The Other Einstein by Marie BenedictMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
The Other Einstein is the story of a Mileva -Mitza-Marić, a footnote in Albert Einstein's studied life. You know what, I personally love reading books about forgotten histories with female protagonists. This book was absolutely an excellent example and accomplishment of what it means to take a closer look at the women enabling the "genius famous" men to do their work. The woman behind Einstein's work.
I was surprised to discover that there is actually lots of historical controversy on whether Mitza actually contributed or did all of the work behind some of Albert Einstein's work, and yet disappointingly got no credit. Over and over again there were just example of sexism and abuse that shocked me, because the way that the author wrote this had an engaging writing style.
I was completely absorbed in the story of Mitza's life, which I found to be absolutely fascinating. She definitively didn't take her education for granted, because she was a brilliant scholar who fought for her place at the Zurich University. She was studying physics also just has a genius brain for math, but is still struggling to be accepted in the classroom as a women. Her character is so complex and you can see kind of her life trajectory and it was neat to see how she tied in Newton's laws into her life story.
The only thing that I kind of had a problem with is how the climax/conflict came at the very last pages of the novel. I was honestly expecting this continually-boiling pot to break at some point earlier, and I kind of just got frustrated with how slow the characters were moving towards the conclusion.
Please note: That this is an imaginary fiction telling of their lives portrayed, and although there was an extent of research involved, Benedict does alienate admirers of Albert Einstein. I know I would definitively take this novel with a grain of salt.
**Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me a copy of this in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.**
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Definitely agree with the grain of salt bit haha, I know the way she portrayed Albert Einstein is controversial. It was an interesting perspective the author chose to give all the credit to Mileva and to show how much hardships she faced, putting Albert Einstein as the ultimate villain. I really enjoyed this read, I loved that it introduced me to her.
ReplyDeleteI agree! I thought that the whole book had a feminist undertone which I could appreciate, even though Mileva wasn't treated fairly at points in the book she was portrayed as a strong and fierce character. After this, my whole view on Einstein shifted a bit, because before this I didn't know a lot about his personal life.
DeleteThanks for commenting by the way! I really appreciate it <3
I completely agree. She suffered a lot, but she had her family in mind and I could respect her decisions even though I did not always agree. I loved her. My view also changed, especially sinced I didn't know Mileva existed before!
DeleteNo problem, I can't believe I had not checked your blog before. I think we have similar tastes! :)