8. June 2011 by Nancy Pinard.

I’m working on a scene where it’s hard to understand Einstein’s behavior.  It’s mid-July, 1901, and Mileva is about to re-sit her exams at the Polytech, having failed them the summer before.  It’s her last chance to pass, and, oh-my-god, she’s pregnant now, with Einstein’s baby.  You might think he’d want to be there for her, to coach her through, to help her with geometry, a subject that eluded her, no thanks to a particularly obtuse professor in the subject.  Surely she would have appreciated his presence.  Whatever happens with the tests, she must head home to Serbia afterward, to tell her parents she’s going to have a baby. 

Did I mention the two aren’t married?

How do I make Einstein’s behavior something other than a dastardly abandonment, when instead of staying in Zurich, he’s off vacationing with his mother and sister in Mettmenstetten?  Yes, indeed.  He’s at a cushy hotel, the Pension-Paradies in the Alps!  

Fortunately, I have point-of-view on my side.  The important thing here is not to look at the big picture and see what he might have done, but to get inside his head and see how the prospect looked to him.  And I don’t mean the view from the hotel veranda.  Behind his eyes, I see that the greatest threat to Mileva’s well-being is not the exams or her father.  It’s his mother.  He’s off to do battle with the dragon.  I’m reminded of Grendal’s Dam and thinking I might need to re-read Beowulf.   s

Posted in Switzerland, Fictional biography, historical fiction, point of view, Mettmenstetten, Pauline Einstein, Einstein, family members, Mileva Maric, Serbia, writing | 3 Comments »

22. February 2011 by Nancy Pinard.

I’ve written before about what a handicap it is to write about a setting I’ve never visited.  I can read descriptions in books–and in the case of Albert Einstein, some of the biographers are fine writers who provide me with details–but there is just no substitute for knowing how the air smells in a given location.  That said, and a trip to Switzerland is planned for next September, in trying to draft a scene that takes place in Mettmenstetten, Switzerland, where Albert stayed with his mother, his sister, and the women of his extended family in August, 1901, I read that the family stayed at the Hotel Paradies.  I search the internet, but this pension/hotel is no longer listed.  This is not a surprise after 110 years, but it is a frustration.  I search the internet for nearby hotels that look old, hoping for pictures.  I’m trying to describe the drawing room of this place where the family joined together to play music in the evenings, Albert on his violin, accompanied by one of his many female cousins (one of whom, Elsa, became his second wife). But I have little idea what this room would look like.

I decide to look on Google Maps at Mettmenstetten–satellite view–to see what the terrain looks like.  As I zoom in, I switch on the names of the roads.  My goodness.  At the edge of town, there is a road named Paradiesli. I zoom in farther, and what do I see but the roof of a building that would be large enough to house an extended family.  I switch on photos.  Oh, my goodness.  It seems someone has photographed that very building!  I compare the roof lines in the satellite view and the photo, which is not difficult considering the distinctive gables and an arch in the middle.  Indeed it is the same!   My gratitude overflows from Florida where I sit in my writing chair in winter, to the photographer, griphus3, whoever and wherever you are.  This is likely the place–or one very like it–and I have made good faith effort.  Now, I still have to imagine the interior, but that’s suddenly easier.  Here it is.

Posted in Mettmenstetten, Switzerland, Google Maps, reading, Research methods, Einstein, family members, writing | No Comments »

12. February 2011 by Nancy Pinard.

In an effort to understand Pauline Einstein’s (Albert’s mother) outright rejection of  her son’s love for Mileva Maric, I did some research on Jewish family values in Germany from 1870 -1900. The obvious answer might be that Mileva was raised as an Eastern Orthodox Christian.   But despite Hermann Einstein (Albert’s father) listing himself as Israelitic on Albert’s birth certificate, the family was decidedly non-religious, a point of pride with his father, so Mileva’s not being Jewish would not explain his mother’s outrage.  In fact, the family had sent Albert to a Catholic school in Munich for his elementary education and his mother had no objection when he fell in love with Marie Winteler while he attended the Cantonal school in Aarau.  Marie was not Jewish, and still, Marie and Pauline carried on a fond correspondence.

