The MAN - Irving Wallace

The MAN - is a book written by best selling author Irving Wallace. I was suggested to read this book by many of my acquaintances including my father and brother and a well wisher.

About a month ago, I started with the painstakingly long book(again on Kindle) and could finish only now. Its about a Negro man who gets to become the president of America accidentally.

It so happens that the old president and the vice president would be dead in a building collapse in Germany.  Back in America, there is a senator negro man selected as the new president as he is the pro tempore of the president.

The book is the journey of this new guy as the president in the White House. There are aspects as to how he deals with the racism against him and the racism that he is inflicting the people of America, how unbiased he is, how wise he is when he tackles issues related to his children etc.

He is challenged by the white racists and the black men seeking freedom from racism. He is impeached with false charges of dismissing one of his board members, harassment and others. His fights the impeachment trail with the help of his friend lawyer and wins over. At the same time, the Russians who are trying to capture a small piece of land backed by America - called Amboko also suspend their operations by which the Negro man wins popularity back and there is no re-election held due to these reasons.

As said by all else, I was expecting the book to give me some lines of definition of THE MAN, probably all MEN on earth. But it failed to keep up my expectation as I knew better MEN than this Negro Douglass Dilman - Men who are wiser, more intelligent and courageous.

Piece of advice: Do not set expectations before picking it up. A big book indeed with a lot of pages of repetitive text(like the charges of impeachment, I almost knew those lines by heart when it was over). Douglass Dilman was the MAN of 1960s and does not hold good for current society. He may prove to be inspirational in terms of beings unbiased. But everything else, I expect him to be updated. 

Nikola Tesla - Biography

My husband introduced me to the whole new series of biographies of which the story of Nikola Tesla was also one. I read this biography on Kindle which was a new experience.

The man Tesla is a creator of 20th century. His inventions have shaped our lives and continue to do so even after centuries.

He was born in Croatia in 1856 and later migrated to the United States of America. He dreamt of working with Edison and briefly did so before realizing that Edison is no friend.

Edison hired Tesla to fix problems he was having in DC generators and motors and promised Tesla a very huge amount. But when the job was done, Edison laughed away on the promise he made to Tesla on the monetary part. 

Tesla could not stand the argument with Edison that the direct current is the one world class solution for the electrical supply concept against his own alternating current. 

Thomas Edison - already established as an inventor and the business mogul in electrical science and technology could not stand the idea of alternating current and hence dismissed the idea and went on to speak negative about it in the scientific forums.  Tesla in one of the forums wore the alternating current carrying wires to prove that its not dangerous. He also organised the forum to run completely on the alternating current concept so that people find its merit. 

Tesla was met with numerous failures in his journey of innovation. He was rejected in various stages by the sponsors, fund providers and general public. He kept his attitude to invent no matter what came his way. One of his important inventions - Radio was stolen and a year later Marconi was awarded the Nobel prize for the same invention. It does not end here. