Critical Essay | Critical Review by Marek Kohn

Critical Review by Marek Kohn

SOURCE: “Wild at Heart,” in New Statesman & Society, October 30, 1992, p. 39.

In the following review, Kohn praises Genius as “a formidable work of scientific biography,” but notes that Gleick's “guardedness” inhibits his ability to humanize the portrayal of Richard Feynman.

After winning his Nobel Prize, Richard Feynman was dogged by the fact that he did not get it for something readily identifiable, like inventing the transistor or discovering penicillin. He was grateful to the reporter who suggested he tell inquirers, “Listen, buddy, if I could tell you in a minute what I did, it wouldn't be worth the Nobel Prize.” It was a line tailor-made for the maverick physicist; demotic, mandarin and abrupt.

In the absence of any neat association with a device or a theory, Feynman gathered renown simply as a genius. His way of thinking and speaking, scornful of protocol, won him an entranced following....
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