The Human Side of Science in the Novels of Alan Lightman

Abstract

In his four novels —Einstein’s Dreams (1993), Good Benito (1995), The Diagnosis (2000) and Reunion (2003)— Alan Lightman creates an interplay between the two interests which come into contact and conflict in his own life: on the one hand, science, and on the other, humanistic and literary concerns. In his fiction, he portrays scientists like his version of Albert Einstein and the fictional Bennett, or Benito, who have to reconcile the vagaries of human life with the certainties of mathematics and physics. Lightman shows how big ideas in science come as much from imaginative life as from calculations. This slant on the issue may come in part from Lightman’s interest in the magic realist writers. Also, the reason/ emotion paradigm is developed through a subtle feminist subplot as Lightman attempts to show the different facets involved in the discussion. In the mind/body discussion, the body is the site of the struggle against symptoms of the impact of the modern world. Here, Lightman works in a Kafkaesque play on the theme of the individual versus society, along with an ecological message involving the need for balance and variety.

En sus cuatro novelas —Einstein’s Dreams (1993), Good Benito (1995), The Diagnosis (2000) y Reunion (2003)— Alan Lightman crea un juego entre los dos focos de interés que están en contacto —e incluso entran en conflicto— en su propia vida, que son, por un lado, la ciencia, y por otro, las preocupaciones humanísticas y literarias. En su ficción, crea prota- gonistas que son científicos, como, por ejemplo, su versión de Albert Einstein, o Benito, un personaje de ficción, que tienen que reconciliar las incertidumbres de la vida humana con

las certezas de las matemáticas y la física. Lightman demuestra que las grandes ideas cientí- ficas surgen tanto de las matemáticas como de la imaginación. También, como autor com- prometido, incluye en sus obras discusiones de género y de ecología, dentro del marco de la ciencia y la vida humana.