It happens that between 1870 and 1900 Jews were enjoying a heyday in Germany and, far from isolating themselves in ghettos, were doing what they could to erase distinctions between themselves and their Gentile neighbors. The bourgeois culture to which Hermann and Pauline aspired, to distinguish themselves from the habits of the laboring classes, assigned status to households where women did not work outside the home.  Instead, the wife and mother was the mediator between the intimate space of the household and society at large.  It was her task to raise children that maintained both the family’s religious observances and adopted the mores of her middle class German neighbors.  She was to maintain Germanic standards of cleanliness and orderliness thought essential to cultivating hardworking, upright citizens.

I’m reminded of the values that governed my mother’s life in American culture of the 1950’s and 60’s.  My family was not Jewish, but my maternal grandmother’s maiden name was Gumprecht.  Despite having a BA in speech from Ohio Wesleyan University, my mother devoted herself to laundry, cleaning, and her one creative outlet–gardening.  What about cooking?  She was singularly uninspired as a cook.  The few recipes she made, such as the Betty Crocker red binder meatloaf, she followed to the letter, even measuring out breadcrumbs.  Anytime she made anything without specific measurements–such as sloppy joes the Girl Scout campfire way–she required myself or my father to taste and tell her what to add.  That said, we ate at home, around a dinner table, nearly every night–food she had prepared.  Not working enabled her to do all kinds of volunteer work.  She was my Girl Scout leader for years and drove myself and my brother to our piano and dance lessons.  She taught adult Sunday school at our church and volunteered as a docent at the Dayton Art Institute.  When I danced with the Dayton Ballet Company, she was the founding president of the support organization, The Friends of the Dayton Ballet.   All this said, and given the skills she brought to those extra-household contributions, she didn’t foresee women moving out of the household.  If I complained about a school assignment (I particularly hated any rote memory work) as in “Why do I have to memorize Portia’s “quality of mercy” speech?”–her answer was invariably, “So you have something to think about when you’re ironing.”

It’s thereby not hard for me to understand Pauline Einstein’s priorities.  Enter Albert, intent on living and thinking outside any box his mother might build.  He called her bourgeois values “philistine” and flaunted them at every opportunity, dropping Marie Winteler for being too much like his mother.  Instead, he loved a Serbian woman–a backward culture of gypsies, to his mother’s mind–one who aspired to work as a physics teacher.

So, without meeting Mileva, Pauline could object to Albert’s undermining all she had done to ensure the family was upwardly mobile.   Ideally, his spouse would be one of his cousins, and to that end, she invited relatives to visit them at Mettmenstetten each summer during their stay at the Hotel Paradies in the Alps.  Albert was happy enough to play his violin for the ladies assembled, even playing duets with the cousins she paraded past him, but he was determined to marry Mileva.  Was it love?  Or the need to upend his mother?

Posted in reading, Pauline Einstein, Research methods, Mileva Maric, family members, Einstein | 4 Comments »

12. February 2011 by Nancy Pinard.

In an effort to understand Pauline Einstein’s (Albert’s mother) outright rejection of  her son’s love for Mileva Maric, I did some research on Jewish family values in Germany from 1870 -1900. The obvious answer might be that Mileva was raised as an Eastern Orthodox Christian.   But despite Hermann Einstein (Albert’s father) listing himself as Israelitic on Albert’s birth certificate, the family was decidedly non-religious, a point of pride with his father, so Mileva’s not being Jewish would not explain his mother’s outrage.  In fact, the family had sent Albert to a Catholic school in Munich for his elementary education and his mother had no objection when he fell in love with Marie Winteler while he attended the Cantonal school in Aarau.  Marie was not Jewish, and still, Marie and Pauline carried on a fond correspondence.

