Book Review: "The Handmaids Tale" by Margaret Atwood

The Handmaids Tale (1985)

4.5 Stars out of 5

Margaret Atwood

311 pages

Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again
                           Don't get fooled again                            

Pete Townshend

Here in the summer of 2016 there seems to be a widespread interest in post-apocalyptic dystopias, at least as written in fiction and cinematic drama. One wonders what it is motivating such an interest; perhaps there is a sense that the modern grasp on our version of civilization is loosening, that it might take something as minor as a flu epidemic or a presidential vote to cause a collapse. It was a different world in 1985 when Margaret Atwood wrote “The Handmaids Tale”, her 6^th novel. It is tempting to look back at that era and wonder what existential worries were on her mind and in the Canadian social mind in general. For it is certain that Atwood writes this book with a Canadian sensibility: in her book, the despotic empire to the Canadian south is now known as the Republic of Gilead, and her heroine’s family attempts at a dash to safety is to the Canada of the book’s universe. Atwood has also infused this book with her long history of writing on women’s issues, on the depredations done to the environment, and has even brought some of the mythic sensibility she has used extensively in her poetry. Atwood is perhaps best known for her novels, winning the Booker Prize in 2000 for “The Blind Assassin”, as well as many other prizes. She has also published extensively in works of poetry, screenplays, children’s books, edited several books and even written three librettos. That being said, she has an ax to grind with her novel “The Handmaid’s Tale”, and she grinds it most expertly.

“The Handmaid’s Tale” has a title and religious sensibility inspired to some degree by the 14^th century Frame Tale by Chaucer, “The Canterbury Tales”. Unlike Chaucer’s magnum opus, this book is written with a single, highly declarative, first person voice. This voice belongs to a young Bostonian woman in her early thirties, Offred. Offred opens her recitation of her situation in a voice so filled with anger it will almost certainly affect the reader on an emotional level. Offred was once a wife and a mother with a birth name. Now as she writes of her life, she is a handmaid to a high official in the Republic of Gilead by the name of Fred, Offred's husband and little girl lost to her forever. This government is a theocratic monster that rules the lives of all its citizens with a completely oppressive hand: there are no freedoms of any kind. As Offred begins her “reconstruction” of the events in the months leading to the overthrow of the US government and of her later life as a handmaid, she weaves a tale of personal oppression that is justified by the new government as a transition from “freedom to” to one of “freedom from”. Atwood has one of the mouthpieces from the new government (Aunt Lydia) explain to a group of women she is “instructing” that even though they may no longer have the freedoms to do the things they might want to do, they are now free from rape and other abuses by men. The reader will soon learn this is a gross misrepresentation of the new reality. It is however, a more than subtle dig by Atwood at the “at risk” lives of women in contemporary America.

The use by Atwood of the term Gilead may refer to the “Balm of Gilead” or perhaps to the Hebraic translation into English for Joy-Forever. It is certainly a name filled with biblical and literary allusions and almost certainly was chosen with care by Atwood as she works to create a world that has Christian aspirations but in fact is no different from the world of George Orwell’s “1984” or the historical world of Nazi Germany. Offred’s reconstruction is filled with examples of the mind and word control experienced by her and her contemporaries as they are being trained to be handmaidens to the various political elites in the government of Gilead. The handmaids are dressed head to toe in red with white blinders shielding any view of their faces or of their own views to/from either side. The handmaids each live with a man in power (commanders dressed in black) and their wives (dressed in blue), and a retinue of servants (the female cooks and maids, all dressed in green). In this dystopian future, there is widespread sterility due to environmental damage, and the handmaids have been chosen for their proven fertility to mate in a highly stylized manner with the commanders. Needless to say, this demeans the handmaids as persons, upsets the wives in blue, and greatly distorts the world views of the commanders as to their Earthly power.

 

As if to further humiliate both the wife and her husband’s government-sanctioned mistress, each time the commander takes the handmaiden for sex, the wife lies beneath the handmaiden in a manner designed to show she is part of the process – the reality is quite clearly, that this process badly hurts the wife and the handmaiden on a deep emotional level. The process is good enough for the male, but far less so for the females involved. Even the birth process has the wife sitting in a two seat birthing chair just behind the handmaiden as she gives birth. Needless to say, the handmaiden having done her “farm animal-like” duty is removed from the household forever, the baby given over to the wife, and the child raised by the commander and his wife. There is a harsh reality here too: the babies are in fact really raised by the house servants. All of these processes are done under a religious umbrella; an umbrella that may give the patina of sacred duty and behavior, but is really just one more means of authoritarian control.

Having displayed the harsh reality of this new totalitarian regime and its pervasive influence over all aspects of life; Atwood proceeds to detail the hypocrisy of Gilead. Anyone reading about the  sterile manner in which procreation takes place would be justified in wondering where the commanders found their true personal escapes. The government would presumably wish that they found such escape in fulfilling their duty to society/the government, or perhaps in church. It is easy to presume that these unorthodox sexual relations would leave the commanders sexually frustrated, alienate the commanders’ wives and that in addition to each couple’s reproductive sterility, their marital unions would also become emotionally sterile. In their search for the pleasure not found at home, the commanders create a quasi-sanctioned hide-away where they can to some extent reproduce the illusions of sex as peddled in the cathouses and bars of the ante-Gilead era. This might be a politically logical back-water in Gilead, but it really seems like another opportunity for Atwood to explore how women are used, abused and discarded in the contemporary sex industry. Her depiction feels real and it is clear as one reads this book, that the context of Gilead's whorehouse  is not the only context in which women are second class citizens.

As the book reached for its climax, it becomes clear that it is not (as the Gilead government asserts)just the women that have become sterile from industrial pollution. Such an assertion may provide balm to these medieval male egos, but it is very unlikely to be the case from a scientific point of view. If the commander’s wife cannot procreate, and if the commander cannot either (no matter the façade that is put on), then what is the handmaiden and the elite couple to do in order to obtain a child? They find a solution that is as artificial as having the wife lay beneath the handmaiden as her husband/commander penetrates the handmaiden. The details are familiar enough to anyone in modern society and for spoiler-aversion reasons won’t be gone into here. The key is that Gilead is a society built on hypocrisy: they scream their biblical injunctions, they require the lower classes to live by them and enforce such adherence with an iron hand, but they do not require the elite to live them, only to appear to do so. It’s so much like the line from The Who’s 1971 anthem, “Won’t Get Fooled Again”: “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss”.

The themes that Atwood explores in “The Handmaid’s Tale” are or should be required reading for every single person voting in 2016: lying by changing the meaning of words, hypocrisy, the oppression of women (and by extension anyone not in power), the duality of "freedom to" vs. "freedom from", and the long term/unknown damage to our environment/to ourselves. These are great themes presented with remarkable control of the language used by Atwood. The use of such a simple/declarative voice gives added emotional weight to the messages inherent in the themes. The primary flaw for me is that book feels tendentious; it is too much of a sermon constructed from a fictionalized scenario designed to take the reader to a specific place that is supposed to be inevitable. Could Gilead form in the US – yes, without a doubt? I do doubt that it would form as easily as described in Atwood’s book. I doubt also that it is the most likely scenario for the loss of American freedoms. I think such losses are possible, not necessarily probable. I also believe that when “the new boss” takes over, it will be done by the slow steps of an evolution, not the big steps of a revolution. I believe and fear that the moneyed interests will slowly erode our rights as they control more and more of our government. Then one day, we will wake up and ask ourselves, “what have we become”?

Read this book, it is very much worth reading and being shaken by. Don’t use it or my worries stated above as signposts for the loss of American freedoms. Do vote and do watch carefully for charlatans proclaiming they are working for you, when after a little thought, you will realize they work for themselves alone. Some aspect of the human condition seems to require that there will always be someone out there that wants to control you. Do not let them. Use the rights you have left and vote with your head and your heart, not your gut. Stay free.

Movie Review: "The Hateful Eight"

The Hateful Eight (2015)

R

3.5 Stars out of 5

Writer/Director                 Quentin Tarantino
Cinematography                Robert Richardson
Music                                   Ennio Morricone

Samuel L Jackson              Union Maj. Marquis Warren
Kurt Russell                        John “The Hangman” Ruth
Jennifer Jason Leigh          Daisy Domergue
Walton Goggins                 Sheriff (to be) Chris Mannix
Damián Bichir                     Bob
Tim Roth                              Oswaldo Mobray
Michael Madsen                Joe Gage
Bruce Dern                         Confederate General Sandy Smithers
James Parks                        O.B.
Channing Tatum                Jody Domergue

“That’s the problem with old men. You can kick them downstairs, but you can’t shoot them” John Ruth

How does one begin to summarize and review a Quentin Tarantino movie? Does he have a brilliant sense of dialog - everyone, even those that hate his movies would agree that he has one. With his cinematographer, Robert Richardson, does he have an equally brilliant eye to create his various mise en scènes - again, there is great agreement on this point as well. Does he explore themes of general interest, the rights of the oppressed and revenge for those crimes, and does he make great use of ironic wit coupled with multi-layered story-lines to explore his themes – yes, again. The problem comes of course when the other visual tools that Tarantino uses are discussed: guns, murder, insensate violence, and gallons of movie blood. These cinematic tools in the hands of his characters, all displaying no vestige of human morality create a dark and repellent view of the human condition. One really has to ask, what are Tarantino’s motives in writing such movies? I think the answer lies in his latest movie: “The Hateful Eight”.

The movie, Tarantino’s eighth (if we count 2003/04’s “Kill Bill” as a single movie and as proudly announced in the opening credits) is filmed in 70 mm Panavision. Tarantino and Richardson make great use of all 70 mm as they film a series of landscape shots of a snowy Wyoming wilderness, all of it devoid of any kind of life. The camera then focuses on a frozen, snow-bedecked wooden crucifix standing alone in a vast snowy plain. The camera plays very slowly over the figure while a throbbing Ennio Morricone (famous for his “spaghetti western” scores for Sergio Leone from the 60’s and 70’s) plays in the musical background. Slowly in the visual background a dark object resolves itself into the image of a stagecoach drawn by a team of six horses. They too are covered in snow while they snort their frozen exhalations. These early pristine, white, and lifeless scenes are worth remembering later in the movie, as they provide a vivid counterpoint to the later red-drenched interior scenes that are also to a great extent, lifeless.

In the coach is a bounty hunter with a wild handlebar mustache, John “The Hangman” Ruth expertly played by a veteran of many another blood-soaked movie, Kurt Russell. Chained to Ruth is an incredibly tough and sarcastic prisoner, Daisy Domergue (played in a Best Supporting Oscar nominated role by Jennifer Jason Leigh). Tarantino rapidly demonstrates his alternate world view of human morality by having Ruth repeatedly and viciously strike Daisy in the face. Leigh will act out the entire movie with a black eye that slowly heals, but with a face that is frequently bloodied via Ruth’s beatings. This new kind of norm in terms of normal human interaction is a constant throughout this movie. Daisy is not a woman; she is not even a human deserving of basic human respect. She is a talking thing deserving only of a beating. The suggestion that she deserves the beatings is made, but never truly substantiated. In this world, no such substantiation is necessary. Ruth carries a warrant for her arrest; thus he has all he needs to beat her into a bloody mess. Prisoners have no rights, they are not people. No one in this world disagrees to any extent whatsoever.

Ruth and Daisy will be soon joined by former Union Maj. Marquis Warren (Samuel L Jackson) and the new sheriff of the town the coach is driving towards: ex-confederate soldier Chris Mannix (Walton Goggins). They will each go through an interrogation by Ruth before he allows them on-board the coach. These quixotic interrogations and their intentional repetitiveness will be a pattern that will show up time and again throughout the movie in various guises. These guises are almost certainly Tarantino’s main objective of this movie: create scene after scene where two people argue their diametric views, each basing their arguments based on their personal vision of right and wrong. This point-of-view perspective in morality is easily seen as a defense of "moral relativism". This is not a topic I object to in general unless it is pushed to extremes; when it is pushed to violent extremes as Tarantino routinely does, then even the existence of morality must be called into question. There is no longer any right/wrong duality in Tarantino’s cinematic world. Such a world is characterized only by “Might makes Right”. The strong will decide what is right and what is wrong; the weak will have no say; they are merely extras waiting to be put down by the mighty.

When Warren and Mannix are finally inside the coach they will engage in a debate in the manner I describe above. Initially (and despite the fact that Mannix is shown to be a former Rebel) Ruth will describe in glowing details the heroics of Warren as a Union officer during the war, including even allusions to the fact that Warren has a signed letter from President Abraham Lincoln. Mannix undeterred will then proceed to redefine for Ruth the nature of Warren’s actual “heroics”. He will show that one man’s hero is another man’s terrorist, and not just that, but that in fact Warren’s heroics are deeply stained by at least one act of indifferent atrocity against Union soldiers. Warren will counter that as a black man, he makes few distinctions between white Rebels and white Yankees….and it goes on and on and on. This conversation between various opponents will also go on and on throughout the movie. Tarantino will be making the obvious point of right and wrong being defined like art by the beholder. The less obvious point Tarantino makes is that the end result of each man creating his own definitions of words such heroism and morality, will be that words have no real meaning and that there is no right or wrong. He will underline this point with his oft used gallons of blood; after all, how could doing so, be wrong in such a world?

The coach will arrive in time at a way-station, one peopled by an aged confederate General, Sanford Smith (Bruce Dern at his soft-spoken and understated best), an Englishman claiming to be the town executioner, Oswald Mobray (a very toned down but still malevolent, Tim Roth), a mysterious wayfarer on the way to see his mother for Christmas, Joe Gage (Michael Madsen, like Roth another actor famous for oozing threats), a Mexican caretaker (Mexican actor Damián Bichir) and a character to be described later in the movie (but not here), Jody (Channing Tatum). At this point in the movie, Tarantino reaches back to an idea he used in his first movie, “Reservoir Dogs” (1995). There he borrowed a theme from the 50’s: the unseen enemy in our midst. In “Reservoir Dogs”, each of the criminal characters took an assumed name, and as that script moved forward, it was revealed that one of the characters was an undercover policeman, but which one?. How perfect an upside down world this was: the “bad guy” to the other gang members is actually the “good guy” in the our world; the world Tarantino refers to indirectly, but never enters for very long. He does the same things in “The Hateful Eight” – one or more of the characters described at the beginning of this paragraph bears a false name and is at cross-purposes to Ruth and his desire to take Daisy in for her foreordained hanging. The paranoia and bloodletting will soon begin.

As the search for Ruth’s potential transgressor proceeds, there will be arguments over frontier justice vs. civilized justice, the rights of POWs (black POWs), who should be hung (“mean bastards”), dead or alive prisoners being brought in dead vs. waiting for their court ordered hanging, and on and on. There are moments in the first half of this three hour movie where one might think they’ve slipped into a warped version of “12 Angry Men” (1957) or “My Dinner with Andre” (1981) – movies dedicated to arguing and talking, though to rather less violence than “The Hateful Eight”. There will be semi-comical episodes involving a door that won’t stay close with the concomitant instructions on how to keep it close being yelled by all in the Way-Station. There will be numberless voicings by all members of the cast of the “N-word”. Whether this use was to shock or to numb is hard to say, but like the over the top use of violence that drenches the last parts of the film, numb seems most like the correct participle. But for greatest shock value and to underline the difference between the mighty and the weak, Tarantino uses flashback to tell two tales of the semi-innocent and the truly innocent in conflict with the truly semi-evil and truly evil – it won’t matter though how innocent or evil either was, they will all meet the same fates.

In Tarantino’s definition of the world, innocence or wickedness simply do not matter. Each man or woman is as much on his own as if we were all savages living in an amoral, prehistoric world. There are people with guns, there are people with value solely determined by their bounties, and only by the bounty on their heads, and there are the people without guns just waiting to be killed. They can be cheerful and thoughtful and happy, but none of that matters In Tarantino-land. Tarantino sees no morality in this world, he sees only some people playing at morality and some that make no attempt whatsoever to even play at it. Thus, his movies overflow with mayhem, with violence, and with pointless death. In “The Hateful Eight” Tarantino even undoes whatever moral value he gave Django in punishing the nearly inhuman white slave owners with the same death they had recently dealt daily to their black slaves (“Django Unchained”, 2012). Even the “morality” of revenge, of just punishment for horrendous crimes (see also 2009’s “Inglourious Basterds” for a similar theme) is absent from “The Hateful Eight”. What is left of value in the story presented with this movie – like the absence of morality, there is no value left in this story. It is nihilism taken to its fullest extent.

It is hard to say this movie is for no one. There is great technical merit in the camera-work, in the exotic and occasionally beautiful music that accompanies the scenes on the screen; I especially love the way Bob plays “Silent Night”. There is fine, memorable acting by Leigh, Dern, Jackson, Goggins and Russell. The script contains some surprises and carefully constructed dialog that exposes the weakness of many arguments told seemingly from a high moral ground, but are really often merely self-serving. But in this movie, more so that in all previous Tarantino movies, the use of violence and bloodshed shown in an attempt to typify moral ambiguities reached a point where it only seems gratuitous. Is this a movie designed to demonstrate moral hypocrisy (see the quote from Ruth at this review’s beginning) or only to wallow in it? This movie is for Tarantino aficionados only; a group that most definitely includes me. I can watch this movie and find things of interest and value. I can watch this movie and walk away thinking Tarantino overshot his mark this time, but not hate the movie, only feel disappointed. For anyone else, not an ardent fan of Tarantino and his chosen style and themes, is this a movie for them; no I don't think so. No, this movie is for his fans alone with the possible exception of film schools showing where genius sometimes fails.

Movie Review: "Zootopia"

Zootopia (2016)

PG

4.5 Stars out of 5

Director                                Byron Howard, Rich Moore, Jared Bush (co-director)
Writer                                   Jared Bush and Phil Johnston (screenplay)
Music                                    Michael Giacchino
Art Direction                        Matthias Lechner

Ginnifer Goodwin               Officer Judy Hopps, European Rabbit
Jason Bateman                    Nick Wilde, Red Fox
Idris Elba                               Police Chief Bogo, Cape Buffalo
Jenny Slate                           Dawn Bellwether, Asst. Mayor, Sheep
Nate Torrance                     Officer Benjamin Clawhauser, Cheetah
Tommy Chong                     Yax, Yack
J.K. Simmons                       Mayor Lionheart, Lion
Shakira                                 Gazelle, Thompson’s Gazelle
Maurice LaMarche             Mr. Big, Artic Shrew
Alan Tudyk                          Duke Weaselton, Least Weasel
Raymond S. Persi               Flash, DMV Agent, Three-Toed Sloth

 

“No matter what kind of person you are, I implore you. Try to make the world a better place. Look inside yourself and recognize that change starts with you.”

Disney’s new animated movie, “Zootopia” is the 55^th in their Animated Classics series, and in all likelihood will be one of their highest grossing feature films as it has earned over $1 billion worldwide in only few months since its opening, placing it at number 25 in the highest grossing films of all time. It is at the same time a thoughtful film with a message about prejudice and stereotyping, another message about reaching for the stars, and a buddy-cop movie made with astonishing technical expertise in terms of animation. It is in several ways quite in keeping with Disney’s recent formula for success: a movie centered on a “princess” that has more moxie than all around her, with a story line pumped up with a little comedy and a lot of heart. It is also something of a departure from recent Disney films in that all the characters are essentially human personalities in various animal forms. It is in short an interesting mélange of genre.

The story begins with a young hare, Judy (Ginnifer Goodwin) playing in a school play. She and several of her comrades enact a play that describes how animals have evolved from savages in an intellectual if not physical sense. There are physical components, too: they walk upright and speak. I found this small side story intriguing as to me it implied the writers (Jared Bush and Phil Johnston) were seeking to establish an immediate animal parallel to the human world we live in. However, the play also creates a curious demarcation to this fantasy world: the animals that evolved were the mammals alone; one is left to wonder about the reptiles, fish and so forth; or even more to the point, what became of the primates?

Well, back to the story… Judy will finish her play with the declaration of her desire to become a policeman, the first bunny to do so in their capitol city of Zooptopia, or anywhere else. Her parents are distraught and will try for most of the film to dissuade Judy from a position that places her in danger. But Judy will not be dissuaded. She will face her parent’s opposition, the opposition of her Cape Buffalo supervisor, Chief Bogo (Idris Elba in his second animated flick of 2016 – see also “Finding Dory”), the derision of her fellow, though gigantic (on a bunny scale) police comrades, and most significantly of a certain fox soon to make his appearance in the story. Bogo in an expression of his displeasure (dare I say bigotry) about having a bunny on his squad will assign Judy to meter maid duty. In one fell swoop, the writers have incorporated both a form of racism and sexism into Bogo’s action.

Judy will lift up her chin and decide to outdo, as a meter maid, what Chief Bogo assigns her to do. In the course of her duties she will encounter a raconteur of a fox, Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman). The movie will take a while to explain it, but he too has been the recipient of bias that is based on his species and its reputation as being a predator that cannot be trusted. He has as a result decided to better everyone’s expectations of him and be the best fox at being a fox that is someone who can (can I say it) out-fox everyone around him. This leads him into some shady realms, legalistically speaking. Unfortunately for Nick, Judy out-smarts him and forces him into an alliance with her as she pursues a case that Bogo very reluctantly gives her. Over the course of the film, they will move from antagonists to the closest of allies, and of course solve the mystery of the case assigned to Judy.

In terms of writing, “Zootopia” tackles some heady topics, especially so for young children. Judy will experience bias and bigotry that is aimed solely at her as a young woman/hare with dreams. Her dreams are hers to pursue and after finishing first in her class at the police academy, she should have had a clear shot at working towards a fulfillment of her dreams to the extent that her abilities would take her. Instead, her large, male and fearsome boss would do everything in his power (initially) to frustrate her at doing her job. Such counterproductive efforts would stiffen Judy’s resolve – the lesson of her story, as well as the truly marvelous song by Shakira, “Try Everything” is a lesson very well suited to youngsters. However, there is another theme to Judy’s travails and to the case she is working on: racism and stereotyping. To my perspective, the exploration of this topic is the only flaw in the film. It is not a flaw in terms of discussing it with children, but in the nature of the parable used by this film to explain it to kids. That parable is centered squarely on the real life reality of prey and predator versus this film’s use of that dichotomy as a means to define racism. Here’s my problem: is it racism for a prey animal to fear a predator? This movie says yes due to the prey and predator’s evolved state in this movie. I say, the parable is confusing enough to begin with, but when the story line requires certain prey animals to resume their predator status due to a plot point I won’t reveal here, then I repeat, the parable has uncertain footing in its path to child enlightenment. I applaud the effort, but I feel the writers should have kept to the simpler theme of personal goals versus personal bigotries. I agree this concept overlaps with racism, but for an audience composed to a great extent of children, this would have worked better in my opinion.

Technically speaking, this movie is flawless. The animation of illustrating animal characters that retain some of their animal-like movements (watch closely as Mrs. Ottern embraces her husband in the hospital – it is awesome from an animation viewpoint) and at the same time introduce some very anthropomorphic movements (watch Judy’s hips sway as she leaves Chief Bogo’s office). I really liked the direction that is used during Judy’s first time entrance to Zootopia by train and via each of the various lands/climatic niches that make up Zootopia. Her entrance is incredibly enhanced cinematically by varying the camera angles to emphasize what she can she out her window or of her as she reacts. And this entire sequence is really improved with the soundtrack that has Shakira singing the song about her/everyone’s dreams as Judy enters the city where she hopes to live those dreams.

And one small last point, this movie is almost, almost completely straight in terms of tone used in telling the story. Judy and Nick will interact as two adults who do not know one another, then two that respect one another, and finally two who really like (love?) one another. It is really an adult story about solving a crime and two adults working together to do so. But there is comedy in this movie. It is not frankly included in a manner normally used in buddy cop movies, but adheres more closely to a traditional Disney brand of humor. Without revealing too much, I will say only that the writers have taken the concept of every person’s frustration at standing in a long line at the DMV and combining that frustration with a member of the animal kingdom most likely to be the best candidate for a job of frustrating those in line wishing the line would move faster: a sloth. There is also a little inside joke that involves the pronunciation of the word “weasel” in the animal sense of this movie versus a different sense in Disney’s hit from 2013's, “Frozen”. Both movies employ the same voice actor (Alan Tudyk) and the same names of duke and weasel. Watch for it, it’s a cute point for the adults in the audience, while the sloths are hilarious for adults and children alike (my granddaughter’s laughter was astonishing in volume).

Go see this movie. You will truly be happy that you did.

Book Review: "Love in the Time of Cholera"

Love in the Time of Cholera (1985, Spanish; 1988, English)

5 Stars out of 5

Gabriel García Márquez

348 pages (English Hardback Edition)

“It was time when they both loved each other best, without hurry or excess, when both were most conscious of and grateful for their incredible victories over adversity. “

Gabriel García Márquez is a widely admired and celebrated Columbian writer. He is in fact one of the most significant writers from the 20^th century. His use of “Magic Realism” wherein magical events in one of his stories are treated as something quite mundane (and the converse with the normally mundane being treated in the story as something extraordinary) is a technique that Marquez perhaps more than any other writer has made critically effective use of.  This was especially true for one of his most successful books, “100 Years of Solitude” (1967) wherein the intermingling of ghosts and people (who might as well have been ghosts) was a brilliant use of this technique to illustrate a deeper meaning. Márquez added to his critical notoriety with “The Autumn of the Patriarch” (1975), and most significantly with the book reviewed here: “Love in the Time of Cholera” (1985). This latter book may well be the most praised of his novels landing as it does on many Best Novels of the 20^th Century lists. It may seem at times a simple love story between two star-crossed lovers, but there are deeper waters swirling about this story; waters of more than sufficient depth and character to keep every reader engrossed.

Márquez begins his story in the early part of the 20^th century in an unnamed town on the Caribbean Sea. Márquez used a similar literary technique in “100 Years of Solitude” wherein he drops plenty of hints about the time and place, but refuses to identify them without any ambiguity. In this story, it seems to be Cartagena in 1930. Márquez structures the early parts of his story almost like a series of train stations that he as the author/engineer will take the reader down the line in order to introduce the various characters we will follow later in the bulk of the novel.

First up is Dr. Juvenal Urbino. He is investigating (in the role of coroner) the body of a minor actor, Jeremiah de Saint-Amour. Poor Saint-Amour is not much more than a plot device to help peer into the soul of Urbino. Urbino is the prime character in these early scenes and will be shown to be an actual archetype; that of the successful, dispassionate Man of Science. Márquez’ train leaves this first stop to take us to Urbino’s home in order to meet his wife, Fermina Daza. Fermina is less an archetype than a fulcrum. We will quickly learn of her fiery temper, of her privileged but disrespected youthful position in society, and of her past relationship to the third corner of the triangle (if you will allow me to use two separate analogies contemporaneously), Florentino Ariza. Florentino is (besides being the third part of the romantic triangle soon to be described) also an archetype. His archetype (as a youth) is Urbino’s opposite: poor, unrecognized and uncelebrated by society, but he is also very passionate. We will learn via Márquez starting the story near its temporal end, that Urbino won the first round in the contest for Fermina (though he never knew he was in a contest) as we quickly learn that Urbino and Fermina have been married at this point in the novel for roughly 50 years; poor Florentino has seemingly been forgotten by all.

In point of fact, the true first round in the contest for Fermina took place in a time and location that never included Urbino at all, 1880 Cartagena. Márquez tells this part of the story in flashback fashion and in the process explicating both Florentino’s and Fermina’s character. He also weaves in considerable detail late 19^th Century Columbia, and as in “100 Years of Solitude” he describes the love of two people during war time. And love it was in the beginning for Floretino and Fermina. Their love and relationship may have been forbidden by the forbidding character of the muleteer Lorenzo Daza, Fermina’s father, but Márquez tells in several clever ways the manner in which the two lovers carry on their relationship. For some time, it looks like love will triumph, but Márquez has a very believable angle in the story that will take Fermina from Florentino’s to Urbino’s arms. There is the usual “she hates him at first” (meaning Urbino) routine, but Fermina will make Urbino her choice. In a manner typical of the distracted Urbino, he will never perceive half of what is taking place around him, let alone his new wife’s actual motives.

Fermina’s motives are a part of the central theme to the book’s storyline. She is the fiery, very angry Latina of a modern telenovela. She will have her way, and pity the fool that tries to frustrate her or doubt her will. Urbino will find out who is the real boss of his household over something as insignificant as a bar of soap. Frustrated with his lot, he will at a point in their marriage begin to doubt his own maxim about marriage: “the most important thing in a good marriage is not happiness, but stability”. Urbino will risk his cherished steady marriage for a relationship based on love with a Jamaican biracial woman (I use this term, though Marquez uses mulata). The fact of this woman’s racial identity plays a role in Fermina’s eventual volcanic reaction to Urbino’s infidelity. Consider the irony in this part of the story: Urbino gambles with his steady relationship with Fermina for love; this is a complete repudiation of this life’s principles.

Florentino will find himself shut out for over 50 years before he finally gains access to Fermina’s heart. But Florentino will not give up, he will in his own words pursue Fermina “forever”. This is an example of Marquez’ clever use of magic realism in the contrary sense; that is the mundane comes across in this book as the magical. Consider how Florentino will obsess over Fermina for more than 50 years and then when he finally captures her heart for the remainder of their lives, he will sacrifice everything within his power, and there is a great deal within the power at the end of the book of this formerly poor bastard child.

