Please, Mr. Einstein

“You said that time doesn’t exist,” she says, “so I took the liberty of coming to see you.”
“You did the right thing,” he replies without taking his eyes off her.
 
She is a student with some questions about physics. And he is Albert Einstein, the man who redefined the true nature of reality in the twentieth century. More than sixty years after his death, she finds him in an office building in an indeterminate central European city, ready and eager to give a private lesson.   And so begins an unusual, wide-ranging conversation. They discuss relativity, light, and space-time. But Einstein also talks about the difficulty of fame and power and how his dreams of worldwide peace were shattered. He points to a stack of photographs, books about him, newspapers. “ ‘It still goes on,’ she says. ‘I thought about putting on an Einstein T-shirt but in the end, I didn’t dare . . . ’ ‘You must be joking,’ he says, ‘I’ve even worn one myself.’”

  This book is one of a kind: a surprising and delightful journey through the life and thought of Albert Einstein.

“You said that time doesn’t exist,” she says, “so I took the liberty of coming to see you.”

“You did the right thing,” he replies without taking his eyes off her.
 
She is a student with some questions about physics. And he is Albert Einstein, the man who redefined the true nature of reality in the twentieth century. More than sixty years after his death, she finds him in an office building in an indeterminate central European city, ready and eager to give a private lesson.   And so begins an unusual, wide-ranging conversation. They discuss relativity, light, and space-time. But Einstein also talks about the difficulty of fame and power and how his dreams of worldwide peace were shattered. He points to a stack of photographs, books about him, newspapers. “ ‘It still goes on,’ she says. ‘I thought about putting on an Einstein T-shirt but in the end, I didn’t dare . . . ’ ‘You must be joking,’ he says, ‘I’ve even worn one myself.’”

  This book is one of a kind: a surprising and delightful journey through the life and thought of Albert Einstein.

The New York Times - Dennis Overbye

… Jean-Claude Carrière comes with some serious mojo as a thinker and writer, having worked with the likes of Peter Brook and Luis Buñuel on films like The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie and Belle du Jour. He s obviously worth risking a few hours with, and I m happy to report that he far exceeded my meager expectations. Please, Mr. Einstein, unobtrusively translated from the French by John Brownjohn, isn t so much a novel about physics as it is a novel about how people feel about physics presumably Carrière, who gives his fictional Einstein all the best lines. Some, in fact, are like open doors you could wander through and never come out of: Being distrustful of those who persistently deceived us, we developed the habit of also distrusting the night, which enshrouded us, or so we thought, in gloom and illusion. We put our faith in light alone.

JEAN-CLAUDE CARRIÈRE is a writer, playwright, and screenwriter. He is the coauthor of Conversations About the End of Time (with Stephen Jay Gould, Umberto Eco, and others). He has worked closely with Peter Brook, Luis Buñuel, and Jean-Luc Godard on prize-winning films, including Belle du Jour, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, and The Tin Drum. He lives in Paris.