A Beautiful Mind recounts the life of Nobel Laureate economist John Forbes Nash. The movie, adapted from the eponymous book, achieved massive popularity, taking home Best Picture in the 74th Academy Awards. Up until the age of thirty, Nash was hailed as a genius, a dazzling mathematician. However, mental illness turned his life upside down and tore apart his happy family. This book tells of Nash's life and the experiences of the people who were close to him. Undoubtedly, all of them shared his beautiful mind.

Sylvia Nasar was a staff writer at Fortune, a columnist at U.S. News & World Report, and a New York Times economics correspondent. She was visiting fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, and at King’s College and Churchill College Cambridge. A Beautiful Mind is her inaugural work. It won the 1988 National Book Critics Circle Award for biography.

 

Hi, welcome to Bookey. Today we will unlock the book A Beautiful Mind.

 

On May 24, 2015, the world was shocked by the news that John and Alicia Nash had died in a car crash in New Jersey.

 

You may not know the name John Forbes Nash. But many of you are likely to remember the film A Beautiful Mind, which won Best Picture at the 74th Academy Awards. In real life, the movie’s protagonist, Nash, was an eminent mathematician and economist; in fact in 1994, he was a Nobel Laureate economist.

 

In the film, Nash’s story is cleverly portrayed. The movie opens with Nash's university life, his roommate, and lodgings. Everything seems fine and peaceful. After his postgraduate studies, Nash obtains a professorship and falls in love with a beautiful young woman, Alicia. They are soon married. While Nash's academic career is blossoming, the U.S. Defense Department approaches him, and he is given an opportunity to work closely with them on top-secret national security projects. Until this point, undoubtedly, in the eyes of the world, Nash is a born winner with a successful career, romance, and a loving relationship. However, in a dramatic plot twist, it turns out that in Nash's life, everything is pure illusion. He does not have a roommate. No agents are commissioning his work, and there are no secret projects. His wife is the only real thing in his life. Only later does the story divulge that Nash suffers from schizophrenia. All he sees, the activities and scenes going on in his mind, are nothing but hallucinations.

 

The movie is adapted from the book that is the subject of this bookey. While the film inevitably dramatizes the story, embellishing it with additional fictional elements, the book is a matter-of-fact portrayal of Nash’s life. The mathematical genius had thirty years of splendor. He rose above his peers like the brightest star in the night sky. However, when he was thirty, schizophrenia struck, and it deprived Nash of all that was wholesome and assured in his life. There followed a harrowing battle. For 30 years Nash fought against the disease and, in the end, miraculously got the upper hand. He recovered, and at this time was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics.

 

The book’s author, Sylvia Nasar, was a staff writer at Fortune and a columnist at U.S. News & World Report. In 2002 she was a visiting fellow at King’s College and Churchill College Cambridge. Today’s book A Beautiful Mind is Nasar’s inaugural work, and it is the book that made her reputation. She received the 1988 National Book Critics Circle Award for biography and the 2000 Joint Policy Board Mathematics Communications Award.

 

Now, let's review the book A Beautiful Mind in three parts:

 

Part One: An extraordinary genius;

 

Part Two: A mad schizophrenic;

 

Part Three: A sober Nobel laureate.