Throughout this story of love and loss, Márquez will employ a variety of motifs to make his case: there is a constant use of birds throughout the story, and they generally are omens of bad tidings in this book; there is the oft-repeated comparison of cholera and being in love as being so nearly identical that one cannot be easily differentiated from the other; there are several situations where a character will ponder the effects of aging and death on one’s perspective (consider the fact the book begins with a suicide), there is the use of Magic Realism (of course) in the more typical manner (both a ghost and a doll that grows), there are multiple references to color (yellow in particular to indicate something bad is pending), and there is the use by Márquez of a superficial story about a love triangle masking a deeper story about the definition of love and motive.

What a trite, over-asked question, what is love? Márquez provides two examples in an effort to answer the question: the steady, largely dispassionate case presented by Urbino, and the almost life-long unrequited and obsessive version of Florentino. Fermina will have a family, a comfortable life and a sense of security with Urbino. With the sexually-obsessive/love obsessive Florentino, she has what? Here is a character that will turn to compulsive sex with virtually every woman he encounters after his rejection by Fermina; all in an effort to forget her. He will have moments of peace, but they never last. He will be the proximate cause of death to two of his lovers; deaths that come as the direct result of his careless and in some cases, reckless lovemaking. In one case, he will act the role of pederast (though not identified as such by Marquez). Florentino is so compelled to seek out Fermina, he will renew his offer of marriage on the actual day of Urbino’s death. Fermina astounded, will become choleric with rage (throughout her life except for its latest stages, this was a common state for her) and force Florentino to leave. But then Fermina thinks about it some more; what will her character allow her to do?

If her motives for marrying Urbino centered on wealth, societal position, and stability, what would her motives be in renewing her relationship with Florentino be, and in which case would she be the happier; which case better answers the question of what love is? Márquez will spend the second half of his book exploring this not “really-that-trite” at all question. He develops in a beautifully layered narrative the personalities of all three parts of the love triangle he is exploring. By the time he brings the flash back part of the book to the day of Jeremiah’s death, the reader has a very clear idea of all three characters and their individual situations. The reader may wonder at Fermina’s rage, at Urbino’s passivity, and Florentino’s warped behavior and obsessive manner, but no reader will be surprised by the book’s conclusion.

Marquez’ book is deceptively simple, but it is in fact wonderfully complex. The language alone is a kind of poetry in prose. It is very much a joy to just read the latter half of this book luxuriating in Marquez’ various analogies and barely suppressed sarcasm. He directs his sarcasm at the social norms and attitudes of the upper classes, and his aim is usually true. He will discuss at the very end of the book his concerns over deforestation and man’s effects on his environment. It is in fact tempting to see the damage to the river-lands as a metaphor to the ravages done to the human body by time. Marquez will explore in detail the effects of time and aging on his three heroes. He will use some clever symbolism with birds and color to foreshadow pending catastrophe. However, in my opinion the primary aim Marquez has in this book is his desire to explore the nature and definition of love. He does not hide his opinions; it seems clear that as much as one might admire Urbino for his accomplishments, it will be the rare reader (one presumably without any sense of romanticism) that will think Urbino’s definition of marriage is the path that Marquez thinks is the best one for marriage, let alone for love.

“Love in the Time of Cholera” is a remarkable novel that can be read for multiple reasons: language, symbolism, theme, and the topic of love. It is weak in my opinion in one area: if we view his two primary characters of Florentino and Fermina, I think both characters are better as icons or metaphors to help Marquez to make his point, than as fictional characters that might be understandable as people anyone might meet in the course of one’s life. They might be instructive characters, but they do not seem human to me. There are many believable human characters in “Love in the Time of Cholera”, but I do not find the two lovers to be so. That being said, this is a book for the ages. I highly recommend it.

Movie Review: "Finding Dory"

Finding Dory (2016)

PG

4 Stars out of 5

Director                                Andrew Stanton, Angus Maclane
Writer                                   Andrew Stanton, Victoria Strouse, Bob Peterson

Ellen DeGeneres                 Dory
Albert Brooks                      Marlin
Ed O’Neill                             Hank
Kaitlin Olson                        Destiny
Hayden Rolence                 Nemo
Ty Hardin                             Bailey
Dianne Keaton                    Jenny, mom
Eugene Levy                        Charlie, dad
Idris Elba                              Fluke
Dominc West                      Rudder
Bob Peterson                      Mr. Ray
Sigourney Weaver             herself

 

“I look at you, and I’m home.”                   Dory

 

I’m sitting in a dark room, filled with children and their parents. Surrounded by an audience filled with anticipation; my wife, adult daughter and her three kids, my grandchildren are here, too, also filled to the brim with excitement. We’re all here for the new Disney/Pixar movie, “Finding Dory”. The happiness in the room is blessed balm from this week’s stories from the outside world. For the next two hours or so, we can all escape to a place filled with love and joy. And within moments of the movie’s beginning, with my daughter and her eldest daughter’s laughter echoing through the room, it begins…

In the summer of 2016, the summer of sequels, Disney/Pixar has released a long awaited sequel to 2003’s “Finding Nemo”. This new movie has with justification recently been promoted by Ellen DeGeneres; she as Dory in “Finding Nemo” was the comic highlight in that film. Now in 2016 after Disney gave the movie the green-light roughly in the summer of 2012 when they announced they had signed “Finding Nemo” director Andrew Stanton to come back for the sequel, the world, or a good chunk of the English-speaking part of it and certainly Ellen was filled with anticipation. She and Albert Brooks were announced a year after the Stanton announcement in 2013 to have agreed to reprise their roles of Dory and the worry-wart of a father to Nemo, Marlin. Initially, back in 2005 Disney in the midst of their protracted snit with Steve Jobs had decided to farm out the sequel to a subsidiary; but in 2013 it was to be time for Pixar magic once again. The release date was pushed back from the fall of 2015 to the summer of 2016. Now, the only question is, could Pixar duplicate the magic they accomplished with another sequel, “Toy Story 2” (1999), i.e. a sequel superior to its progenitor? Well, in the words of my granddaughters and adult daughter: “yes”!

Yes, to be absolutely certain, “Finding Dory” works to repeat the charm, poignancy and sentimentality of “Finding Nemo” and it does so in fine fashion. Your children will laugh as my granddaughter did when the sweet but nearsighted whale shark, Destiny (Kaitlin Olson) runs into the wall of her tank, or when the bug-eyed Loon, Becky (unvoiced) goggles her eyes at Marlin and pecks him on the noggin for no apparent reason. The sight gags work great for the kids and they will have fun. There isn’t the clever two layered topical joking of "Aladdin" where kids and adults can laugh at the same joke, though for different reasons. But chances are you will find yourself laughing alongside your kids, if only for the joy of their joy.

One minor problem for me as an adult, is that “Finding Dory” repeats with considerable rigor the various plot points in “Finding Nemo”: there is a lost waif, a vicious carnivore that does not get his way, various dark places to swim through, amusing helpers that bark out amusing monosyllabic threats (remember “mine”, now look for “off” from Idris Elba of all people; this is one of the adult level jokes in the movie – see “Beast of No Nation” for a prolonged explanation of why), and of course an ingenious escape from a trap that seems quite reasonably impossible to adult human eyes to escape from. So, yes, the plot worked the first time for its cleverness and sentimentality, and it works here, too for the same reasons, but it is a little derivative. I might have yearned for the pathos of “Up” or the wit of “Aladdin”, but the non-stop laughter coming from my daughter and grandkids, makes such yens quite irrelevant. “Finding Dory” may not reach the sky-high levels of these two predecessors, but it does quite nicely equal “Finding Nemo”, and for the kids, that is quite enough.

