But what if Marie had made a different choice? What if she had stayed in Poland, married Kazimierz, and never attended the Sorbonne or discovered radium? What if Marie had chosen her first love and a life of domesticity, still ravenous for knowledge in Russian Poland where education for women was restricted, instead of studying science in Paris and meeting Pierre Curie?
Seamlessly entwining the lives of Marya and Marie, Half Life is a powerful story of love and friendship, motherhood and sisterhood, fame and anonymity — and a woman destined to change the world. She lives in Arizona. A poignant exploration of ambition, family, gender and love.
A tender, nuanced and inspiring novel for anyone who's ever been torn by conflicting passions and loyalties; in other words, a book for all of us. Get our latest book recommendations, author news, and competitions right to your inbox. Tell us what you like and we'll recommend books you'll love. With nothing much else to do she reminisces and daydreams. Within only a few pages the reader will know who this remarkable woman is that forms the main character of this book.
The author however, to give a special twist has created a "sliding doors" or al Many thanks to Netgalley and Publishers Simon and Schuster for this advanced electronic copy to review and comment on. The author however, to give a special twist has created a "sliding doors" or alter ego effect for which gives an alternate story to the actual life led, that runs in parallel, a story of a choice that many women make, love over a career.
The actual historical woman did the opposite, she chose learning, discovery and a career over love, that did happen and with her husband, together they made remarkable discoveries with Marie becoming one of the most famous women in history. Poland, a country until relatively modern times, has had a pretty checkered past and has been ruled by many different countries and it is at this time that Warsaw is under Russian rule.
Marya's parents have been well off but due to their political dissent their fortunes are now limited. Her father teaches mathematics and physics for which Marya follows in his footsteps. Sadly, at only a young age Marya's mother dies leaving her father with five children to raise. However, under Russian rule a university education for women was against the law, fiercely enforced. Not to be outdone, women formed what was called a "flying university" for which small classes were held by like minded young women in secret and at different locations for each class.
She falls in love with their son Kazimierz but with strong objections from his parents and the threat of being disinherited, he calls off his relationship with Marya. Broken hearted and with lingering depression, her father drags her out of bed and informs her that he is sending her to Paris to start university.
Standing on the train making her farewells Kazimierz rushes through the crowd and tells Marya of his regret and change of mind and pleads with her to stay with him and not go to Paris.
From here on the two stories are told, Marya who goes to Paris where she becomes known as Marie and Marya, who gets off the train to be with Kazimierz. The two stories are equally beautiful and as comprehensive as each other.
Marya and Kazimierz marry, he is disinherited and life is a struggle for them. Their first child dies but later a daughter is born for which Marya devotes her life to.
Along with like minded young women, they form the "flying university" where Marya makes life long friends, one, a talented pianist, Kadi being held back by her father. She will betray Marya by having an affair with Kaz but she will also take her artistic daughter under her wing to further her music career. Marya and Kaz get through their struggles with Kaz taking up a good position through Kadi's influence with her father, a prominent mathematician who gives Kaz a job as his assistant eventually taking over Hipolit's research on his death and Marya able to pursue a scientific career be it different to the alternate Marie in France.
The alternate Marya called by the French name of Marie stays on the train for Paris and while living with her sister is introduced to many people, one of whom is Pierre Curie. They make a formidable couple. The rest is history. Marie Curie becomes one of the most prominent scientists in the world.
The only woman to receive two Nobel Prizes for two different scientific categories. The Nobel Prize also goes to Pierre. Marie also plays a vital role in developing the first ever mobile X-ray machine that assisted doctors during WW1 in determining damage and injury done to soldiers.
The author creates the story around Marie Curie giving a loving human side to this woman who, like many with such a high intellect, probably thought on an alternate level and totally absorbed with her work, not necessarily very maternal.
Pierre was the love of Marie's life and when he was killed through an horrific accident, it took a long time for her to once again pull herself out of depression.
She also travelled to the United States where she was received as a celebrity and where the money was raised for her to buy Radium. Marie and Pierre had two daughters, the eldest following in their footsteps as a scientist and was her mother's assistant after the death of their father. View 1 comment. But after his mother insisted Marya was not good enough, he broke off the engagement. A heartbroken Marya left Poland for Paris to study chemistry and physics at the Sorbonne.
Marie went on to change the course of science forever and became the first woman to win a Nobel Prize. What if she had stayed in Poland, married Kaz, never went to Sorbonne or discovered radium?
What if she chose a life of domesticity instead of studying science in Paris and meeting Pierre Curie? I found this novel really gripping and compelling. Having recently watched and enjoyed the film Radioactive about Marie Curie, I was intrigued by this book's synopsis.
I thought the sliding-doors concept was clever and absorbing; the storylines delve into Marie's real story and then also explores what life could have been like if she had married Kaz. I think one can't help but admire Marie Curie; she was a fiercely intelligent and forward thinking woman. In this book, Marie and Marya are strong, smart women and readers will appreciate both storylines.
I appreciated that the book wasn't science heavy and while it did have mentions of science obviously , it was in simple enough terms that I think most readers will be able to understand what is being discussed.
