One of Turgenev's best love stories, August 27, 2000

In addition to being an interesting love story in its own right, On the Eve develops a couple of themes often seen elsewhere in Turgenev's work (and also that of some other Russian authors around the same time). In the conflict between Elena and her parents, we see shades of the generational conflict that Turgenev would develop very well two years later in Fathers and Sons. The fact that the only man who can thoroughly win Elena's heart is a Bulgarian (as well as comment by Berzeniev about Insarov mentioned above) reflects the aimlessness and superfluity that so often shows up among Russian men in the literature of this time period (e.g., Turgenev's Rudin). While Shubin has his art and Berzeniev his historical studies, Insarov is driven by a cause (the freedom of the Bulgarian people) that is deeper than anything that Russian men were pursuing at the time and accordingly makes him a more intriguing character.

The novel did read, for me at least, a little slowly at first, and I found that some of the characters (Shubin in particular) weren't much more than cliched archetypes when they could have been fleshed out a little better. However, On the Eve is definitely one of Turgenev's better works and was all in all a worthwhile read.

An excellent account of an intriguing theory in progress, August 24, 2000

The remaining ten chapters discuss string theory, in which the contradictions between general relativity and quantum mechanics are settled by regarding the elementary particles not as points but rather as strings whose properties (e.g., mass, charge) are determined by how they vibrate. In the latter chapters, Greene also introduces us to M-theory, an extension of string theory which throws two- and higher-dimensional membranes into the picture along with strings and serves to unify the five different types of string theory that existed before 1995. As Greene eloquently shows us, there are a lot of very interesting things about the world according to string theory--perhaps the two that jump most immediately to mind are the properties of the six extra curled-up dimensions required for the theory and the types of tearing and sewing-back-together that (as co-discovered by Greene himself) the universe can undergo. Greene's own involvement in the development of string theory allows him to give us an interesting personal view of some of the theory's discoveries, and also made it easier for him to get candid interviews with the likes of Ed Witten, Cumrun Vafa, and many other heavyweights in the field. Especially near the end, this part of the book is somewhat heavier reading than were the first few chapters, but someone with a little bit of experience in undergraduate physics and/or a good deal of concentration and patience ought to be able to follow it pretty well, while most readers should still be able to get the basic ideas.

My main complaint about the book (and the main reason I'm only giving it 4 stars) is that it really doesn't come through quite as much as it should that string theory is still nothing more than a theory, with its development still very much in progress. Physicists don't seem to be anywhere near a point where they even really know what the basic equations of the theory are. It does make a fair number of predictions, but most of these won't be able to be tested experimentally in the foreseeable future. If and when physicists are able to write down and solve the equations of string theory (Greene doesn't attempt to speculate as to whether that's likely to happen any time soon), the results will be compared with what we already know, and if the results match up, it will be awfully hard to argue against string theory. But Greene seems to want to convey the discoveries of string theory as already being established truths about the universe, which seems to be pushing it a little bit.

However, whether or not its postulates are correct, string theory is extremely interesting--that's why I enjoyed reading this book, and I suspect that, when push comes to shove, that may be the biggest reason that string theorists devote their careers to studying it. 50 years from now, physicists may regard the science discussed in The Elegant Universe as an interesting historical diversion, or they may regard it as the foundations of a theory of everything--in any case, The Elegant Universe provides us with a lucid picture of the development of a fascinating branch of physics.

A fun and moving story of "the Russian Hamlet", August 24, 2000

Despite the unattractiveness of Oblomov's preferred lifestyle, Goncharov manages to make Oblomov a very lovable character. The reader is brought into a fair amount of sympathy with Oblomov's nostalgia for his childhood and his innocent hopes for a peacefully happy future, and I for one was unable to blame Oblomov for wanting to stay in bed rather than put up with all the artifices and machinations of high society life. All the love affairs in the novel are mostly well put-together (though in the novel's final part Goncharov was a bit too long-winded about some of the characters' emotions), and although Oblomov receives by far the most attention, both Olga and Oblomov's servant Zahar are well- (and in the latter case quite amusingly-) drawn The main qualm I had about this book prior to reading it was that the prospect of spending 500 pages on a novel about a man who wants to do nothing but lie by himself in bed sounded a bit boring, but that turned out to be unfounded for a couple of reasons. First, Stolz and Olga do manage to get him out of bed and persuade him to take action on some fronts, even if his deeper inclinations still show throughout. Second, the first (150-page) part of the novel, which Oblomov does spend entirely in bed, surprisingly turned out for me to be the novel's most entertaining part.

There were some minor technical problems with the work (in particular I thought some of the changes of scene were quite awkward), but these did not take away at all from my enjoyment of the book. Oblomov is ultimately a tragic figure, and his flaw of inaction is very much tied up with the archaic feudal system in place in Russia at the time. However, this does not prevent those of us living 141 years in the future and many thousands of miles away from sympathizing with him and having a great deal of fun as more and more about this fascinating character is revealed.