For the adults and their enjoyment, it is truly amazing what can be done with computer-generated animation these days. To help prepare the adults, “Finding Nemo” was preceded in our theater by an animated short called “Piper”. Anyone would be excused for believing (as I did for several moments) that based on the visuals, this short was a live action short. I could not find one single aspect of the animation to find fault with. “Finding Dory” continues with this exceptional level of animation. “Finding Dory” won’t be confused with live action movie the way “Piper” was due to the cartoonish depiction of the characters being portrayed, but the underwater lighting and color of the kelp beds is, I can assure you as a scuba diver, as close to reality as an actual live action film might have been. It was breathtaking. Other scenes such as those within the “Open Ocean” exhibit at the Moro Bay Marine Life Institute (where the bulk of the movie takes place) create their own versions of breath taking animation. These parts of the movie are simply remarkable. Every adult will enjoy the movie for the visual treat it is designed to be, and is.

 

There are a few comedic aspects that I had wished might have been improved on. Ed O’Neill’s performance as the reluctant helper Octopus/”Septopus” (he’s down one tentacle due to a rambunctious child visitor to the center) to Dory has several scenes where his role as curmudgeon provides occasional comic relief. Two sea lions outside the Center (Idris Elba as Fluke and Dominic West as Rudder) also provide some comedy, though less I think than was intended. These three actors perform adequately as comedians, they just do not stand out as such. Instead, the most amusing character in the movie is the Loon, Becky, who apparently spent too long in the 60’s of California. She provides "help" of a visually comedic and quite unreliable sort to Marlin and Nemo. And lastly, for the adults, the inclusion of Sigourney Weaver as the recorded voice for the Moro Bay Marine Center (that Dory hears from afar as a source of help) also provides a sly kind of humor.
In terms of writing, it is clever in the way writers Andrew Stanton, Victoria Strouse and Bob Peterson intentionally write Dory, Marlin and Nemo into corners that it does not seem possible for them to extricate themselves from. But in the manner of the dentist’s aquarium in “Finding Nemo”, the writers do find clever ways that may push an adult’s credulity to its limits but it most likely merely entertains the child (and those that are children at heart). It’s time for me and the like-minded to stop being a scientist, worrying about logic (these are after all talking fish), and just go with the crazy childlike logic of an octopus fixated on getting to Cleveland. I’m there and enjoyed it, right up to the final denouement. I loved the use of the sea otters to get there, they are cute and lovable, and using them as a plot device was funny and effective in this crazy Pixar world. My only small complaint about the writing was maybe they pushed movie-land silliness a little too far with a truck-driving octopus*.

Lastly, for the adults, the closing song of Nat King Cole’s “Unforgettable” sung here by Sia will be another gift for viewers of a certain age; it is both a nostalgic and an empathic ending to the beautiful imagery and emotions they just witnessed in the movie.

Anyway, it’s a fine sequel to “Finding Nemo”. It’s a little less witty, and perhaps does a less effective job of turning a “disability” into a strength than it did in “Finding Nemo”, but without question your grandkids, your adult kids, and in all probability you will love it, if only to see old friends that are like family once again! Go see it, its summer time, after all.


*I read that following the release of the documentary “Black Fish” and its criticism of life within a Marine Exhibit, that the ending was changed away from such a final destination for our piscine heroes to one of the open ocean. Who knows, if maybe the final ending was a last minute change; to me it feels a little forced.

Movie Review: "Youth"

Youth (2015)

R

3.5 Stars out of 5

Director/Writer                 Paolo Sorrentino                             
Cinematography               Luca Bigazzi
Music                                   David Lang

Michael Caine                    Fred Ballinger
Paul Dano                           Jimmy Tree
Jane Fonda                         Brenda Morel
Harvey Keitel                     Mick Boyle
Rachel Weisz                      Lena Ballinger

 

“Keep true to the dreams of your youth.”            Friedrich Schiller

“All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages.”     

                                                                                    Wm. Shakespeare, As you like it (Act II, Scene II)

 

If a person walked into a theater to see Paolo Sorrentino’s 2015 film, “Youth”, a movie starring movie veterans Michael Caine, Harvey Keitel and Jane Fonda, based on the title alone one might well expect to see a film dedicated to issues at the “end of the road”, that is those last stages of life where one is still capable but quite definitely past the arc of one’s career. However, it seems to me Sorrentino has another purpose in mind for this movie, and that is an exploration of “identity”, an identity that stands independent of age. A priori, one might have expected the Schiller quote shown above to be a guidepost to this movie, but in point of fact, Shakespeare’s quote comes much closer to the truth. Sorrentino has written and directed a movie that is superficially about life in Shakespeare’s seventh (st)age, but he really seems to want to talk about the reality of the adult stages. What acts do we put on as we move through life, and maybe, just maybe do we ever become aware it is all just an act when we come to that final scene?

An American film goer raised as we have been on Hollywood endings might have hoped/expected that the two lead characters, Fred (Michael Caine) and Mick (Harvey Keitel) when they reached their personal endings would have gained some wisdom, or at least some perspective beyond the narrow purview of their own lives; but this movie would leave one largely disappointed in that respect. I suppose there is verisimilitude in writing two such self-focused characters, inasmuch as most of us suffer from the same malaise. Still…it would have been nice to have one character, even a minor one display a little knowingness about life and where each one of us fits into it – surely, such people exist? Instead, the viewer is treated to two protagonists speaking constantly in platitudes, platitudes that carry the appearance of wisdom but are actually simply banalities designed to pass from one of life’s minor moments to the next.

This move/play is staged in an exclusive Swiss resort, high in the Alps. It is peopled by guests that largely tend to the very aged, and certainly to the very wealthy. Music fills this stage and is used marvelously in the opening and closing scenes – in fact, these two scenes alone are worth watching the movie, most especially the moving operatic singing of Sumi Jo coupled with the artistic camera-work covering her performance at the movie’s end. The camera-work directed by long time Sorrentino collaborator, Luca Bigazzi is simply brilliant. Bigazzi under Sorrentino’s direction takes the camera from facial close-ups framed by significant background scenery to classic cinematic “mis en scène” of juxtaposition - consider well the two aged men in the pool staring in amazement at a nude Miss Universe (Mădălina Diana Ghenea) as she enters the pool, completely oblivious of their presence, let alone their stares (see a family version of this scene below). Added to these scenes are camera shots of various guests as if they were simply (and nothing more) “still life paintings”, and also the grand exterior shots of “heavenly” views of the skies as backdrops to the characters that are so close to entering Heaven in a more real sense.

 

 

The story centers on a retired composer (Fred) and his lifelong friend, a movie director, Mick. Their children have married: Lena (Rachel Weisz) is Fred’s daughter and manager, Julian (Ed Stoppard) is the nattily-dressed but caddish son to Mick. During their stay at the resort, Mick and Fred have the opportunity to interact and watch (mostly watch) their fellow guests. These guests include an American actor, Jimmy Tree (Paul Dano) preparing for his new role (as an aged Adolph Hitler), a very aged and ill due to obesity (I guess) retired Argentinian soccer hero, Diego Maradonna, and an extremely aged and silent couple of dining companions. That Fred and Mick split their time watching and analyzing their fellow hotel guests leads the viewer inevitably back to the concept of an “audience at a play” that will during the intermission, self-consciously spin their “informed “ opinions to all around them, as well on every minor event in their individual lives.

