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Pietà
As Albert Camus's famous dictum has it, the only truly important philosophical question is suicide, or whether or not life is worth living. Now, in Pieta , his latest collection of essays, George Klein—distinguished biologist, writer, Holocaust survivor, and humanist—faces this question head on, in a series of meditations on subjects ranging from the misuses of science to the vital importance of art, music, and literature to surviving catastrophes like the Holocaust and AIDS. Pieta is a passionate book of scientific and personal ethics, inspired by tragic events that resonate in the consciousness of each of us.
Klein examines the thoughts of a number of people both famous and obscure—whose lives may provide some sort of answer to Camus's philosophical question. One essay, for example, deals with the tormented and unstable Atilla Jozsef, one of Hungary's greatest poets and now a national hero. Other figures from the past appear, fellow Holocaust survivor Rudolf Vrba, one of the first people to escape from Auschwitz; Simon Srebnik, a teenaged Pole who survived the Nazis by working on their riverboats, singing sentimental ballads for them; the geneticist Benno Multler-Hill, whose meeting with Klein leads to a fascinating discussion of the role of German scientists in preparing the conceptual underpinnings of the Nazi genocide.
Klein moves on to a more general elaboration of the misuses of science, from CIA-sponsored LSD experiments to medical experimentation by the Japanese in Manchuria, and ultimately to a thoughtful reconsideration of his own role and responsibility as a scientist. He uses his extensive medical background to present a discussion of the processes of the biology of individuality, concluding with an extended and impassioned look at AIDS, as both a biological problem and a situation that will require the utmost pieta from each of us.
Born in prewar Hungary, George Klein was raised in Budapest in an intellectually prominent Jewish family. He has led the Department of Tumor Biology at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm for more than three decades.
Klein examines the thoughts of a number of people both famous and obscure—whose lives may provide some sort of answer to Camus's philosophical question. One essay, for example, deals with the tormented and unstable Atilla Jozsef, one of Hungary's greatest poets and now a national hero. Other figures from the past appear, fellow Holocaust survivor Rudolf Vrba, one of the first people to escape from Auschwitz; Simon Srebnik, a teenaged Pole who survived the Nazis by working on their riverboats, singing sentimental ballads for them; the geneticist Benno Multler-Hill, whose meeting with Klein leads to a fascinating discussion of the role of German scientists in preparing the conceptual underpinnings of the Nazi genocide.
Klein moves on to a more general elaboration of the misuses of science, from CIA-sponsored LSD experiments to medical experimentation by the Japanese in Manchuria, and ultimately to a thoughtful reconsideration of his own role and responsibility as a scientist. He uses his extensive medical background to present a discussion of the processes of the biology of individuality, concluding with an extended and impassioned look at AIDS, as both a biological problem and a situation that will require the utmost pieta from each of us.
Born in prewar Hungary, George Klein was raised in Budapest in an intellectually prominent Jewish family. He has led the Department of Tumor Biology at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm for more than three decades.
310 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1989
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About the author
George Klein
10 books3 followersGeorge Klein, Georg Klein or Klein György (July 28, 1925) was a Hungarian-Swedish biologist who specialized in cancer research. Klein had also authored a dozen of non-scientific or wide ranging books, of which several are collections of essays.
Klein started a tumor biology center at Karolinska Institute and made a connection there between the Epstein-Barr virus and lymphomas and other cancers. He was awarded the $100,000 prize by the General Motors Cancer Research Foundation for pioneering work on cancer and the human immunity system.
Apart from his scientific work, he had written popular books of which three have been translated to English: The Atheist and the Holy City (1990) (Swedish: Ateisten och den heliga staden), Pietà (1992), a collection of essays on whether life is worth living, and Live Now (1997).
Since settling in Sweden in 1947, Klein has spelled his surname Georg in Swedish and George in English.
Klein started a tumor biology center at Karolinska Institute and made a connection there between the Epstein-Barr virus and lymphomas and other cancers. He was awarded the $100,000 prize by the General Motors Cancer Research Foundation for pioneering work on cancer and the human immunity system.
Apart from his scientific work, he had written popular books of which three have been translated to English: The Atheist and the Holy City (1990) (Swedish: Ateisten och den heliga staden), Pietà (1992), a collection of essays on whether life is worth living, and Live Now (1997).
Since settling in Sweden in 1947, Klein has spelled his surname Georg in Swedish and George in English.
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July 23, 2013
George Klein's follow-up to Pieta is, like the earlier book, a collection of essays that are reflections on the life experience of a scientist and doctor with a profound connection to art and spirit. There is a great essay about the poet Attila Jozsef, as well as reminiscences about famous colleagues and about friendships that ended in tragedy, all deeply influenced by the author's experiences as a sensitive youth of Jewish family, growing up in prewar Hungary. Again, an atheist shows that he has a deep understanding of what real spirituality is--"the criticism of life."
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