Writer : Albert Einstein
Publishing year : 1949
Language : English
Type : Non-fiction
How come ? : I've been intending to read this book since a long time, just because, well, it's Einstein and it's how he sees the world. Sounds interesting.
Estimated time : Theoratically about 7 hours, but Gosh I spent way too much time not reading it after starting it. More about that in the review.
Main themes : Random stuff (collected articles and letters written by Einstein at different matters).
Recommended for : Anyone who wants to read random articles written by Einstein that are NOT related to science or relativity by any means.
The book in a few words : Already said it, random stuff.
The synonpsis : The book is a collection of articles and letters written by Einstein regarding many issues.
The Rating : Not bad 6/10
The Review :
Well, this book had me going through a lot of thinking, but NOT about its content .. but about my choice of books. I won't be reading any articles/letter collection any time soon.
The book as a read wasn't bad (hence the 6) but the structure of the book make it not only a tiresome book, but also an annoying one. It's because of the book's lack of cohesion that I stalled reading it (I'd read a couple pages then I go do something else .. it's like reading the 4 page of a journal) and therefore I lagged all my plan of reading this summer. Wrong, wrong choice of books.
The book is, as mentioned a couple times above, the book is not actually a flow of the genius insights about life and meaning and such as I actually expected. I was even tricked by the first pages of the book to believe that the book would be an awesome journey inside a mastermind's mind, only to be driven to boredom by the miscellaneous correspondences Einstein had in his time. It was a nice trick, though.
Okay, the book wasn't that bad (it was boring, though). Einstein, who was a scientific authority back in the day, was unexpectedly considered an authority in everything else! Journalists of the time wouldn't miss a chance to ask him about anything that was trending, and him being a man of large general knowledge (he's no more the science geek I expected him to be) didn't help him at all of losing this notoriety. He, however, conveniently denied his reputation in exemplary modesty. That didn't stop him from making influential comments on every subject he supported such as Zionism (in its social form) or Socialism.
Another "discovery" about this man is how big of a peace-lover he is. Like a third of a book is all about how atrocious War is and how it must be stopped at any price if there is any hope for humanity to flourish. Kind of ironical since he was the one to inspire the Manhattan Project that leaded to pretty much to the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and USA becoming a major nuclear threat worldwide. Nice job, Einstein.
The book also lives in the spirit of its time, that being the post WWI world, so many references have been made to the context of letters and attitudes. It is written for the post WWI reader who's ready to be influenced by the opinions of the Great Man of the era. This somehow made it distant from the casual-reader me. I didn't want to read about that bot because I hate history, but because I really hate it.
When the book says "Life", it somehow means it. When I picked up the book as my second non-fiction read, I expected it to be about the philosophical meaning of Life. Contemplation ,remarks and insights from one of Humanity greatest minds. But then what you get is not what you expect, and there you have arguments for socialism, for Zionism and even the reason why Einstein resigned from the German Academy of Science. I seriously couldn't care less about his reasons.
Einstein is a man with a big mind and this mind of him, coupled with his reputation back then and now, made even his plainest ideas worth be written on a book. It's not mind-blowing nor revolutionary book, it's what a man, a "simple" man, thinks of things around him, and no matter how "important", this man is, it's still a one man's take, nothing more. It wasn't even that impressive, especially with the complete lack of order the articles/notes were inserted in.
This books was a mind disappointment.
Joining the idea I started this review with, and after the fiasco reading this book was (I mean I literally couldn't read more than five pages a day because of how disordered it was ... and that set me way behind my plans of reading), I intend to change the change the "format" of reading cycles. Since I started this blog, I made the Novel > Classic > Non-fiction > Recommendation cycle. I turned out fine except the Non-fiction part. I have to read both books by necessity, not by passion, not by will. And so I won't make any conditions of the reads I'll pick up from now on, but I'll try as best as I can to have a mixed bag and not all novels (as I highly suspect I'll end up doing).
Favorite passages :
All quotes were from the first third of the book. The rest is pretty .. 20-century-ish.
"A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depend on the labours of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving."
"I am strongly drawn to the simple life and am often oppressed by the feeling that I am engrossing an unnecessary amount of the labour of my fellow-men. "
"Schopenhauer's saying, that "a man can do as he will, but not will as he will," has been an inspiration to me since my youth up, and a continual consolation and unfailing well-spring of patience in the face of the hardships of life, my own and others'."
"The really valuable thing in the pageant of human life seems to me not the State but the creative, sentient individual, the personality; it alone creates the noble and the sublime, while the herd as such remains dull in thought and dull in feeling."
"That a man can take pleasure in marching in formation to the strains of a band is enough to make me despise him. He has only been given his big brain by mistake; a backbone was all he needed.", Einstein being a troll.
"War seems to me a mean, contemptible thing: I would rather be hacked in pieces than take part in such an abominable business. ".
Yes, sure Einstein, sure. That's why you've written that letter to Roosevelt.
"He who knows it not and can no longer wonder, no longer feel amazement, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle."
"A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which are only accessible to our reason in their most elementary forms--it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; "
"There we confided our experiences, ambitions, emotions to each other. We both felt that this friendship was not only a blessing because each understood the other, was enriched by him, and found ins him that responsive echo so essential to anybody who is truly alive."
