When I was growing up in the 1950s and 60s, Albert Einstein
was one of the two dead celebrities/ heroes that we all knew. He was the guy
who looks like an eccentric but lovable great uncle who was super-intelligent
because he used a greater percentage of his brain than the rest of us mortals.
Everyone admired Albert Einstein.
Michael Paterniti's "Driving Mr. Albert" [2000] is
an examination of the cost and curse of celebrity. The book focuses around
Professor Albert Einstein and Doctor Thomas Harvey-the Princeton pathologist
who performed the autopsy on Einstein in 1955. As a part of the procedure, he
removed Einstein's brain from the skull to weigh and measure it. Afterwards, he
took Einstein's brain home with him for further research. Decades later, he
still had it. For Paterniti, the pathologist is an “uberpilgrim” who is nearing
the end of his peregrination.
Basically this is an account of the strange road trip that the
author and Harvey made in a Buick Skylark from Princeton, New Jersey, to the
Bay Area in California with Einstein's brain stashed in truck sloshing around in
a Tupperware container. It is also a meditation on the lives of Einstein,
Harvey and the author. Paternity also makes some interesting observations on
the nature of celebrity and the 21st Century world which Einstein helped shape.
This was a fun book to read, and I recommend this slightly macabre but humorous
tale.
