Rating: 
Summary: Good Biography about a Fascinating Subject
Review: If there's a more terrifying affliction than mental illness, an inability to control the one thing that truly belongs to you, your thoughts, I can't imagine what it would be. Sylvia Nasar's carefully researched and very well-written book takes the reader along on such a horrible journey, following the slow descent of mathemetician John Nash into a devastating paranoid schizophrenia that, in many ways, robbed Nash of close to a quarter-century of his life.Nasar begins with Nash's childhood and follows him through college and graduate school, introducing us to a man at once awe-inspiring and yet in many ways wholly unadmirable. Nash was an arrogant, unpleasant, in some ways reprehensible human being who frequently treated other people as little more than tools for his use or objects for his entertainment. Yet he was also an incredible genius whose ability to solve incredibly complex mathematical problems and his breakthrough that would lead to his Nobel prize marked him as an intellect that might well have rivaled Einstein and Von Neumann. Then Nasar forces us to follow this fascinating man into the terrifying world his illness created for him, where aliens sent him coded messages and where Nash became convinced he was a religious leader sent to save mankind. Watching his descent, it's impossible not to shudder at the realization this could well happen to anyone. But, through what Nash now argues is his ability to choose not to listen to his paranoid ideations, Nash overcame his schizophrenia and managed to rejoin the mathematical community. Nasar follows Nash back to respectability, and provides a fascinating look behind the scenes of Nobel politics as she examines the circumstances surrounding his prize. In all, Nasar has created an excellent work that is well-researched, easy to read, and worthy of any reader's time.
Rating:
Summary: The true story of a remarkable man
Review: Those who have seen the movie, A Beautiful Mind, will soon find in reading this book that the movie is not to be found inside. It is not, of course, unusual for Hollywood to take liberties with source material, but in this case one may say that the movie is basically a fictitious version of John Nash's life. A few major examples: Nash first manifested symptoms of schizophrenia around age 30, not when he was a graduate student at Princeton. The work for which he received the Nobel was completed prior to the onset of the disease. He had no visual hallucinations, which eliminates the imagined espionage that formed the core of the movie. I could go on, but I only wanted to make a point. That point being that the filmmakers created dramatic, action packed scenes that never actually happened and in so doing missed the real story of John Nash, which I believe is a much better one. This book, with supporting footnotes and bibliography, tells the story of a man who could almost be described as a sociopath long before the illness struck. As I read the book, the vision that came to mind was of a whirlwind that left a trail of (emotional) devastation in its wake. There was the woman who bore him a son out of wedlock; a son he refused to lift a finger or spend a penny to support. She remained loyal to Nash even though she was forced to place her son in foster care on numerous occasions as a result of Nash's callousness. There was his wife who faithfully followed him to Europe where he intended to renounce his American citizenship. It was only through her efforts and the good graces of the French government that he avoided becoming, quite literally, a man without a country. Long after their divorce, she took John in when he came to her with nowhere else to go. There were the associates who he ridiculed and belittled both personally and for their work even though, in some cases, they were trying to help him achieve the recognition he so desperately sought. Even the Nobel committee who made it possible for him to receive the prize literally destroyed itself in the process. The real story, in my opinion, is of the many people who took the brunt of his mean-spirited selfishness and then, when Nash needed it, put their time, their reputations, and even their careers on the line to help him. It is a remarkable tribute to the innate kindness of so many people who were willing to forgive so much for this broken genius of a man. For 388 pages Sylvia Nasar leads the reader through John Nash's fascinating life from his birth to the present. But, when all was said and done, I felt as though I had read the first 378 pages so that I could understand the heart-wrenching final ten.
Rating: 
Summary: None of you seem to get it!
Review: When we, all of us who are said to be 'gifted,' finally speak about our clear observations, the peasants call us mad and we are forced to remain silent about it, to "act normal" in the realm of the extragalactics. Do we act differently? Sure we do! Once you understand it, you suffer from post traumatic stress disorder, as the chemical-dispensing charlatans call it. Be afraid. be very afraid. We, people like myself and John Nash, are proving this reality in a manner that the peasant class cannot ignore. By 2020, we will tear down the walls of the peasant classes. Then, we shall see who is mad! In most ways, we are already there. It simply goes unnoticed by the watchers of Jerry Springer. But, it will not be unnoticed very much longer at all. What was done to John is criminal. Oh, this is brilliant, but that is sick! Says who? Ask John, if he can trust you. After spending years in a phenothiazine straight-jacket, you will have to be his friend for him to admit to it. He never had a disorder, but yes, he was agitated. That goes with seeing reality. A swarm of mosquitoes type of companion usually causes a breakdown, too. By piling on. All of this and more are in this book. Enjoy your future. Just know one thing for certain. We own it! You, especially the psychologist or mental physician, are the ones who are deluded. You should know that by now. If you do not, you soon will. One hint for you. Study the year 1969.