It happens that between 1870 and 1900 Jews were enjoying a heyday in Germany and, far from isolating themselves in ghettos, were doing what they could to erase distinctions between themselves and their Gentile neighbors. The bourgeois culture to which Hermann and Pauline aspired, to distinguish themselves from the habits of the laboring classes, assigned status to households where women did not work outside the home.  Instead, the wife and mother was the mediator between the intimate space of the household and society at large.  It was her task to raise children that maintained both the family’s religious observances and adopted the mores of her middle class German neighbors.  She was to maintain Germanic standards of cleanliness and orderliness thought essential to cultivating hardworking, upright citizens.

I’m reminded of the values that governed my mother’s life in American culture of the 1950’s and 60’s.  My family was not Jewish, but my maternal grandmother’s maiden name was Gumprecht.  Despite having a BA in speech from Ohio Wesleyan University, my mother devoted herself to laundry, cleaning, and her one creative outlet–gardening.  What about cooking?  She was singularly uninspired as a cook.  The few recipes she made, such as the Betty Crocker red binder meatloaf, she followed to the letter, even measuring out breadcrumbs.  Anytime she made anything without specific measurements–such as sloppy joes the Girl Scout campfire way–she required myself or my father to taste and tell her what to add.  That said, we ate at home, around a dinner table, nearly every night–food she had prepared.  Not working enabled her to do all kinds of volunteer work.  She was my Girl Scout leader for years and drove myself and my brother to our piano and dance lessons.  She taught adult Sunday school at our church and volunteered as a docent at the Dayton Art Institute.  When I danced with the Dayton Ballet Company, she was the founding president of the support organization, The Friends of the Dayton Ballet.   All this said, and given the skills she brought to those extra-household contributions, she didn’t foresee women moving out of the household.  If I complained about a school assignment (I particularly hated any rote memory work) as in “Why do I have to memorize Portia’s “quality of mercy” speech?”–her answer was invariably, “So you have something to think about when you’re ironing.”

It’s thereby not hard for me to understand Pauline Einstein’s priorities.  Enter Albert, intent on living and thinking outside any box his mother might build.  He called her bourgeois values “philistine” and flaunted them at every opportunity, dropping Marie Winteler for being too much like his mother.  Instead, he loved a Serbian woman–a backward culture of gypsies, to his mother’s mind–one who aspired to work as a physics teacher.

So, without meeting Mileva, Pauline could object to Albert’s undermining all she had done to ensure the family was upwardly mobile.   Ideally, his spouse would be one of his cousins, and to that end, she invited relatives to visit them at Mettmenstetten each summer during their stay at the Hotel Paradies in the Alps.  Albert was happy enough to play his violin for the ladies assembled, even playing duets with the cousins she paraded past him, but he was determined to marry Mileva.  Was it love?  Or the need to upend his mother?

Posted in reading, Pauline Einstein, Research methods, Mileva Maric, family members, Einstein | No Comments »

17. September 2010 by Nancy Pinard.

No, Einstein was not schizophrenic. But his son, Eduard was. And Mileva’s sister. I have media-inspired notions of schizophrenia, such as from the movie A Beautiful Mind, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, but wasn’t sure how a visual medium like film might have necessarily distorted what it really is. L. Fuller Torrey’s book, Surviving Schizophrenia, makes for interesting bedtime reading.

I like this book for its clear explanations and its use of literature (stories by Poe and Chekov) and fine art (paintings by Henri Rousseau and Edvard Munch) to render the experience of life from inside the mind of a person beset with a schizophrenic episode. Schizophrenia is typified by a heightening of the senses and a malfunction of the brain’s limbic system to adequately screen out the irrelevant input. Think of the heightened sense of hearing in Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart.” Other senses may also be overstimulated simultaneously, which, with no filtering, is an overwhelming experience. For this reason, schizophrenics cannot follow television–a misnomer presented by the media where we often see patients in a ward staring at the television. Heightened and non-discerning sensory input seems to be the one distinguishing characteristic of the disease and the one most frequently experienced at onset–typically in late adolescence.

