That gleam shines throughout here.
Just when you thought the fount of Feymaniana had run dry comes this splendid collection of letters assembled and introduced by adopted daughter Michelle.
It starts with achingly heartbreaking letters to his first wife, Arline, who would die of tuberculosis in a sanitarium in Albuquerque while Richard worked on the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos. Included is a letter he addressed to her after her death, which Michelle notes “is well worn—much more than others . . . as though he reread it often.” The letters are emblematic of the passion Feynman brought to his life and work and expressed in crystal-clear prose—in his lectures, his texts, his popular writing and in these letters to the world: colleagues, family, institutions, fans, worried parents, eager high-schoolers and the occasional crank. Over and over again, he tells kids to study what they love, tells their parents not to worry, patiently explains errors to would-be solvers of physics problems or coiners of new theories. Over and over again, Feynman reveals an integrity that led him to refuse any honorary degree, decline invitations to Russia as long as restrictions were imposed, decline signing petitions in the absence of what he saw was necessary evidence. Similarly, he often confessed his ignorance of the arts and refused to be drawn into discussions of art and science (but did comment on religion). The letters move chronologically through his settling down at Caltech, marriage to Gweneth, the Englishwoman he hired as a housekeeper, the Nobel in 1965, and the decades following, including, two years before his death from cancer, his pivotal role in demonstrating that faulty O-rings caused the Challenger disaster. Feynman’s article on what was wrong with the “New Math” and some neat popular articles are in the appendices, along with a quote in which Feynman describes his elation at discovering a new law of physics: “There was a moment when I knew how nature worked. It had elegance and beauty. The goddamn thing was gleaming.”
That gleam shines throughout here.Pub Date: April 12, 2005
ISBN: 0-7382-0636-9
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Basic Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2005
BOOK REVIEW
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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