Fred is the true master of these platitudes and metaphors, despite the fact that at one point he will label Mick as the “magician of metaphors”. It is really Fred that for the most part spouts non-stop metaphors of “wisdom”.  He will pass through what’s left of his life commenting in meaningless sayings, meant to pass as his learned wisdom, or maybe to cover up his hidden pain. This mindless commentary is itself (cinematically speaking) Sorrentino’s metaphor for the way we live our lives, hardly differing from an actor reciting his lines. He adds to this message by having Mick guide a group of his writers working on a new movie starring Jane Fonda (oops, aged Marilyn Monroe stand-in, Brenda Morel). These self-important little writers will as characters mouth their suggestions to Mick for ending his as yet un-finished play. Each one is clearly written by Sorrentino as an archetypical character: the intellectual writer, the funny writer, the female writer, the writer in love. They are all so shallow, it is painful watching them speak lines in the movie. And how does Mick finally end his movie? Well with a melodramatic death that happens off-stage is all I’ll say, but it does provide one of the movie’s two twists. However, the twists are not the point, it is actually the manner in which each of the characters in the movie play people that are playing characters in real life (if that tortured sentence makes any sense).

The weakness of Sorrentino’s movie is at times one of its strengths, and that is the style he has chosen to employ throughout the movie. It seems clear that minus the circus props and characters, Sorrentino reaches at certain times for a very Fellini-like feeling. He uses this very effectively on two occasions: when he has Fred, wandering in his thoughts and fading memory, crossing a narrow bridge above a large pool, and where Fred must pass closely to the statuesque Miss Universe. It goes without saying the rising waters reflect not just his physical image but more closely Fred’s sense that he is drowning; he’s losing it. The second occasion is a comparable scene where an almost equally confused Mick (following his argument with his diva Brenda and where Mick proclaims his own identity as a brilliant director of women) sees arrayed on a hillside every woman he has ever directed. They are all there, even the previously recalcitrant Brenda, though now lacking the 1 inch thick shellac of make-up he last saw her in. These were good uses of surrealism, but Sorrentino over-does it. The sense of surrealism suffuses the entire movie. For example, what is the purpose of having Paul Dano dress as an octogenarian Hitler, except to make a pointless point about shock value; or maybe to allow Dano his moment in this movie to prove how good an actor he is?

Everything else aside, the acting is the best reason to see this movie. For the most part, professional critical attention has focused on Caine, and with good reason. Long lauded as one of the best actors we have had for the past 40 years or so (ever since “Alfie”, 1966), Caine has shown time and again how capable he is of dissolving into his chosen character. Additionally, Fonda and Dano also have their big emotional scenes, and both do an excellent job. But the highest movie plaudits for this movie belong to Weisz: her scene of her anguish at her husband’s infidelity, her anger at Fred for his distance during her childhood, and most subtly her remorse as her father finally explains his refusal to direct an orchestra any more in his most famous piece, Simple Song. Her range of emotions in her acting is just awesome.

In the final analysis, this movie is most definitely not for everyone. The over-use of surrealism is the only reason I do not give this movie a perfect score. Almost everything else screams for such a score: clever imagery, great music and cinematography, some of the year’s best acting (the lack of Oscar nominations notwithstanding), and finally the clever way Sorrentino weaves two important parts of life as themes into the story. Even if the deeper point of identity is ignored in this film’s narrative, it is a compelling movie just for the depicted views of how each of us looks at ourselves in life’s mirror. This is definitely a movie for adults eager for a story about difficult subjects and told in a manner that demands thoughtful appreciation from the audience.

Book Review: "Einstein: His Life and Universe" by Walter Isaacson

Einstein: His Life and Universe (2007)

5 Stars out of 5

Walter Isaacson

680 pages

"Long live impudence! It is my guardian angel." 

"God does not play dice with the Universe."

"As a scientist, altering your doctrines when the facts change is not a sign of weakness"

                                                                                   - Albert Einstein 

Walter Isaascon has written a masterful biography of Albert Einstein (“Einstein: His Life and Universe”), a scientist that surely belongs in Humanity’s Top Three: Aristotle, Isaac Newton, and Albert Einstein. Each of these three uniquely intelligent, creative individuals is the true personification of the definition of “genius” – at least of the scientific inquiry sort. However, it is a different definition that springs to my mind after reading Isaacson’s highly readable biography of Einstein, and that is “irony”. I am going to base this comment on Merriam-Webster’s third definition of the word: “incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of events and the normal or expected result”. So, what is so ironic about Albert Einstein? The list is not too long but it is to a degree instructive about the man that re-defined a universe previously so well defined by Isaac Newton that most physicists in the early 20^th century never thought a re-definition was necessary let alone conceived of what that new definition would be like.

Isaacson begins his discussion of Einstein with Albert’s early years where the young prodigy is shown displaying little promise as a compliant German student – he would prove his academic ability in school but never his conformity. Einstein was born in Ulm Germany in 1879. He had a normal childhood with two parents of Jewish ethnicity and a little sister than adored him, Maja. His father and uncle restricted as they were from certain occupations and certain levels of higher education in Germany due to their Jewish background worked as “tradesmen” in the field of power generation. Einstein’s father Hermann was an average engineer but a very poor businessman. His unsuccessful efforts in the field of power and light generation in Munich led him to sell his factory and move the family to Pavia Italy leaving Albert to finish his studies at a Munich gymnasium (German equivalent of a US high School). However, young Einstein’s rebelliousness would now begin to assert itself. He hated the German teaching regimen of rote learning almost as much as he hated watching Prussian militaristic influence in local parades. These early events would serve as vivid early warnings of the iconoclastic Einstein that would break into world prominence in the early 20^th century.

One of the ironies (tragedy might be the better word here) in Einstein’s early years was the fact that Hermann Einstein’s family were not practicing Jews but they were still treated as the unwanted second class citizens that Germany barely tolerated - this was some 43 years before Hitler would gain power; anti-Semitism may have reached it heights or more properly depths under Hitler, but he certainly did not invent it in Germany. This attitude against the Jews would follow Einstein throughout his years in Germany, Czechoslovakia and Switzerland when prior to his eventual fame as a theoretical physicist he would not be able to get a job following graduation with his teaching diploma. Indeed, he would be the only unemployed graduate in his cohort from the Swiss Federal Polytechnic (later the ETH for those of you who know this venerable institution) in Zurich. Worse yet for Einstein he would find an enemy on the staff at the Polytechnic that likely played a major role in Einstein’s frustrating attempts to find a job; this enemy would be the first of several to plague Einstein through the years.

The need for a job was acute for Einstein for while at the Polytechnic he fell in love with a Serbian physics student, Mileva Marić. She and Einstein would have three children, though the first child, Lieserl would be given up for adoption and lost to history. The other two, both boys, were Hans Albert and Eduard; Hans Albert would become a Professor of Engineering in America, while the unfortunate Eduard would be committed to an asylum for the mentally ill as he entered his twenties. Poor Mileva would not graduate from the Polytechnic though she tried several times to do so. Instead, she would become Einstein’s wife and helper as he prepared his seminal papers for his annus mirablis of 1905.

Einstein’s marriage to Mileva would begin in 1903 and officially end with a divorce in 1919, though they had separated five years before when Einstein began a romantic relationship with his cousin Elsa Löwenthal. Einstein married Elsa in 1919; they remained married until her death in 1936. Einstein’s romantic life provides one more example of irony. Here was a man that would in time be famous for his love of Mankind, his pacifism, and his kindly attitude to all that knew him. And here also was a man that would cheat on both of his wives and who would have a distant and troubled relationship with his two sons, and would (apparently based on late discovered correspondence) persuade (or at least apparently be indifferent to) Mileva to give Lieserl up for adoption. How ironic that one of the leading proponents for the rights of Man in the first half of the 20^th century would prove to be such a poor husband and father.

