A Beautiful Mind

Stella Daily writes: "The unlikely subject of Ron Howard's film A Beautiful Mind , based on the 1998 Sylvia Nasar book of the same name, is John Forbes Nash Jr., a mathematical genius whose doctoral thesis earned him a Nobel Prize -- and a schizophrenia patient whose illness kept him out of the academic community for decades. The John Nash of the film is a brilliant young man who doesn't quite fit in, ignores his classes, is gawky with women and, above all, is consumed with a desire for an original idea. It is easy to like this Nash, with his Southern drawl and his earnest demeanor, and to sympathize with him as he fights his way back from insanity." Stella explains below why things aren't quite that simple. A Beautiful Mind author Sylvia Nasar pages 464 publisher Simon & Schuster rating 9 reviewer Stella Daily ISBN 0684819066 summary A beautifully written biography, more complex and troublesome than the film it inspired.

The John Nash of Nasar's biography, while less likable, is far more fascinating and multidimensional than his cinematic counterpart; he is a draft dodger, a vicious prankster (one practical joke of Nash's involved filling a light fixture with water, which could have electrocuted a hapless victim when he turned on the light), and an arrogant braggart.

Hollywood has whitewashed much from Nash's life; besides working to dodge the Korean War draft out of fears that it would hurt his career, Nash fathered an illegitimate son whom he refused to help care for, despite the fact that his own circumstances were far better than those of the child's mother. The woman he married, Alicia Larde, is portrayed in the film as the one and only love of Nash's life; no mention is made of their 1963 divorce. (Nearly forty years later, the couple remarried.) To read Nasar's biography is to discover fascinating episodes like Nash's stint in Europe, when he attempted several times to renounce his American citizenship and obtain political asylum, and his encounters with fellow patient and Pulitzer prizewinning poet Robert Lowell in a Massachusetts mental hospital.

The book is as absorbing a history lesson as it is a story; Nasar sets Nash's life beautifully in the context of his time. Nash's bisexuality, for example, was much more of an issue then than it would be now; while today many areas have laws against discrimination based on sexual orientation, in 1954 not only was it legal for employers to dismiss a homosexual employee, but any evidence of homosexuality was sufficient grounds to deprive a government employee of security clearance. Later, the reader learns of many once-credited treatments for mental illness, like insulin injections (thought to deprive the brain of sugar and thus kill off defective brain cells), colonic irrigation, and even "fever therapy," given by inoculating patients with malaria or typhoid. Nasar's description of the politics by which Nobel prizes are awarded, a process purposely shrouded in mystery by the various committees involved, is a particularly fascinating read. Her inclusion of these and other details paints a rich historical picture that's a pleasure to read.

The one thing missing from A Beautiful Mind is, of course, the voice of John Nash himself. Where possible, Nasar plucked quotes from his writings and the recollections of friends and colleagues, but Nash himself maintained, as he put it to a New York Times reporter, "a position of Swiss neutrality" toward his biographer. Throughout the extraordinary story of Nash's life -- his rapid rise to fame, his loves, his illness, his disappearance for decades from the academic community, and his recognition at last as a Nobel laureate, one wants to ask him, "What were you thinking?" Unfortunately, it's a question Nasar was unable to answer.

One true merit of the movie, so highly altered from Nash's real story (and, considered apart from the facts, it is both moving and interesting), is that it will undoubtedly inspire many to pick up Nasar's beautifully written biography. It's time to meet the real John Nash.

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Comments

Re:Oh yeah?

[Allaria]

...is gawky with women...
What geek isn't?
Girl geeks.
We just don't like other women

Debunked!

[crow_t_robot]

This story is total balogna ( baloney ) because everyone knows that everyone that visits this site on purpose DOESN'T have a girlfriend. Nice try pal! xXxRobertDowneyJr.xXx

Slashdot needs a built-in Demoroniser

[Chagrin]

Timothy's text isn't Latin-1 compliant; most likely due to his use of a Microsoft editor to write his article. For Linux users like myself please turn off the smart quotes if you insist on using a Microsoft editor to write your articles.

Price theory aka "microeconomics" works just fine

[GlenRaphael]

"economics" is not a real science and nothing they come up with actually works in the real world.

Here are a few predictions founded in economic theory:

(1) if McDonalds decides tomorrow to cut a dollar off the price of a Big Mac and leaves all the other menu items unchanged, they will sell more Big Macs (relative to the other items on the menu) than they do now.

(2) If McDonald's doubles the price of the Big Mac they will sell fewer Big Macs (relative to the other menu items) than they do now.

(3) If McDonald's cuts the price in half their outlets, people will flock to those outlets; the ones with the lower price will get more business (relative to the ones with the higher price) than before the pricing change.

Care to argue with any of those? I thought not. :-)

Getting out of demand management and more into the realm of politics, one thing economists know pretty well is how to create a shortage (legally fix prices below the market level) or a glut (legally fix prices above market). If you tax something you get less of it, if you subsidize something you get more of it. So rent control laws tend to aggravate a shortage of housing (relative to what there would have been), and increases in the minimum wage law tend to increase unemployment (relative to what it would have been). These effects can be measured, and have been, and experience bears out the theory.

Economics is a real science.