but the two combined when she met Pierre Curie. He had also shared her attitude against falling in love, feeling that women "draw us away from dedication." The marriage was a strong one, but the scientific collaboration was nearly perfect. Within his lab, she took his suggestion to investigate the rays given off by uranium and other elements which had been discovered to produce images on photographic plates. These were something like the x-rays that had made a sensation, but the images were far less clear and dramatic. Scientists were fascinated with x-rays, but most thought that these other vague rays were not worth pursuing. Marie had a huge workload, having to fiddle with sensitive equipment like electrometers that would only yield useful results if handled with exhausting precision, and at the other end of the scale, having literally tons of pitchblende which she painstakingly fractionalized down to a few grains of radium. Pierre was killed by a horse-drawn wagon in 1906; he was limping and unsteady at the time from bone deterioration, so the radium may have directly caused his death. Goldsmith lists one famous scientist after another who during the decades doubted Marie's results because of her sex. All her life, even when she became famous throughout the world, she would be denied recognition or appointments simply because she was not a man.

Marie went on to further discoveries, and also to practical inventions. During the First World War, she was inspired to invent mobile x-ray units, cars equipped with x-ray equipment that could be dispatched to battle-front hospitals, especially for the urgent job of locating bullets and shrapnel for the surgeons to remove. The units, called "Les Petites Curie," only took off as invaluable tools once Marie persuaded bureaucrats that women could serve as drivers and technicians. She continued to work at the Curie Institute, which profited by the ill-advised fashion of adding radium to lipstick and drinking water, and also got funding from those contributing to it thinking that radium was being investigated as a cure for cancer. She was covered in skin lesions, especially on her hands, when she died in 1934. Goldsmith's brisk, sympathetic portrait of a driven woman benefits from having excellent descriptions of the historic thoughts about x-rays, radiation, and atoms. Marie's obsession eventually killed her, but for her, the work was more important than the life. She wrote, "I never see what has been done; I only see what remains to be done."

I'm working on a project about Curie, so I've read several biographies about her thus far. This book isn't absolutely terrible, but I think it handles Curie poorly. It underexplains much about her life and motivations, gives little due to the science behind her work, and goes out of its way to make her "inner world" excessively dramatic. Curie's story is amazing and fascinating, but this book sacrifices explanatory detail and historical context in favor of an emotionally simplified (and thus more boring) version of the person. Even the title is misleading -- Curie was dedicated to her work and slightly reclusive, but she was hardly an obsessive personality.

I encourage you to please check out the longer but much more engrossing biography by Susan Quinn (titled Marie Curie: A Life (Radcliffe Biography Series)), which provides the historical and scientific context necesssary to make Curie's story really come alive.

This is a comprehensive and insightful look into the life of a brilliant scientist, Marie Curie. It is an intimate portrait of her triumphs and hard times. Blessed with superior intellect and a knack for science, she was determined not to let sexist trends of the time hold her back. Curie learned complicated math and science at a young age with her father's help and her fierce study habits. Science was everything to her. Although this book is melodramatic at times, the psychology of Marie Curie is very interesting; she led a wonderful and tragic life. Goldsmith effectively describes the intensity of her achievements against the odds, and reveals her inner world. Her husband Pierre was her flame, her partner in science and in life; once that flame went out, she lost her spirit. Reading this book will make you see her in a totally different way.

Over the years, Barbara Johnson has published numerous biographies of strong women having to compete in a male dominated world. "Other Powers" (1999) is the story of the 19th-century feminist Victoria Woodhull and is similar in tone to this tale of scientist Marie Curie who would win the Nobel Prize twice.

"Obsessive Genius" traces the career and loves of Marie Curie (1867-1934) who pioneered early research into uranium and radioactivity. As the title suggests, she combined a brilliant mind with an obsession for her work -- dangerous work which would later cause her death and the deaths of her daughter and son-in-law. Losing her soul mate scientist husband in a tragic accident in 1906, she would fall in love with another scientist five years later. Alas, the scientist was also married and she suffered a nervous breakdown from the ensuing public scandal.

Ms. Johnson has written a clear and concise biography without getting bogged down in the minutiae of her daily life or of her scientific experiments. It is recommended reading for the reader who is interested in this determined woman who blazed a trail for other women scientists to follow.

+++++

"My own obsession lies in an investigation of the vast disparity between image and reality. The mythical Madame Curie remains perhaps the most famous woman scientist in the world...There is no doubt that over the last century Madame Curie's life has evolved into a towering image of perfection. But behind the image was a real woman. It was that person I wished to pursue."

The above comes near the end of the introduction of author and historian Barbara Goldsmith's easy-to-read book subtitled "The Inner World of Marie Curie." She does indeed take us into Curie's "inner world" peeling away the layers of myth and giving us an unforgettable portrait of Polish immigrant Marie Curie nee Marya (Manya) Salomee Sklodowska, known to the world as Madame Curie.