Rating:
Summary: Genius and Mental Illness
Review: Sylvia Nasar has written a very engaging biography here. I say "engaging" because though the book contains a great deal more about Nash's life than I need to know, I continued to read it thoroughly. Her command of the English language alone is pleasure enough, and her work is as much an invitation into the arcane world of higher mathematics during the mid 20th century as it is into the cross-wired and brilliant mind of Nash. But her Nash biography is just that, and her work is a must-read for anyone interested in the sympathy between genius and mental illness.
Rating: 
Summary: A life of tragedy and a trumph!
Review: Sylvia Nasar has written a compelling and fascinating narrative about one of the most unique minds of our generation. John Nash is an intriguing character study as is his life. The book is written in a very clean, journalistic style and is quite detailed, although sometimes there seems to be a bit too many details as evidenced by the many pages of footnotes, but all in all this book is breathtaking in its scope and its many unique insights into John Nash's mind. However, I wish we could have taken a more probing look directly into the mind of John Nash like we see in "The Music of Madness" by Tracy Harris; a book about another great talent that was almost crushed out of existence by mental illness. Ms. Harris delves much deeper into her own mind and the chaos it produces. I wish we could have lived in Mr. Nash's mind for a while instead of mostly experiencing things related to his life events and people that he knew. Books like A Beautiful Mind help us all understand the tragedy of mental illness and the fact that we need to be filled with compassion for those who fight the good fight everyday against schizophrenia. This book is wonderful and I highly recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: A burden of genius
Review: Unbelievable. It was one of those books that you wish would never end. Sylvia Nasar was certainly deserving of the National Book Critics Circle Award. The book was a journey through one man's life from the heights of his brilliance to the depths of his isolation in a world of delusion and loneliness. Despite a few forays into more complex statements concerning Nash's work, the book gathers you in and takes you into Nash's world and gives an intimate portrayal of his struggles and successes. A rare treasure that provided an absolute wealth of information not only about the man, but about the world in which he lived, the people that he met, his family and friends. It was as if each page were a snapshot and the author quietly, but thoroughly and succintly, explained the background of the photo, the impact of the setting, who the people were and how they interacted with one another. I especially enjoyed her organization of the chapters by periods of his life or specific individuals that influenced or were influenced by Nash; it was oddly reflective of how Nash would deal with people prior to his bottoming out -- there would be a brief moment of intersection and then Nash would go off into another direction, seemingly without being moved or affected by the various individual. His was a beautiful mind trapped in genius that took him over the very edge of sanity and subsequently saved him. Rarely has a book provided so much information about not only the man but about the times in which he -- and his fellow academics -- lived. But the human element as put forth by Ms. Nasar brought me to tears for several chapters. My heart ached for the man who was, in turn, adored, praised, then shunned, and forgotten; and it ached for the loyal and devoted companion he found in Alicia Nash. Although totally different from the movie, which I loved, it stands alone as a masterpiece of biography.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful...and Intriguing
Review: John Forbes Nash, Jr. was a genius who suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and was in and out of mental institutions for most of his life. Nasar's book, as she states so succinctly in her prologue, is Nash's story, "in three acts: genius, madness, reawakening." Naturally introverted, even at a young age, Nash was described as being "bookish and slightly odd." His mother had him reading by the time he was four and instead of coloring books, his father gave him science books to read. But despite his parents' efforts, the young Nash was prone to daydreaming in school, which led his teachers to describe him as an underachiever. A loner and the ultimate nerd, his best friends were books, his bedroom resembled a science lab, he was always the last to be chosen for baseball, and at a school dance, he danced with chairs rather than girls. Although his elementary school math teachers complained he couldn't do the work, his mother noticed he wasn't following the teachers' instructions because he had devised a simpler way of solving the problems. By high school, he was deciphering problems his chemistry teacher wrote on the blackboard, without using pencil or paper. In college, his math professors would call on Nash when they themselves ran into problems solving complex equations they were presenting to their classes. But together with his brilliance were eccentricities that became more evident as Nash aged. Those close to him characterized him as "disconnected" and "deeply unknowable." He had little use for textbooks and was known for solving difficult (and often previously unsolvable) problems using "no references but his own mind." His peers called the results he was able to obtain "beautiful" and "striking", perhaps his greatest achievement being his work on game theory, which led to a Nobel Prize for economics in 1994. He possessed a true love of discovery - while swimming with a friend in California, the two were dragged out to sea by an undercurrent and nearly drowned. Finally reaching shore exhausted, the friend was grateful for surviving while Nash, after briefly catching his breath, re-entered the surf exclaiming, "I wonder if that was an accident. I think I'll go back in and see." Nash was in California during the Cold War working for the internationally famous think tank known as the RAND Corporation. Funded by the U.S. Air Force, RAND was populated by "the best minds in mathematics, physics, political science, and economics." Their principle focus was developing strategies to deter - or if that failed, to win - a nuclear war against Russia. Suddenly, the game theory Nash had