Books

Average customer rating:

One of Lightman's lesser works
Lightman is a marvelous writer
This falls short
A collection of pointless unrelated short stories
The Benito is a superpartner to Einstein's Dreams

GOOD BENITO: A Novel
Alan Lightman
Manufacturer: Pantheon
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Domestic Life | Women's Fiction | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Reunion
Einstein's Dreams
Dance for Two: Essays
The Diagnosis: A Novel
A Sense of the Mysterious: Science and the Human Spirit

ASIN: 0679436146
Release Date: 1995-01-15

Customer Reviews:

One of Lightman's lesser works.......2006-03-30

If you have read "Reunion" or "Einstein's Dreams", you'll be quite upset with this novel.

It seems rather limited in its scope, and is lacking metaphor like Lightman's other works. He has developed as a writer since this book, however. Don't let this one discourage you from exploring his other wonderful novels.

Lightman is a marvelous writer.......2005-07-01

I would probably give this novel 4 stars, but I'm giving it 5 to boost up its average. Do ignore the other negative reviews. Though the plot of the story is by no means extraordinary, Lightman makes up for it with his elegant prose. His writing is poetic, subtle, and sensual. Artistic rationality. I would read his writing for the turn of the phrases, for the cadences of the speech.

This falls short.......2004-12-20

This book is a novel about Bennett Lang, a scholar of theoretical physics, and is told in short vignettes about his life, in terms of his relationships. These are in the form of relationships with teachers, lovers, friends and colleagues.

While the book purports to be a novel, as opposed to how skillfully and beautifully Einstein's Dreams was told in short, distinct and separated vignettes, it doesn't have the main aspect that we expect in a novel, which is that we expect to be able to connect the dots in the story to form a line of plot. While I think this book has something to offer in terms of some of its ideas on academia, ambition and relationships, they are not presented cohesively enough to make themselves known in a real and felt way for the reader.

Around 10 pages from the end of this book, I asked my husband, "Will we find out what this is ABOUT soon?" I think it would be more effective if it were more definitely divided a la "Einstein's Dreams" or more overtly connected, in the form of a more traditional novel. I would recommend skipping this one, and picking up "Einstein's Dreams" if you haven't already. That is a beautiful book!

A collection of pointless unrelated short stories.......2002-11-11

This is not a novel but a collection of pointless, unrelated short stories. Good Will Hunting it ain't. To find out about physicists read Feyman's autobiographies or Radiance.

The Benito is a superpartner to Einstein's Dreams.......2002-09-26

Good Benito seems to have been somehow overlooked amid the attention to other Alan Lightman greats like Einstein's Dreams and The Diagnosis. That's unfortunate, since Benito shares equally with those two books in its ability to linger and continue growing larger in your mind long after reading it. This one has the curious twist of centering on an alter ego of the author, as with Orson Scott Card's "Lost Boys," with parallels eerily close enough to make you wonder how much or how little the author is taking liberties with biographical experiences. To see for yourself, compare fictional Bennett Long's breakthrough in globular cluster dynamics in Benito, with real-life Alan Lightman's breakthrough in globular cluster dynamics in the Review of Modern Physics (Volume 50, page 437, published 1978).

As such, the novel stands as much a creative quasi-autobiography as an apological defense for leaving a profession in physics. For Bennett strives constantly for a rational universe capable of becoming well-understood. But while his study of physics delightfully rewards this instinct, the vicissitudes of human life and the mysteries of human behavior are far more ambiguous and troubling. This plays out almost in a series of vignettes not unlike Einstein's Dreams in structure, with serial encounters and comraderies punctuated by modernist episodes of detail-laden solitude. A pot-smoking MIT roommate, a brilliant but estranged childhood friend, a gambling-addicted uncle, a compassionate nanny, and a harried astronomer, among others, all puzzle Bennett with their irrational motivations. The novel is book-ended by the most notable subjects: the last is a beautiful and talented but implacably narcissist lover, while it begins with the most incomprehensible of all possible crazies in Bennett's world: a great physicist devoid of ego. The cumulative exploration of the limits of human reason is tied up nicely at the conclusion, wherein Bennett and his nephew float on a fishing boat amid an incoming fog and test their reactions to feeling lost in the blank shroud of human existence. Lightman's writing style conveys profound insight with sparse dialogue offset by revealing details of action and form. The questions it raises are subtle to the point of seeming to arise spontaneously in the reader's mind. An obliquely haunting story.

Good Benito [Unabridged] (Audio Cassette)
Average customer rating:
Good Benito [Unabridged] (Audio Cassette)
Alan Lightman
Manufacturer: Books on Tape
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio Cassette
ASIN: 0736629807

Product Description

Librart Edition

Average customer rating:

Good Benito
Alan Lightman
Manufacturer: Pantheon Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000GC10RO

Average customer rating:

Good Benito
Alan Lightman
Manufacturer: Random House Inc
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000O2FCR0

Average customer rating:

Good Benito
Alan Lightman
Manufacturer: Bloomsbury
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000OP6FY6

Average customer rating:

Good Benito
Alan Lightman
Manufacturer: Pantheon Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000OOZX22

Schools on the move stories of urban schools engaged in inclusive journeys of change : Benito Martinez Elementary, El Paso, Texas (Inclusive schools, good ... & communities) (SuDoc ED 1.310/2:455340)

Average customer rating:

Schools on the move stories of urban schools engaged in inclusive journeys of change : Benito Martinez Elementary, El Paso, Texas (Inclusive schools, good ... & communities) (SuDoc ED 1.310/2:455340)
U.S. Dept of Education
Manufacturer: National Institute for Urban School Improvement U.S. Dept. of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement, Educational Resources Information Center
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B000116TRG

Average customer rating:

Good Benito
alan lightman
Manufacturer: Pantheon Books,
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000FMB1YM

Average customer rating:

Good Benito
Alan Lightman
Manufacturer: Pantheon
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000NQLOLK

Books:

Books