Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1602137 in Books
• Published on: 1998-01-01
• Format: Import
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 464 pages

Customer Reviews

A Martian Told Me to Read This Book
Saw and tremendously enjoyed the movie, but kept thinking, this can't be the real story of John Nash. As impressed as I was with director Ron Howard's construction and Russell Crowe's acting, I still left the theater with too many questions...and doubts.

For the first time I can recall, I departed a movie and went directly to a bookstore to buy the book. (I'm still 100% on never purchasing a soundtrack CD from one of those theater vending machines.) This is NOT the same story as the movie. Nasar's biography of Nash is a thoroughly researched, riviting story that took me to worlds I've never known (advanced mathmatics and severe mental illness). It is a fast-paced read, a book I could not put down.

There has been controversy about some of the details from the book being left out of the movie, but I think Ron Howard departed masterfully from the book to provide the escence of Nash's story without bogging down in some confusing issues that Nasar, in a book form, handles with appropriate detail and context.

Watch the movie and read the book. Both are great. But they are different.

A Beautiful Book
If you enjoyed the movie "A Beautiful Mind" you will love this book. It is far richer in detail, context, and let's us a bit deeper into why what Nash accomplished was so beautiful. If you find the movie a bit of a problem because it seems a bit too glossy for the facts, again, you will love this book.

For me, the movie did a marvelous job of embodying the spirit of the book. To delve more deeply into the facts of Nash's life and accomplishments and his illness would require a documentary or a mini-series. The movie is really a narrative poem about Nash. This book is about the people and their experiences. It is NOT a direct exposition of Nash's technical achievements. There are other books such as "The Essential John Nash" that provide that information.

In this masterful book we find out more about his youth, his life at college, his work after he received his doctorate and his breakdown and illness as well as the nature and scope of his recovery. There is real sorrow and loss in the book, but there is also strength and tenacity that refuses to yield to hopelessness and despair. This is a book about the people and how they lived during the storms of his achievements and his illness.

I am not qualified to discuss the quality of Nash's achievements, but from the admiration lavished on him by his peers and how they rallied round him it is clear that Nash was given immense gifts that he developed and used in ways that have benefited all of us even if we are unaware it.

It seems that this is the nature of the gifts scientists and mathematicians give us. We are unaware of them until another person makes them part of other products, services, and policies that directly affect us. And even then we are unaware of the breakthroughs that made these wonderful additions to our lives possible.

We should be grateful to Sylvia Nasar for helping us see the gifts we received from Dr. Nash and the sacrifices his wife and others made to make them possible.

Engaging Biography
While I wasn't gripped by this biography until about a third of the way through, when it grabbed my attention it did so powerfully. While I agree with the reviewer below who suggests that this is not the book to read if you're interested exclusively in the the technical features of Nash's mathematical contributions, I believe that this criticism is misplaced. The book (it seems to me) is intended for an intelligent lay audience; it doesn't pretend to be a survey of his scientific accomplishments and failures.

I was especially struck by the truly immense amount of competition that exists among math scholars for status. Although portraying this competition is hardly the principal aim of Nasar's beautiful book, she conveys the intensity of the struggle among scholars for recognition with impressive clarity and perspective.