By Alan Lightman - Einstein's Dreams (Vintage Contemporaries) (10/16/04)

This is a short novella full of great and profound thoughts and queries on time.Time -- that magic place we live through yet cannot touch. What if time was not a quantity but a quality? It exists but cannot be measured. What if time is memory or a world without future, where time is a line that terminates at the present both in reality and in the mind? What of the different flow of time in different localities, which prevents the traveler from returning to his exact city of origin? Or what of a world in which time is not fluid but rigid, a bone-like structure? Or time like light between two mirrors bouncing back and forth, myriad images, a world of countless copies.Einstein's Dreams set during the period in which he was working out his theory of relativity are so full of 'time thought' that it will take several reading and still there will be more to learn, to consider. On pages 54-55 Einstein dreams of a pilgrimage to the center of time where time stands still, where children never grow up, where lovers never lose each other. And reviewing these pages only brings more to wonder at.In 140 pages with illustrations by Chris Costello, this work sets the mind in flight. I was moved to reread of Einstein's Relativity and then another revisit of Einstein's Dreams. And the world of time keeps growing and creates a wondrous place to wander through, to ponder the eternal question of time.

The book is short, but I could not finish it. It is little more than a stream of shallow truisms about time, or grandiose pronouncements — some almost nonsensical — about the nature of humanity. For instance, the author muses that in the spring people grow tired of their orderly lives, generate disorder, and return to order in the summer. I’ve been alive for more than six decades, and I have seen no evidence if such behavior.The author tries to sound profound and sensitive, but for me the book feels like it was written high-school freshman trying to copy Dylan Thomas.

Somewhat disappointing Read. Did not feel informed.