An international bestseller by Alan Lightman, Einstein’s Dreams is a novel composed of five chapters that explore the imagined dreams of Albert Einstein as he works on the theory of relativity in 1905, each one offering a unique meditation on the nature of time.
This book design contains five of the novel’s chapters. Each chapter’s structure was inspired by a concept and is a work of experimentation that challenges publication design rules. The chapters can be read individually as booklets and are tied together in their spine. All booklets are held inside a slipcase.
Chapter 14, April 1905.
“And just as all things will be repeated in the future, all things now happening happened a million times before. Some few people in every town, in their dreams, are vaguely aware that all has occurred in the past.”
Chapter 22, June 1905.
“Now she prepares for a pirouette, right leg moving back to fourth position, pushing off on one foot, arms coming in to speed the tum. She is precision. She is a clock. In her mind, while she dances, she thinks she should have floated a little on one leap, but she cannot float because her movements are not hers.”
Chapter 9, June 1905.
“Grandparents never die, nor do great- grandparents, great-aunts and great-uncles, great-great-aunts, and so on, back through the generations, all alive and offering advice. Sons never escape from the shadows of their fathers. Nor do daughters of their mothers. No one ever comes into his own.”
Chapter 10, May 1905.
“The tragedy of this world is that no one is happy, whether stuck in a time of pain or of joy. The tragedy of this world is that everyone is alone. For a life in the past cannot be shared with the present. Each person who gets stuck in time gets stuck alone.”
