Madame Curie Book

A rare find. I have a vague memory of salvaging this 1959 Pocket Book edition from my parents' garage sale box 14 years ago; while cleaning out my closet a few weeks ago, I almost tossed it...I'm not sure what made me change my mind and actually start to read the musty pocketbook with browned pages, a broken spine, and too-small print. I'm glad I did; it is, quite simply, an extraordinary story, beautifully written.

I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I knew nothing about Marie Curie before reading this book except perhaps the most basic Trivial Pursuit knowledge, vaguely remembered--she and her husband were scientists (right?), I think they may have won the Nobel Prize (right?), something about radioactivity or something...?

This book tells the story, from the age of five, of a poor young Polish girl named Marya Sklodovska (better known by her adopted French first name, Marie, and her married name, Curie) who scraped together enough money by working as a governess first to help her elder sister Bronya through medical school in Paris, then to finally join her and continue her own studies, at the Sorbonne. (Women were not permitted to study at the university level in Russian-occupied Poland.)

Marya had every intent of returning to her homeland to continue to live and work in solidarity with the fomenting revolution against the Russian oppressors. But, after nearly a year of entreaty and almost against Marya's will, a man named Pierre Curie--a renowned scientist who had become a close friend and fallen in love with her--persuaded her to stay in Paris to continue her scientific work, to be his partner in science and in marriage (in that order).

In the early months of her independent doctoral research studying the radioactive properties of materials containing uranium, Marie observed unexepected behaviors; she soon became convinced of the existence of another, more highly radioactive, substance. Her husband joined her as a much-needed collaborator. The rest is, most certainly, history: the discovery and subsequent isolation of the elements Polonium and Radium, and the discovery that Radium could be used to treat cancer. Astonishingly, although the Curies had struggled for years with meager finances and poor working conditions, they refused to apply for the patent that would have assured them a fortune--because it was not "in the scientific spirit."

Written by her youngest daughter, Eve (who, incidentally, I discovered, died just a few months ago at the age of 102), the story captures a life of intense passions, intense loves, and intense joys--which were practically inseparable from equally intense sorrows, sacrifices, and suffering. It is the kind of life you have to have extraordinary courage to live out. In the truest sense of the word, Marie Curie expended herself, all of herself.