Boken om Blanche och Marie

The style of this book is very frustrating to read. It is very choppy and repetitive. The only good part of this book is the last ten pages or so. If you can get through the first 95% of the book, you will be rewarded at the end. It might just be that something is lost in the translation.

There are two stories: Madame Curie's illicit love for Paul Langevin, and the parallel story of her assistant Blanche Wittman, who was previously an hysteria patient of J.M. Charcot. The stories themselves are fascinating. The way they are told is appalling. Suffice it to say that Enquist tries

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much too hard to be artsy.

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A strange mixture of fact and fiction. Blanche Wittman, famous hysteria patient of Professor Charcot at Salpetriere Hospital in Paris and friend of Marie Curie, writes of her experiences in 3 books titled the Book of Questions. This is the basis of the novel. Her limbs are amputated - is this the

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result of radiation treatment - she dies in Marie's apartment in a wooden box. Very weird but hypnotic and just how much is fact? Love, in the end, conquers all the pain and suffering. It is either very profound or very weird. I did like it though didn't fully understand it. Made me want to know more about those people.

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An odd book. The Marie in the title is Marie Curie, and Blanche was at one point her assistant in the lab. Blanche who was a well known hysteria patient when she was younger eventually becomes a triple amputee due to radiation poisoning. While the amputation is mentioned repeatedly in the book, it

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is not the main story. Based on historical records the book gives a glimpse into the medicine, the science and the mores of the times.

I had never heard of the scandal in Marie Curie's life, and while I feel she was treated unjustly, I am not quite sure I am better for knowing about it.

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This novel present a weird mix of fact and fiction. First the facts: Blanche Wittman (1859-1913), famous hysteria patient of Professor Charcot at Salpetriere Hospital in Paris is in a later fase of her life the assistent of Marie Curie. She dies from radiation poison. Fiction: Blanche writes of her

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experiences in 3 books. This is the basis of the novel. I did not like the novel, because of too much use of different styles and too much fantasizing. However I found the information about Blanche Wittman very interesting and it reminded me of the study which I read. Lisa Appignanesi. Mad, Bad and Sad. A history of women and mind doctors from 1800 to the present. Virago, 2009.

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