This week’s bathroom reading is Michael Paterniti’s Driving Mr Albert: A Trip Across America With Einstein’s Brain. I’m halfway through with the book, which is surprisingly enough a true story and not fiction, as I’d assumed when I first picked it up; Paterniti wrote a piece about his trip with Dr Thomas Harvey that was published in Harper’s, won the 1998 National Magazine Award for Feature Writing, and turned into this book. I haven’t decided whether I really like or just like Driving Mr Albert yet, but I am in all kinds of love with this bit from the chapter titled How to Make Love to the Same Person for the Rest of Your Life:

Even now there are doctors who claim in our lifetimes we will see the first brain transplant or that cloning will become an everyday occurence. In essence, they predict that science, not religion, will guarantee us an afterlife. And yet I can’t help but wonder what Einstein would make of America if he sat in the backseat now—or, perhaps, what he will make of it when he sits in the backseat again. And I wonder if this kind of afterlife would be so great after all. Einstein’s brain in the body of Fabio? Or Einstein regenerated, living a life on top of the life he’s already led, doomed by the accomplishments of his former self. A life already confined, categorized, and collated before it’s even begun again. What would it feel like to be born with an FBI file already open on you? Or to know you had once revolutionized the world with your work, but then never found true love? Might you try to trade one for the other? Or would you just sit around smoking pot all day, rebelling againt yourself?

Reading that brought back memories of a novel I haven’t thought about since I finished reading it as a pre-teen, C.J. Cherryh’s Hugo Award-winning Cyteen, in which the protagonist is a clone of a brilliant deceased leader of state, being raised in an environment designed to give her the personality and character of her manipulative and warped predecessor.
I didn’t find Cyteen as compelling a read then as I think I might if I picked it up again now, possibly because when I was younger I was more focused on just being myself, whatever I was, whereas now I’m all about figuring out why I am the way I am (and what’s broken, how do I fix it, etc). Most of us fit and measure ourselves against our parents and siblings, our friends and contemporaries, people we admire; how much more difficult would it be to deal with other lives we’ve lived?
Anyway, 2005 marks a full century since Einstein’s annus mirabilis, the year he published the four papers that catapulted him from clerk at the Bern Patent Office to international superstar. Three ways to celebrate:

1. Read Alan Lightman’s excellent novel Einstein’s Dreams, in which we get a glimpse at 30 dreams about time Einstein might have had in 1905 while working on the theory of relativity.
2. Watch I.Q., one of my favorite romantic comedies, in which Walter Matthau’s Einstein matchmakes his brainy niece Meg Ryan with Tim Robbins’s sweet mechanic. My favorite exchange:
   

   Einstein: “The problem is she would never go out with a guy like you.”
   Ed: “Well that’s easy. Lend me your brain for a while.”
   Einstein: “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
   Ed: “Now what are the odds of that happening?”

3. Buy this Albert Einstein Action Figure:

More Einstein: fantastic Wikipedia Entry (did you know the photo of him with his tongue out was taken on his birthday in 1951?), Albert Einstein Online (a great collection of links), the American Institute of Physics’ site on Einstein’s Image & Impact, and Nova’s Einstein’s Big Idea special which premieres on October 11.
More Michael Paterniti/Driving Mr Albert: Excerpt from Driving Mr Albert, Paterniti reading from Driving Mr Albert as RealMedia & mp3 from Salon and RealAudio from BoldType, Interview from Interview in 2000.