Please, Mr Einstein

An unnamed girl in an unnamed, but contemporary, European city enters a rather gloomy old building, reading its address from a crumpled piece of paper. Inside, being given preference over a dozen people sitting in a waiting room, she is ushered into the office of Albert Einstein. "You said that time doesn't exist, so I took the liberty of coming to see you," she says. "You did the right thing," he replies. Thus a conversation ensues that spans all the 176 pages of this book. What better way to explore Einstein's life and work than through the questions of a girl who is intelligent but, like the readers this book is intended for, largely ignorant of the subject? And as far as the feel of the book is concerned, this device does indeed work very well. The dreamy and gentle tone has none of the dryness that so easily creeps into science books and biographies, and you never get the feeling that the author had to fight the urge to put in an equation. This, maybe, is not surprising, given that Carrière is not a scientist but a screenwriter and actor, famous for his screenplays of Luis Buñuel's Belle de Jour and The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie. Like the intended audience, he comes to the subject as an outsider, and describes it with an outsider's awe that in many places is infectious.