been intrigued by at Princeton had a practical application, for war is the ultimate game of conflict. Years later, a more profitable application would be the FCC's $7-billion sale of cell phone air space to competing communications conglomerates. Possibly the oddest in an odd bunch of ducks, Nash's math colleagues over the years included a professor who used a mathematical formula to select his suits; the manic-depressive Norbert Wiener (the founder of cybernetics), who was known to say such things as "When we met, was I walking to the faculty club or away from it? For in the latter case I've already had my lunch"; and others who were "beset by shyness, awkwardness, strange mannerisms, and all kinds of physical and psychological tics.'" By the age of 30 it became apparent Nash was more than just eccentric as he started to display symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia; behaving suspiciously, becoming suspect of others, and finally announcing that "abstract powers from outer space" were communicating with him through encrypted messages printed in the New York Times and broadcast by radio stations. He developed "an obsession with the stock and bond markets," investing his mother's savings, convinced he could outsmart the markets and earn a profit. Instead, the results were "disastrous, to say the least." He was offered a prestigious chair in the mathematics department at the University of Chicago - something he had long strived for - but in response the chairman of the department received a strange letter from Nash declining the offer since he had decided to become the "Emperor of Antarctica" instead. Eventually, his illness required long periods of hospitalization while he endured drug and insulin shock therapy, with the result being the loss of a considerable portion of his memory. When an associate came to visit during one of his hospital stays, Nash mused, "What if they don't let me out until I'm NORMAL?" Although Nash shared some exquisite company, at one point being hospitalized with the poet Robert Lowell, on the whole he was slightly atypical of the average mental patient. Most don't work on a paper on fluid dynamics while institutionalized, and he took some ribbing for this. Nasar notes an instance when another patient remarked, "Professor, let me show you how one uses a broom." Despite his illness, the math community rallied around Nash. A colleague remembers, "Everybody wanted to help [him]. His was a mind too good to waste." By 1990, his illness had gone into remission and he was able to stop taking antipsychotic drugs, while learning to separate rational thinking from delusional thinking. In spite of his amazing recovery, awarding him with the Nobel Prize was a contentious issue due to his history of schizophrenia. But once awarded, there was resolve that the right decision had been made about a very worthy individual. One committee member recalls, "We resurrected him in a way. It was emotionally satisfying." Soon after it was announced he had won, Nash half-joked "he hoped that getting the Nobel would improve his credit rating because he really wanted a credit card." Nasar's engaging account of Nash's life and work is both comprehensive and well-written. It is highly recommended reading if you're looking for the full story.
Rating: 
Summary: This Is Not A Biography!
Review: This book should be retitled "The History of Mathematical Research In The 20th Century". I am an avid reader and possessed of a degree in mathematics, but I was hard-pressed to follow a good bit of the theoretical information presented in this book. Further, I find that the inclusion of such material does not enhance, but rather detracts from the story. That is, of course, assuming the story is supposed to be the biography of John Nash. Within the first 150 pages one would not be exagerating in the least to say that there are probably less than 10 pages presented about the life of John Nash. This book is tedious, cluttered with extraneous information and not much of a cohesive biography. When I read this and see the rave reviews and credentials of the author, I do not wonder why my 6th grade daughter cannot yet write a cohesive paragraph. The problem seems epidemic in our culture if this book is any indication of the "literature" which is receiving kudos for greatness.
Rating:
Summary: How did Sylvia Do It?
Review: I've read bios before, but in this one, it seems almost
impossible that a bographer could get this close to a subject without stalking:) It's very fine. I really admire this work and have so much enjoyed reading it. Because Ms. Nasar lets us in to this
mathematician's world, without the pre-requisite that we
need to know any genius-level math!
Rating:
Summary: An ambitious biography
Review: Now that the Ron Howard film has been released, it is difficult to review the book on its own merits. Yet this biography is so strong, it can stand on its own. Nasar is an excellent writer who can create excellent pen pictures of life at RAND, MIT and Princeton. She shows great style in creating the environment of the late 1940s and the 1950s. Nash emerges as a complex, demanding and flawed person - an individual. Nash has since refuted the claims of anti-semitism and homosexuality in the book, but it is good to see that Nasar does not side step the issues at all. It is probably prudent to read Nash's comments on the book before making a judgement. Where Nash is weak is in her descriptions of mathematical formulae. She does not appear to have any real understanding of the mathematics and I would have thought a plain English explanation of his work would have strengthened the biography. I got a little frustrated that she did not tackle this task. Yet it is perhaps a measure of Nash's genius that the ideas are so complex they cannot be easily reduced to a paragraph. Still she could have tried harded in this area. Nasar tends to get around this problem, by getting another expert to describe the brilliance of the idea, rather than the mathemtical idea itself. Based on my own experiences with people with schizophrenia, Nash's recovery is remarkable and this is the section is probably the most interesting, perhaps because it is so startling. Even after reading the biogrpahy, I still find it hard to believe that someone could recover given the severity of the illness, so it gives some hope to people who suffer this disability and those close to them. An absorbing biography and close to a great one.
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