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What are you reading? March 3, 2023 [1]
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Date: 2023-03-03
In WAYR?, I note what I’m reading and comment...you note what you are reading and comment. Occasionally, I may add a section or a link related to books…
I am reading:
Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson - ...on one hand, I hate that I pulled this book off of the shelf. On the other hand, Albert Einstein was the second person that I knew of that I could call a hero (the first hero outside of the family) and Isaacson reminds me why that is.
I knew, for example, that I would go and pull a copy of what I read over 45 years ago off of the shelf or the web (I think that it was actually the Clark biography of Einstein that was the first read as opposed to the Frank biography. I did read both biographies before I turned 18.)
All that many years ago, I was impressed with the theoretical physicist and wanted a career as one, lol. I was even more impressed with this man who stayed true to himself and bucked convention, argued with teachers, was absent-minded, and seemed somewhat comfortable with himself in a way that I was not.
Isaacson’s bio reminds me of something very subtle and very obvious that really didn’t strike me on those preteen readings of Einstein biographies: He wasn’t Albert Einstein, the world famous physicist until 1905, really. He accepted himself in a way that I never did and am only learning to.
Also: I vaguely remember that I crossed a line, of sorts, into agnosticism and atheism when I was about 12 (although I began questioning all of that stuff even before then). I’m sure that reading and, perhaps,rereading the Einstein bios had something to do with it.
When Albert was shown his new sister for the first time, he was led to believe that she was like a wonderful toy that he would enjoy. HIs response was to look at her and exclaim, “Yes, but where are the wheels?”
..his boss Haller had a credo that was as useful for a creative and rebellious theorist as it was for a patent examiner: “You have to remain critically vigilant.” Question every premise, challenge conventional wisdom, and never accept the truth of something because everyone else views it as obvious. Resist being credulous. “When you pick up an application,” Haller instructed, think that everything the inventor says is wrong.”
A great, great read even as it is an uncomfortable one for me.
Patricia Highsmith: Her Diaries and Notebooks: 1941-1995 by Patricia Highsmith and Anna von Planta - Read 1953 and 1954. Highsmith lovelife becomes depressing, at times. She’s also depressed about the McCarthy era. She seems to throw herself as much as possible into her next work, the novel which will eventually become The Talented Mr. Ripley. I think that all of the entries about the whos, whats, wheres, and whys of homosexuality in these two years is preparation for the first Ripley novel.
3/28/54 He is partly an ass, partly intelligent, eminently self-preservative basically. With a gentlemanly attitude that keeps him from sliding over the border to opportunism and rattiness. At first, a harmless attractive-to-some, repellent-to-others kind of young man, he becomes a murderer, a killer for pleasure...Like Bruno, he must never be quite queer— merely capable of playing the part if need be to get information or to help himself out of an emergency...His name should be Clifford, or David, or Matthew.
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