Einstein in Kafkaland How Albert fell down the rabbit hole and came up with the universe

In a remarkable stroke of cosmic overlap, before becoming truly famous, both Albert Einstein and Franz Kafka were in Prague between 1911 and 1912. Einstein is struggling to bend gravity to his will, fighting against millennia of what we know reality to be; Kafka is swimming in the vastness of existential anxiety, desperate to break through. It is in this swirling moment of potential that Krimstein builds a remarkable historical fantasy that draws the two together, each pulled along in their own way by the White Rabbit (yes, that White Rabbit). Krimstein's artwork pulls the reader in with shadowy figures, mood-driving color, and moments of unforgettable humor. Max Abraham, a rival of Einstein's, has an unforgettable cameo, as does Euclid, back from the grave to defend his three dimensions of reality. Visual metaphors are key to the language of comics, and Krimstein's mastery of them is on full display. Readers seeking to understand relativity or absurdity may want to look elsewhere, but readers seeking to go down the rabbit hole and feel the truth will be at home in these pages.

Bending real history into a fantastical tale of two young thinkers in pursuit of "the true truth," this playful graphic novel by New Yorker cartoonist Krimstein (When I Grow Up) takes as its starting point a 1911 salon hosted by Berta Fanta at Prague's White Unicorn Pharmacy, which Franz Kafka and Albert Einstein both attended. Riffing on Alice in Wonderland, Krimstein takes readers through the looking glass to follow Einstein's attempt to come up with an equation to explain his theory of relativity, imagining conversations between the theoretical physicist and the writer, who was "terminally single" and "still living at home with his parents." Characters float through watercolor dreamscapes in moody teals and tans, conveying how kooky and poetic the concept of a four-dimensional universe was and is: "Everything curls around everything else, time and space merge into a stew that can only be called space-time." Defying the Euclidean status quo requires a leap of faith that occurs when art and science merge, Krimstein suggests­--or, in the words of a crescent moon with Kafka's face, "Who says Euclid's story is the only story?" Irreverent yet full of tenderness for its subjects, Krimstein's experiment is a dizzying delight. Agent: Jennifer Lyons, Jennifer Lyons Literary. (Aug.)

A graphic biography of the intersection of Einstein and Kafka in Prague during 1911-1912, a fertile period for both men. Writer and cartoonist Krimstein, author of The Three Escapes of Hannah Arendt, When I Grow Up, and Kvetch as Kvetch Can, engagingly chronicles a significant time period for both cultural giants. When the year began, neither Einstein nor Kafka was the legendary figure he would become. As the author writes, Einstein was "a financially strapped 32-year-old father of three who's had to drag his family here to double his salary, save his marriage, and, most important, to salvage his foundering scientific legacy." Meanwhile, Kafka was "far from the cockroach-crowned, hooded-eyed 'prophet of modern literature' whose very name has become a byword for mechanized ennui and the robotic futility of modern life." In Prague, Einstein began to understand that treating space as simple emptiness didn't work, but allowing it physical qualities, such as the ability to bend and twist, opened up dazzling possibilities--although this theory required that time become a dimension as real as length, height, and depth. All this made matters vastly more complicated--the mathematics were daunting, and a mathematician friend later helped him with the equations--so he considered this period as extraordinarily stressful. Readers looking for an explanation of relativity should consult Krimstein's superb, opinionated bibliography; the lively timeline is also helpful. Euclid makes an appearance to denounce adding a dimension to his immortal three. Kafka does not receive as much attention as Einstein, but mostly lurks about wondering if he and Einstein are simpatico. Perhaps to introduce conflict, Krimstein gives a prominent role to Max Abraham, a rare contemporary who rejected relativity. In reality, almost every physicist who read his papers thought he was on to something. A fun, amusing fantasy about an important year in two icons' lives. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.