MAY 15 2007
AMERICANWAY 95
Books
Einstein: His Life andUniverse
ByWalter Isaacson
(Simon& Schuster, $32)
Most people, even famous people, never become the subject of a biography. A few people, on the other hand,
undergo biographical treatment again and again and again. One of those few is Albert Einstein (1879–1955),
physicist, explainer of the universe, professor, nonconformist, philosopher, author, and battler for peace on earth.
Whena life is repeatedly subjected tobiographical treatment, it is legitimate toquery thebiographer:Why?Often,
the answers are unconvincing, amounting to something like, “Well, I, the biographer, am interested in this life. I
don’t care howmany others have gone beforeme, and that’s explanation enough.”
Walter Isaacsonmay be late to theEinstein-biographer party, but his justifications for a new version of an oft-
told-about life are persuasive. For starters, documents fromEinstein’swork andprivate life have recently become
available. Second, Isaacson has laboredmightily tomake the science embedded in Einstein’s life accessible even
to those unschooled in physics, and he has never become discouraged along that route. Third, Isaacson, a former
managing editor of
Time
magazine, is awriterwith afluid style andwhose narrative talents giveEinstein an aura
that’smissing in previous accounts of his life.
(The book’s editor, by theway, isAliceMayhew of Simon&Schuster. Her name is nearly unknown outside the
world of serious nonfiction authors and publishers, but her involvement is significant— she is almost surely the
most legendary living editor of serious nonfiction. Her other authors have included BobWoodward and Stephen
Ambrose.)
As Isaacson recounts the growth andmaturity of this genius, hefills the biographywithpsychological insights
that spring naturally from his intense study of Einstein. Rather than seeming superficial and presumptuous, they
seem to grow organically from the biographical material. As a result, Isaacson can share thoughts like this about Einstein: “As a young student he never didwell with
rote learning. And later, as a theorist, his success came not from the brute strength of hismental processing power but from his imagination and creativity. He could
construct complex equations, but, more important, he knew thatmathwas the language nature uses to describe herwonders.” Passages like that are reason enough
for the retelling of Einstein’s tale. —SteveWeinberg
Ghostwriters never get any credit— if your name is far from the cover, the only thing you get
ismoney. I had a ghostwriter for this article; he kept slimingmy keyboard, however, so I had to
zap himwith my proton pack. But I think the dynamics of the writer-ghostwriter relationship
have changed.
The great adventure writer Alexandre Dumas freely used ghostwriters. The ghostwriter
would sketch a tale— say,
The Count of Monte Cristo
— and Dumas would set about turn-
ing that blueprint into a really long novel. Are these adventures any less adventurous because
of their two-partiedness? No. Really, the only person who loses in the deal is the ghostwriter
—whoever thatmight be.
This month, Modern Library publishes the long-forgotten Dumas adventure
Georges
($25). This is not the tale of several
fellows named George; the title is merely the French method of making effeminate that hardy, presidential appellation. On
Mauritius, in the IndianOcean, thealternatingof colonial control between theFrenchand theBritishhas clearlyupsetGeorges,
aman ofmixed race. Georges has been abroad, but “[e]verything he had done in the last ten years, he had donewith the sole
aim of becoming such a superior man that hewould be able to destroy the prejudice no coloredman had yet dared oppose.”
Georges has decided to lead a slave uprising. Of course, Georges falls in love—withSara, awhitewoman, whose own racism
is born of charming ignorance: “[B]ut he is fromChina— andwho on earth speaks Chinese?” Sara’s fiancé is an old enemy of
Georges’, and his personal creed is: “Coloredmen, all coloredmen, were born to respect him, and to obey.” Georges’ slave-trading brother is also back in town, and
their dejected father is terrified: “Fatehad reunited the familymadeupof amanwhohad spent his entire life suffering fromprejudiceagainst color, amanwhomade
his living by exploiting it, and amanwhowas ready to die fighting it.” Georges is now in a grand struggle for thewoman he loves and against the long-held grudge
with her family andwith the barbarism of colonial control. Luckily, he is handsome.
Though vastly shorter,
Georges
is as exciting as any swashbucklingDumas tale.With rope swinging, jail escaping, shark attacking, dueling, slave revolting, battle-
shipping, oathmaking, and, of course, the ladies, itwould be hard to packmore grand escapades into such a short novel. Butmost interesting is its place inDumas’
fiction. Dumas himselfwas ofmixed race, and
Georges
was his rare response (out of 300books) to racial issues. Thenovel is newly translated fromFrenchbyTinaA.
Kover, newly editedwith an eloquent afterword and notes byWerner Sollors, and it has a new forewordby JamaicaKincaid. — J.D. Reid
Canon
Fodder
A new version of an
oldbook you should
have already read.