Overall: I highly recommend this historical fiction that will draw you in from the beginning and won't let you go until the very end. I had no idea what this book was about. I totally selected it by the cover, but wow i am so glad that i did. The first woman to receive a Nobel Prize in the late 's for radiation which is still used in the cure of cancer.
Marie and her husband were both brillant scientists. The author told the story of her life and also told the story of what her life may have been had she took a different path. Once i started the book i took a profound interest in it. In addition to the book i saw the movie I had no idea what this book was about.
In addition to the book i saw the movie on primetime called, Radioactive, I loved the movie as well. Not sure why the author felt a need to give her opinion on what Marie Curie's life would have been like but I'm glad she did.
View all 4 comments. Half Life by Jillian Cantor is an excellent historical fiction novel that is so unique that it kept me enthralled from beginning to end. Cantor took the typical dual timeline novel and added a new spin that is the first book of its kind that I remember ever reading. The task of not only writing about the fascinating and riveting life of Marie Curie, but to take a pivotal point in her young adult life, where her affections for the eldest son of the family that she was employed as a governess w Half Life by Jillian Cantor is an excellent historical fiction novel that is so unique that it kept me enthralled from beginning to end.
The author interweaved what we knew of Ms. She then gives the reader a breathtaking picture of changes great and small that might have occurred if that path was chosen. To be able to take this abstract idea, give it life, and also make it enjoyable, is nothing short of impressive.
Even the title is great: dual meanings with the plot and also the half life of radium, too creative. This book was a joy to read and will stay with me for a long time.
Mar 29, Elisabeth Webb rated it it was amazing Shelves: favorite-books. A fascinating read. This novel makes you wonder how your lives choices have shaped who you are today, and if you had made different choices, would that change the opportunities, priorities, or values you have.
I loved the double storyline, even though at times it was challenging to keep track of each A fascinating read. Marie and Mayra seemed like two completely different people, both who loved science and their families but in much different ways. This novel piqued my interest from the beginning, and the plot had a steady build.
It was a hard book to put down. Mar 20, Pam Jenoff rated it it was amazing. This fascinating book explores the life of scientist Marie Curie, from her life in Paris to the life she left behind in Poland and explores what would have happened if she had never left. An incredible book about what-ifs, paths not taken and second chances.
Out this Tuesday! Feb 11, Nicole rated it it was amazing Shelves: giveaways. Thank you for the opportunity to read this novel. This will be the least profound thing I can say Seriously, this novel is beautiful, interesting, well researched, and different! What do I mean by different? How many WW2 fiction novels can you find? Now, how many historical fiction novels about the spectacular Marie Curie can you find?
This is a gem. I love historical fiction. I love even more when something besides WW2 catches my interest and this novel did just that. I was captivated. Jillian Cantor did a phenomenal job switching between her two main character versions Marie and Marya. Without giving you all spoilers, Cantor gets it down to the most minute detail. Before I was even done I was texting friends that I know who love historic fiction telling them to add this to their list.
Ok, ok Nothing is perfect so if I had to give you all one thing I wasn't particularly a fan of it would be the portrayal of the version of the actual Marie Curie as a mother. Now, let me say that this could be entirely accurate, I don't know.
As a reader, I felt it was overly noticeable and sometimes made me wish the other version was the real one. But alas, then where would we be? This tiny tidbit that I didn't care for though did also spur me to want to read more about Marie Curie. Any book that incites me to delve further into something is a win.
I love being left with wanting to know, learn, and read more. Jillian Cantor has herself a 5 star novel! Sep 11, Chryssie rated it it was amazing Shelves: favourites. Oh my goodness, this book will stay with me. It is poignant, heartfelt, inspiring and written in a beautifully gentle way. This book was a bit of everything. What I loved is that in either story, it was realistic, in that no matter the path our lives take, we endure Oh my goodness, this book will stay with me.
What I loved is that in either story, it was realistic, in that no matter the path our lives take, we endure love, happiness, loss, failure, friendship, heartache, achievements, doubts, joy and more Every life contains bittersweetness. I loved learning all about her story. What an amazing, strong, inspiring woman! View all 6 comments. Jillian Cantor has a way of storytelling that grabs your attention. The concept of Half Life is like brain candy to the reader. The similar events that occur in both lives create such a-ha moments.
Mar 21, Joanne rated it it was amazing. This book was absolutely amazing I found myself unable to put it down. Told in a sliding doors format we explore the life of Marie Curie.
In alternating chapters we explore the real life of Marie Curie and the authors imagined life of Marie Curie.
Cantor poses the question what would her life looked like had she made different choices along the way. The story of Marie Curie is one of struggle and triumphs of a life lives in the pursuit of excellence often at the expense of her personal life.
The This book was absolutely amazing I found myself unable to put it down. The imagined life of Marya is one of struggle and triumphs of a life lives in the pursuit of excellence often at the expense of her personal life. In what can only be described as brilliant writing Cantor draws you in the two lives of this one woman in a way that has you turning the pages in anticipation.