This book can be divided into four sections:

(1) The time (1867 to 1895) that Marie was unmarried (chapters 1 to 4).
(2) The time (1896 to 1906) when she was married to the distinguished physicist Pierre Curie to become Madame Marie Curie (chapters 5 to 12). She along with her husband and one other scientist shared the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1903.
(3) The time (1907 to 1934) when she was without Pierre (chapters 13 to 20). She won an unshared Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1911.
(4) A profiling of Madame Curie's two female children, their families, and their significant achievements (chapter 21).

She and Pierre won the 1903 Nobel Prize, "in recognition of the extraordinary services they have rendered by their joint researches on the radiation phenomena." She won the 1911 Prize "in recognition of her services to the advancement of chemistry by the discovery of the [radioactive] elements radium and polonium, by the isolation of radium, and the study of the nature and compounds of this remarkable element."

I disagree with the above "Publishers Weekly Editorial Review" that says this book "is weakest at explaining the theoretical basis for Curie's scientific breakthroughs." I found the science was well explained and understandable.

I did, however, find a few minor inaccuracies in this book. One major inaccuracy is when Goldsmith states that one of Curie's daughters and her husband (both scientists) won the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1935 "for their discovery of artificial radioactivity." Actually, this was only one aspect of their work. According to the official Nobel Prize internet site, they won it "in recognition of their synthesis of new radioactive elements."

There are more than fifteen illustrations (mostly black and white photographs) that permeate this book. I found all of them interesting.

The acknowledgements section of this book is also interesting. We are told that one of Madame Curie's daughters and her granddaughter "decided [in the mid-1990s] to donate the Curie publications, diaries, journals, and workbooks [of the Curies that were originally sealed three years after Madame Curie's death] to the Bibliotheque Nationale on the rue Richelieu [a national library in Paris]." One problem though. After seventy-five years, these papers were still radioactive! They had to be decontaminated, a process that took two years. Goldsmith used in her biography much of the information found in these documents -- documents Goldsmith admits were "not easy to access." Thus much of the information in Goldsmith's biography is absolutely new, accurate information that you won't fine anywhere else! Goldsmith includes, in many cases, the actual words (in the form of letters, etc.) of Madame Curie and significant others in her bibliography.

The bibliography is well laid out. The sources used are from three main places: (1) Books & Articles (2) Archival Sources (Bibliotheque Nationale, Institut Curie in Paris, and the New York University Science Library) (3) Journals, Newspapers, Magazines (from Sweden, England, U.S., Austria, and France).

This book has no index. Although not absolutely necessary, I feel one would have been useful if you want to access information for later reference.

For a dramatized depiction of Marie Curie's life, I recommend the movie "Madame Curie" (1943) starring Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon.

Finally, the twelve-paragraph review directly below this one by "Betty Burks" has a large number of factual errors in it. (Did she actually read this book?) I will comment on only three of these errors:

(1) In paragraph #1 of her review, Burks claims that Goldsmith used articles from "Parade" magazine and "Reader's Digest." When I checked the extensive Notes and Bibliography sections of this book, I found no such references to these publications.

(2) In Paragraph #11, Burks states that the "photos throughout...the book...were [from] magazine articles." This is not true according to the Photo Credits section (found on the last page of this book).

(3) In her last paragraph, Burks states that "I doubt that Eve [the name of one of Curie's daughters] would agree [that Madame Curie] was a good mother." This is not true according to the book "Madame Curie: A Biography" (1937) by Eve Curie. This book has been translated into more than thirty languages and won the National Book Award.

In conclusion, this book accurately describes the "tragic and glorious life" of "one of the greatest scientists of the twentieth century" namely Madame Marie Curie (Nov. 1867 to July 1934).

(first published 2004; introduction with 21 chapters; main narrative of 235 pages; acknowledgements; notes; bibliography; photo credits)

+++++

Growing up, I hung a picture of Marie Curie along with those of other scientists on a wall in our living room. Until I picked up this book, I was only briefly aware of her early struggles, nobel prizes and her scientific contributions. Like for many others, she has been my role model and inspired me to dream big and overcome many socio-economic hurdles.

With this book, I have rediscovered some of the Marie Curie I knew as a child, some images of Marie Curie as an ideal career woman have been shattered but I have been able to perceive the pieces of Marie Curie that I can choose to be or not be in my remaining life. This book is much more than a chronicle of one scientist's life- you will read about Marie's jealousy and meanness towards another leading woman scientist of her time, Lise Meitner, you will perhaps wonder whether everyone who has ever won the Nobel Prize deserved it and also whether some who did not ever win actually deserve it more. The craze and myth that came to surround Radium at that time will sound all too familiar for those keeping up with new technologies of our time.

This is a great book for everyone (wo/man, non-/scientist) who has ever been curious about Marie Curie and the people behind the evolving story of particle physics at that time.