Einstein on his friend Katzenstein. I "awww"-ed at this.
"In order that they may derive consolation from it and--not give a damn for what their teachers tell them or think of them.".
Einstein cursing, relatively cool :D (baad pun).
"What I have to say is nothing new and does not pretend to be anything more than the opinion of an independent and honest man who, unburdened by class or national prejudices, desires nothing but the good of humanity and the most harmonious possible scheme of human existence."
That's the book in a nutshell.
The book as a read wasn't bad (hence the 6) but the structure of the book make it not only a tiresome book, but also an annoying one. It's because of the book's lack of cohesion that I stalled reading it (I'd read a couple pages then I go do something else .. it's like reading the 4 page of a journal) and therefore I lagged all my plan of reading this summer. Wrong, wrong choice of books.
The book is, as mentioned a couple times above, the book is not actually a flow of the genius insights about life and meaning and such as I actually expected. I was even tricked by the first pages of the book to believe that the book would be an awesome journey inside a mastermind's mind, only to be driven to boredom by the miscellaneous correspondences Einstein had in his time. It was a nice trick, though.
Okay, the book wasn't that bad (it was boring, though). Einstein, who was a scientific authority back in the day, was unexpectedly considered an authority in everything else! Journalists of the time wouldn't miss a chance to ask him about anything that was trending, and him being a man of large general knowledge (he's no more the science geek I expected him to be) didn't help him at all of losing this notoriety. He, however, conveniently denied his reputation in exemplary modesty. That didn't stop him from making influential comments on every subject he supported such as Zionism (in its social form) or Socialism.
Another "discovery" about this man is how big of a peace-lover he is. Like a third of a book is all about how atrocious War is and how it must be stopped at any price if there is any hope for humanity to flourish. Kind of ironical since he was the one to inspire the Manhattan Project that leaded to pretty much to the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and USA becoming a major nuclear threat worldwide. Nice job, Einstein.
The book also lives in the spirit of its time, that being the post WWI world, so many references have been made to the context of letters and attitudes. It is written for the post WWI reader who's ready to be influenced by the opinions of the Great Man of the era. This somehow made it distant from the casual-reader me. I didn't want to read about that bot because I hate history, but because I really hate it.
When the book says "Life", it somehow means it. When I picked up the book as my second non-fiction read, I expected it to be about the philosophical meaning of Life. Contemplation ,remarks and insights from one of Humanity greatest minds. But then what you get is not what you expect, and there you have arguments for socialism, for Zionism and even the reason why Einstein resigned from the German Academy of Science. I seriously couldn't care less about his reasons.
Einstein is a man with a big mind and this mind of him, coupled with his reputation back then and now, made even his plainest ideas worth be written on a book. It's not mind-blowing nor revolutionary book, it's what a man, a "simple" man, thinks of things around him, and no matter how "important", this man is, it's still a one man's take, nothing more. It wasn't even that impressive, especially with the complete lack of order the articles/notes were inserted in.
This books was a mind disappointment.
Joining the idea I started this review with, and after the fiasco reading this book was (I mean I literally couldn't read more than five pages a day because of how disordered it was ... and that set me way behind my plans of reading), I intend to change the change the "format" of reading cycles. Since I started this blog, I made the Novel > Classic > Non-fiction > Recommendation cycle. I turned out fine except the Non-fiction part. I have to read both books by necessity, not by passion, not by will. And so I won't make any conditions of the reads I'll pick up from now on, but I'll try as best as I can to have a mixed bag and not all novels (as I highly suspect I'll end up doing).
Favorite passages :
All quotes were from the first third of the book. The rest is pretty .. 20-century-ish.
"A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depend on the labours of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving."
"I am strongly drawn to the simple life and am often oppressed by the feeling that I am engrossing an unnecessary amount of the labour of my fellow-men. "
"Schopenhauer's saying, that "a man can do as he will, but not will as he will," has been an inspiration to me since my youth up, and a continual consolation and unfailing well-spring of patience in the face of the hardships of life, my own and others'."
"The really valuable thing in the pageant of human life seems to me not the State but the creative, sentient individual, the personality; it alone creates the noble and the sublime, while the herd as such remains dull in thought and dull in feeling."
"That a man can take pleasure in marching in formation to the strains of a band is enough to make me despise him. He has only been given his big brain by mistake; a backbone was all he needed.", Einstein being a troll.
"War seems to me a mean, contemptible thing: I would rather be hacked in pieces than take part in such an abominable business. ".
Yes, sure Einstein, sure. That's why you've written that letter to Roosevelt.
"He who knows it not and can no longer wonder, no longer feel amazement, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle."
"A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which are only accessible to our reason in their most elementary forms--it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; "
"There we confided our experiences, ambitions, emotions to each other. We both felt that this friendship was not only a blessing because each understood the other, was enriched by him, and found ins him that responsive echo so essential to anybody who is truly alive."
Einstein on his friend Katzenstein. I "awww"-ed at this.
"In order that they may derive consolation from it and--not give a damn for what their teachers tell them or think of them.".
Einstein cursing, relatively cool :D (baad pun).
"What I have to say is nothing new and does not pretend to be anything more than the opinion of an independent and honest man who, unburdened by class or national prejudices, desires nothing but the good of humanity and the most harmonious possible scheme of human existence."
That's the book in a nutshell.
