Lynda C. (Readnmachine) reviewed The Immortalists: Charles Lindbergh, Dr. Alexis Carrel, and Their Daring Quest to Live Forever on + 1441 more book reviews
Most people today know of Charles Lindbergh only that he made the first solo trans-Atlantic flight (in 1927); others, particularly those who were alive in the tumultuous days preceding World War II, remember him with disdain for his public support of Nazi Germany and his isolationist stance against America entering the conflict. Few knew that he also played a significant role in medical research of the era, which laid the groundwork for modern organ transplant techniques.
David M. Friedman's The Immortalists focuses largely on that portion of Lindbergh's life, when he worked in partnership with Dr. Alexis Carrel â a brilliant surgeon who also believed in ESP, prayer cures, euthanasia, and eugenics â the latter to be imposed by ruling councils of elders who would dispense immortality to those deemed worthy of the honor. The narrative returns to this obsession as a touchstone throughout the book, even after the partnership was interrupted by World War II, and eventually by Carrel's death in Europe during the closing days of the conflict.
The biggest flaw in the book is that it often lacks focus. It's unclear at times whether Friedman wanted to write a Lindbergh biography, a psychological study of a complex and often conflicted man, or a cautionary tale of the hubris of those who would play god. At times, it seems that there was an extra letter in the title â The Immoralists might have done the job just as well.
Reading it, one struggles with how to accept many facets of Lindbergh's personality. There is the obsessive, self-confident, stubborn man with an engineering brilliance that far outshone his formal educational background. There is the intensely private man, bewildered by the cult of personality and intense public scrutiny that followed his history-making flight. There is the devastated father, convinced that media attention led to the kidnapping and murder of his firstborn child, and who fled the country with his family to protect his second son (and subsequent children) from the same fate. And there is the elite racist who felt Western civilization was in danger of being engulfed by the breeding proclivities of non-white races, and who saw as its savior the organization and scientific prowess of Hitler's Germany. Ultimately, there is the man who underwent a shattering epiphany when he toured the rocket manufacturing facility at Nordhausen after the war, and saw firsthand the death camp that housed the laborers enslaved there by the brutal regime he had so publicly admired.
Friedman neither hero-worships Lindbergh nor excoriates his stunningly racist attitudes and the less-than-ideal state of his marriage to Anne Morrow. The most powerful moments of the book are the Nordhausen trip mentioned above, and Lindbergh's 180-degree turnabout as he spent the last years of his life in conservation efforts. In a 1964 article for Reader's Digest, this man who once sought the secret of immortality for the chosen few, who defended one of the most brutal regimes the world has ever known because he thought only it could save Western civilization, asked whether civilization was in fact progress. The final answer, he wrote, âwill be given not by the discoveries of our science, but by the effect our civilized activities as a whole have upon the quality of our planet's life.â
David M. Friedman's The Immortalists focuses largely on that portion of Lindbergh's life, when he worked in partnership with Dr. Alexis Carrel â a brilliant surgeon who also believed in ESP, prayer cures, euthanasia, and eugenics â the latter to be imposed by ruling councils of elders who would dispense immortality to those deemed worthy of the honor. The narrative returns to this obsession as a touchstone throughout the book, even after the partnership was interrupted by World War II, and eventually by Carrel's death in Europe during the closing days of the conflict.
The biggest flaw in the book is that it often lacks focus. It's unclear at times whether Friedman wanted to write a Lindbergh biography, a psychological study of a complex and often conflicted man, or a cautionary tale of the hubris of those who would play god. At times, it seems that there was an extra letter in the title â The Immoralists might have done the job just as well.
Reading it, one struggles with how to accept many facets of Lindbergh's personality. There is the obsessive, self-confident, stubborn man with an engineering brilliance that far outshone his formal educational background. There is the intensely private man, bewildered by the cult of personality and intense public scrutiny that followed his history-making flight. There is the devastated father, convinced that media attention led to the kidnapping and murder of his firstborn child, and who fled the country with his family to protect his second son (and subsequent children) from the same fate. And there is the elite racist who felt Western civilization was in danger of being engulfed by the breeding proclivities of non-white races, and who saw as its savior the organization and scientific prowess of Hitler's Germany. Ultimately, there is the man who underwent a shattering epiphany when he toured the rocket manufacturing facility at Nordhausen after the war, and saw firsthand the death camp that housed the laborers enslaved there by the brutal regime he had so publicly admired.
Friedman neither hero-worships Lindbergh nor excoriates his stunningly racist attitudes and the less-than-ideal state of his marriage to Anne Morrow. The most powerful moments of the book are the Nordhausen trip mentioned above, and Lindbergh's 180-degree turnabout as he spent the last years of his life in conservation efforts. In a 1964 article for Reader's Digest, this man who once sought the secret of immortality for the chosen few, who defended one of the most brutal regimes the world has ever known because he thought only it could save Western civilization, asked whether civilization was in fact progress. The final answer, he wrote, âwill be given not by the discoveries of our science, but by the effect our civilized activities as a whole have upon the quality of our planet's life.â
