Dos meses antes del ascenso de Adolf Hitler al poder, una bella joven desnuda y casi moribunda es hallada en los bosques a las afueras de Berlín. Cuando por fin despierta de su coma, no puede recordar nada, ni siquiera su propio nombre.
La única pista sobre su identidad es un programa encontrado cerca de ella en el que se anuncia una conferencia de Albert Einstein: sobre el estado actual de la teoría cuántica. Los periódicos se apresuran a bautizarla como "la chica Einstein".
El psiquiatra Martin Kirsch no es consciente de que éste será su último caso. Decidido a toda costa a descubrir la verdad sobre "la paciente E", sus investigaciones le llevan a un remoto rincón de Serbia, pasando por un hospital psiquiátrico en Zúrich...

Dos meses antes del ascenso de Adolfo Hitler al poder, una bella joven desnuda y casi moribunda es hallada en los bosques a las afueras de Berlín. Cuando por fin despierta de su coma, no puede recordar nada, ni siquiera su propio nombre.
La única pista sobre su identidad es un programa encontrado cerca de ella en el que se anuncia una conferencia de Albert Einstein: Sobre el estado actual de la Teoría cuántica. Los periódicos se apresuran a bautizarla como "la chica Einstein".
El Psiquiatra Martin Kirsch no es consciente de que éste sera su último caso. Decidido a toda costa a descubrir la verdad sobre la "paciente E", sus investigaciones le llevan a un remoto rincón de Serbia, pasando por un hospital psiquiátrico en Zurich...
Una absorbente novela de misterio sobre el amor y el ansia de conocimiento. Un oscuro viaje psicológico al interior de la mayor mente del siglo XX.

I read the entire book despite trying to quit several times. I wish I hadn't bothered persevering to the end. The ending was a big let down. ( )

A clever, thoughtful, and interesting story, based on a what-if scenario from an all but forgotten incident in Albert Einstein's early life. What begins as a (missing persons and possibly murder?) mystery gradually meanders through an exploration of early 20th-century theories of insanity and its treatment, the rising power of the Nazis in early 1930s Germany and their determination to weed out supposedly heritable mental conditions, and the Great War's shadow in the form of a dead brother whose parting gift of a book on Einstein's theories of relativity forms part of the main character's motivation for pursuing the case of an amnesiac woman found with a copy of an announcement for one of Einstein's public lectures. The character's attempt to walk a fine line between exploiting the too-close connections of his fiancée's family to the rising powers while trying to save the woman from both his colleagues' brutal medical treatments and the new regime's directives on patients with psychiatric conditions never quite turns the book into a detailed historical or political thriller. It does, however, provide an illuminating backdrop for his final journey across Europe in pursuit of the woman's past and in flight from the continent's future. The final cadenza at the end of the book necessitates a re-reading of the very opening sections but in the process provides an alternate-universes sensation that is appropriate to the book's brief but important physics-related themes. ( )

Philip Sington’s The Einstein Girl is a historical novel that takes place during the last days of the German Republic and the first month of the Nazi regime. A woman was found, bruised and near death with no memory of who she is. A psychiatrist at the local Charité hospital in Berlin recognizes her as a woman who caught his eye on the street, but he does not really know who she is. Nonetheless, Dr. Martin Kirsch resolved to treat her and solve the mystery of what happened to her.

This is a unwise. He is not popular where he works and has been asked to resign. A mysterious benefactor with quite a lot of power has commissioned him to do research on the efficacy of psychiatric diagnosis. The benefactor forces the resignation of Kirsch’s opposition. He’s also feeling conflicted because he is engaged to the lovely and adoring Alma Siegel and really should not be this interested in another woman, even a women cloaked in mystery.

The more he learns about the mysterious Mariya, as she names herself, the more intriguing it all becomes. Is there a conspiracy to keep her identity hidden? He finds her apartment and discovers that she is a brilliant mathematician/physicist trying to solve the problem of the fifth dimension and the unified field theory. She must be connected to Einstein in some way.

There is much to admire in The Einstein Girl. Sington is good at writing about physics and quantum mechanics without being technical. He also effectively creates the atmosphere of the declining Weimar Republic, the growing suspicion, the rapid consolidation of power under the Nazis, the way threats and intimidation were used to silence criticism and invoke fear. It is a cautionary example of abnormal and aberrant ideology being normalized through fear and collaboration.

The story is not convincing in the end. Elements are. I can understand how Martin Kirsch became obsessed with Mariya. Her story is touching, even haunting, and the seeds of it lie in the revised understanding of Einstein since the release of his papers by Princeton. In the end, the story just did not add up to enough of a real story to justify the intrigue and mystery. The story of a psychiatrist coming to realize how his work has been misunderstood and exploited by the Nazis was the more interesting plot line and it was the least developed, more of a subplot. The main focus was on figuring out just who the Einstein Girl was and the sad, shoddy, and sorry answer to what happened was just that, sad, shabby and sorry and neither she nor Einstein deserved what happens when they meet each other.

Of course, in the very end, we are left wondering how meta this story is. Is it the story of Martin Kirsch and Mariya or is it Eduard’s, Einstein’s son, story? Perhaps that ambiguity allows for the awful claim against Einstein that is made. I am not certain, which makes this book one that people can spend a lot of time discussing and debating.

https://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpress.com/2016/12/11/the-einstein-girl-by-phil... ( )