Following Einstein’s graduation from the Polytechnic he looked fruitlessly for two years to find a position, any kind of position. In time, through the influence of one of his close friends, Marcel Grossman and Grossman's father, Einstein would eventually gain a slot at the Swiss Patent Office as an examiner. Einstein had already renounced his German citizenship in order to avoid German military service. He would now obtain his Swiss citizenship (an item Einstein prized amongst his favorite possessions) in order to get the patent office job. Again, a kind of irony intrudes during this period in the Patent Office. For it is certain that while Einstein felt some dismay at not gaining a teaching position following graduation, his job at the Patent Office was such that he could excel at it and do so by working for a mere 2-3 hours a day. Einstein would then have many free hours each day to think – something he almost surely would not have had, had he actually obtained a teaching position. These gift hours would give the somewhat still non-verbal Einstein time to do what he would do best: think and to think using pictures. He would think by formulating thought problems: what is the nature of light (wave vs. particle), what is the connection between time and space. He would also compose a lesser work, a far safer work on capillary action that would earn his long sought Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Zurich in 1905.

It is thought by Isaacson that this happy coincidence of genius, lots of free time, of thinking in pictures and of Einstein’s viewing the world with a distinctly iconoclastic viewpoint would combine to create the storm of creativity that Einstein would release upon the world of Physics in 1905. He would write four seminal papers: photoelectric effect (for which he would eventually win the Nobel Prize in 1921 and would lead him into a life-long fight with the concept of quantum mechanics), Brownian motion, special relativity, and the relationship between mass and energy (symbolized most simply as the equation he is most identified with by the public; E=mc²). All of this was done by the age of 26. It would also lead him from the Patent Office to a position as a lecturer at the University of Bern and then finally to the first of his many positions as a Professor of Theoretical Physics; the first being at the University of Zurich in 1909.

His work on the photoelectric effect would in many ways be as groundbreaking as his work on Special Relativity and his work a decade later on General Relativity. All of these subjects would prove to be instrumental in moving the world of Physics away from a strict Newtonian view of the universe. For Einstein, he would adopt for life the approach he delineated in his second big piece of work on relativity which utilized extensive mathematics in order to describe General Relativity. (This overt reliance on math stood in stark contrast to Einstein's previous adherence to the views of Ernst Mach's “logical positivism”; a philosophy which states something must be either verifiable by deductive logic or direct observations; a philosophy that strongly informed Einstein's views when he devised Special Relativity. That is to say, Einstein did not need advanced math to define the world of Special Relativity, deductive reasoning would do so, but without question he did so for the world of General Relativity.) Einstein would in these various groundbreaking theses describe energy, mass and time in ways heretofore un-thought of; to do so, he would employ his rebellious point of view regarding the acceptance of things as they were simply because conventional wisdom said they were so. Therein lay two of the biggest ironies of Einstein’s life: the iconoclasm that served him so well in describing light as a particle or using relativity to describe the universe, would fail him utterly when it came to accepting quantum mechanics as defined by Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg, and secondarily, his switch from the non-mathematical approach in Special Relativity to a highly mathematical (particularly one relying on Field equations) approach in defining General Relativity would drag him into a life-long approach to creating a unifying theory using field equations. Both of these endless tilts at his personal windmills would end in failure as Quantum Mechanics would gain worldwide acceptance by all but Einstein and a few of his contemporaries (Max Planck is an another ironic example, as he too would play a key role with his calculations in making a case for a theory that he too could not accept).

Einstein would continue to work his entire life in the realm of theoretical physics. And while he fought the Quantum Mechanics’ concept of chance playing such a significant role in reality and as a result for calling into the question the concept of strict causality, Einstein continued to play a long running role in developing QM. In conference after conference, in letter after letter to Bohr or Heisenberg, Einstein would revert to his time-honored habit of posing thought questions in an effort to discredit QM. Bohr and Heisenberg would in many cases be taken aback, but in each case (usually) Bohr would think through Einstein’s implications and questions and refine the QM theory to overcome Einstein’s challenges, and in the process strengthen the QM model further. (Should I note that by fighting QM, Einstein made it a stronger theory and that this is one more irony in Einstein’s long list of such occurrences?)

Possibly the best part of Isaacson’s biography of Einstein is when he turns from science to Einstein’s years following 1920. In these years, Einstein would gain a notoriety that rivaled, even exceeded the fame of most of the world’s popular celebrities. Each of Einstein’s trips to the US, and each of this new papers released after he moved to The Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton in 1933 were greeted by the American people or press in a manner similar to the arrival of an Oscar winning movie or Hollywood legend. Einstein would add to this hoopla with his charming personality and marked penchant for quotable quotes. Many of these quotes would employ Einstein’s views on God and religion. It was clear that he was not a religious man in the American convention of the 20^th century; he was a form of a deist; he was probably far more in line with 18^th century Americans, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin. And yet, there was a deep under-current within Einsteinian thought that clung tenaciously to the view that there did exist things and concepts that were by definition unknowable to man.  

The last irony I will mention is connected to Einstein’s pacifism. He had long argued publicly for many actions by the public to resist the draft, war and militarism. He was a widely respected scholar and his work in the world of Physics help him gain the attention and respect of much of the world as he propounded his ideas on pacifism. It is hard to imagine then the reaction of his former colleagues in their war on war (so to say) when he wrote a letter to Franklin D. Roosevelt to encourage him and the US government to start a project on developing the atomic bomb. Here was a world famous pacifist arguing for the bomb. And then in the height of ironies, he was denied clearance to work with Fermi and the others on the Manhattan project because of his past public statements about war resistance; he could not be trusted to work on the very project he proposed!

As strange as it may seem, there are even more incongruities, ironies and oddities littering Einstein’s life. However, the main point is that this seminal man, Zionist, pacifist, advocate for civil rights, violinist and physicist accomplished so much in his life, it is close to impossible to believe it was all done by one man. To Isaacson’s immense credit, he covers Einstein’s life with great care and attention to the man, his beliefs and his deeds. It is an absolute given that the sections in the biography devoted to physics are often difficult to fully grasp (per Isaacson, "we're no Einstein and he was"), but Isaacson with the help of noted String Theorist Brian Greene (an especially noteworthy writer of physics for the lay reader) goes a long way to explaining concepts that were so baffling to the public of the early 20^th century that Einstein would endlessly give speeches and responses to questions asking him to explain relativity (he would also write a book on the topic that went into many re-printings). The other sections of the book on Einstein’s family and public life are as enlightening and as entertaining as the science sections. Both parts of Einstein’s life are balanced throughout the book in a way as to keep the reader engaged. The only weakness of the book is perhaps one related to a question that may not be answerable: what was it that made Einstein the unique historical figure in Physics that he was? Isaacson essays an answer that is based on Einstein’s combination of native intelligence, his propensity to think in pictures and his ardent desire to think free from restrictions. It is a hard question to answer, a hard man to fully understand, but this a wonderful book that works through all of these topics.

This book is a must read for any scientist or non-scientist interested in science. It is also a must read for any reader interested in learning about one of the Top Ten Most Significant Humans in History, or less hyperbolically as Isaacson summed him up as a man and "a rebel with a reverence for the harmony of nature".