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Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Einstein's children, Mileva Maric, family members, writing | 4 Comments »

8. September 2010 by Nancy Pinard.

Everyone is familiar with the iconic pictures of Einstein as an old man. He has a wild halo of white hair and looks somewhat mad.
As with Darwin, whose iconic photo also shows him as old, bearded, and white-haired, I wonder if such images are intended to replace God in the minds of viewers–as an adjunct to the never-ending debate between science and faith.

More interesting to me are the photographs of the younger Einsteins, the ones we haven’t seen until they have become cliches.

Posted in Einstein's children, family members, Einstein | 6 Comments »

9. August 2010 by Nancy Pinard.

Today I read an article on Einstein that might provide a possible frame for the next book.  I’m not far enough in to say for certain, but the article presents a possibility.   http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1211594-7,00.html

The materials seem to be there, in print, translated and available, for me to do this without learning Hebrew and moving to Jerusalem to live in a library.  My fear is that the conflict–the race against a competitor to produce the theory–is too like Darwin’s threat from Alfred Russel Wallace.  The question becomes, is this kind of competition what makes scientists commit their notions to print?  Of course, the divorce scenerio and Einstein’s first wife’s antagonism is very different from the Darwin marriage.  The pain of the his son, Hans Albert, in the article is very touching.  

POV might be the solution to the similarities.  Not sure.  I need to read more– to find the similarity and resonance with my own life with some character in this drama.  At some point I’ll have words in my head.  I haven’t given up on my interest in exploring the question of his abandoning the son who was mentally ill–on the grounds that genius has its own demands and minding the infirm is not one of them.  The second son, Tete in the article, was schizophrenic.  His first wife, Mileva, beggered herself to take care of him.  Einstein, by then, was married to his cousin, Elsa Einstein, but he never stepped in to help–after the original Nobel Prize money he gave Mileva in the divorce settlement–for which she had to wait something like 14 years.  He became very wealthy but never revisited his obligation to his ex-wife/son.   

Posted in Mileva Maric, Einstein's children, family members, Darwin, Einstein, writing | 6 Comments »

7. June 2010 by Nancy Pinard.

In 1912 Albert met Paul Ehrenfest, a physicist and teacher of compatible brilliance.  Five years later, Ehrenfest had a son named Vassik born with Downs Syndrome, who in 1932 was institutionalized.  By way of comfort, Albert told him, “Valuable individuals must not be sacrificed to hopeless things.”  This position was consistent with Albert’s refusal to marry Mileva when she was pregnant and then delivered Lieserl, called by some who knew the family secret a “monstrosity.”  When their second son was afflicted with manic-depression, Albert abandoned the family.

As despicable as I find his abandonment, it remains an unsettled issue for me, as when I consider the pastor in Florida’s pain over his severely autistic son whose disability affects the whole family in such drastic ways.  I remember mother once saying that my classmate Susan was spending all her resources on a disabled baby and denying privileges to her two children who were actually capable of benefiting.  I’m against disabled children being mainstreamed and allowed to consume inordinate amounts of teacher attention/energy, so that the easily-educable children are denied.  So how is this different from Einstein’s position, as despicable as I find it on the page?  I’m also aware that if I were in the situation with my own child, it would no longer remain an intellectual question.  Like Mileva, I would feel committed to see it through, though even she abandoned Lieserl to her parents’ farm and went to Bern to marry Albert.  Ultimately, however, she died a grim, resentful woman, having beggered her emotional and financial resources to a lost cause.  How does this relate to a phrase I’ve heard myself speak to women who have allowed caretaking for elderly or mentally-ill relatives to use them up?  I ask them, “How many disabled people is better than one?”  But I don’t think I mean for them to abandon their loved one.  Rather to tell them it’s good (not bad, as they’ve been made to feel) to enlist support services, even if it means moving the person from the home. 

This being an unsettled issue is likely a point in its favor, just as the open-endedness of my position on faith vs science in the Darwin book made it a discovery process.  It’s really a moral problem. 

Posted in Einstein's children, family members, Darwin, Einstein, writing | 1 Comment »