The research that must have gone into this novel is astounding as no stone in the real life of Marie Curie is left unturned. From Nobel prizes to her relationship with her husband, her lover and her children. Cantor in enviable fashion forces as to look at our lives and ask the question where would I be if I had made even just one different choice. This novel also reminds us at a time when we as women are fighting for equality of the women who came before us and the battles they faced in the fight for equality in a much different time and space.
I am not one for reading the authors notes but in this case I feel that it is must. I was given an ARC copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review. My thanks to Netgalley the author and the publisher. And then I made a choice. There is the Marie Curie we know - her life, love, work. Then there is the fictionalised Marya Sklodowska who did not get on the train that day and instead married her first love and stayed in Poland to become a wife and mother.
It is hard for me to understand a life where having children would force a woman to give up on her own work. It was good to learn of the real Marie Curie and the life she led with husband Pierre. The imagined life of Marya was likewise engaging, however, the goal here I imagine was to demonstrate the frustrations this highly intelligent woman faced in Russian controlled Poland with restrictive educational opportunities for women. Written in such a way, it invites the reader to consider how some decisions can be life changing.
There are many challenges and sorrows in this read. And if I had, would I feel happier, be more fulfilled? There was always a choice. Had I made the wrong one? The quoted material may have changed in the final release. Sep 10, Kendra rated it did not like it. I really wish people writing about music and musicians had actual musicians read their work before publishing it.
Most orchestras don't call the pianist the "principal piano," and being the pianist for an orchestra does not mean playing non-stop piano concertos with said orchestra. Not every piece is a "song. Now that I have that off my chest: this novel fictionalizes the life of Marie C I really wish people writing about music and musicians had actual musicians read their work before publishing it.
Now that I have that off my chest: this novel fictionalizes the life of Marie Curie and, in parallel, imagines a life for her--as Marya--had she not gone to Paris to study when she did. The author is clearly trying to create numerous parallels between these two lives, including having Marie's sister Helena marry Jacques Curie in the version where Marya stays in Poland.
Because of this very tight connection between the parallel worlds, though, the story is restricted in imagination and originality. The storytelling is a bit heavy-handed: it's obvious from the start that Marya's husband will cheat on her with Leokadia; that Marya will return to him; that Marya and Pierre Curie will feel attracted to one another; that the real-life affair between Marie and Paul Langevin will be mirrored by Pierre and Jeanne Langevin; and so on.
Ultimately, the novel is a bit of a slog with few rewards. View all 7 comments. Admittedly, In Another Time is waiting for me on my shelf! But this book… I adore science, and admire women with brilliant minds. I also watched the Madame Curie movie, Radioactive , on Hulu last year — which further fascinated me about this real-life woman genius.
When I saw this novel was coming out, I knew I would want to read it. As a group of atoms, uranium is highly regular. When we combine particles together, a rule of probability known as the law of large numbers takes over, and even the behavior of a tiny piece of uranium becomes understandable.
If we are patient enough, half of a chunk of uranium will break down in million years, like clock-work. This number — million years — is a measurable amount of time, and it is known as the half-life of uranium.
It turns out that facts, when viewed as a large body of knowledge, are just as predictable. There is science that explores the rates at which new facts are created, new technologies developed, and even how facts spread. How knowledge changes can be understood scientifically. This is a powerful idea. Instead, we can understand how facts grow and change in the aggregate, just like radioactive materials.
This book is a guide to the startling notion that our knowledge — even what each of us has in our head — changes in understandable and systematic ways. Why does this happen? Why does knowledge churn? If all hypotheses cannot be tested, then the result of any experiment are inconclusive and the entire scientific method falls short of its goal of establishing proven knowledge. The time spans of permanence seemed completely random, he could see no order in them.
Some scientific truths seemed to last for centuries, others for less than a year. Scientific truth was not dogma, good for eternity, but a temporal quantitative entity that could be studied like anything else. The purpose of scientific method is to select a single truth from among many hypothetical truths. That, more than anything else, is what science is all about. But historically science has done exactly the opposite. Through multiplication upon multiplication of facts, information, theories and hypotheses, it is science itself that is leading mankind from single absolute truths to multiple, indeterminate, relative ones.
A few years ago a team of scientists at a hospital in Paris decided to actually measure this churning of knowledge. They decided to look at fields that they specialized in: cirrhosis and hepatitis, two areas that focus on liver diseases.
They took nearly five hundred articles in these fields from more than fifty years and gave them to a battery of experts to examine. Each expert was charged with saying whether the paper was factual, out-of-date, or disproved, according to more recent findings. Through doing this they were able to create a simple chart see below that showed the amount of factual content that had persisted over the previous decades.
They found something striking: a clear decay in the number of papers that were still valid. Furthermore, they got a clear measurement of the half-life of facts in these fields by looking at where the curve crosses 50 percent on this chart: 45 years. Essentially, information is like radioactive material: Medical knowledge about cirrhosis or hepatitis takes about forty-five years for half of it to be disproven or become out-of-date.
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