Tchaikovsky, The Voyevoda, symphonic ballad, op. 78.
This is a very good book. It is a biography of John Nash, a mathematician who won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1994. (His official autobiography for the Prize is available on the Web here.) After a strong start to his mathematical career, Nash succumbed to periods of paranoid schizophrenia at the age of 30 (in early 1959), almost completely destroying normal life for him, his wife, and his baby son. Incredibly though, after 30 years or so, he gradually pulled out of his delusional condition and was in fit state to be awarded the Nobel.
These are the barest facts of Nash's life. The strength of Nasar's biography is that it takes a story that sounds as if it should be interesting, and makes it thus. She does a great job of describing people and circumstances, making these seem real and persuasive. It's perhaps no surprise that I should find the biography of an academic interesting, but I think Nasar does a great job of conveying the feel of departmental life at places like Princeton and MIT. Nor does she neglect Nash's tangled personal life. She doesn't pull any punches in describing the way he was obnoxious and socially ill-at-ease, while also telling a fascinating story of developing relationships, homosexuality, and an illegitimate child.
Nasar is also very good on Nash's periods of madness. The distress and worry he caused those around him is vividly conveyed, even as he was blithely telling people that he soon expected to be made Emperor of Antarctica. I was also impressed at how his colleagues tried hard to help him, even launching an appeal for financial support at one point. All in all, I thought this a brilliant book.
Joseph Conrad, Almayer's folly.
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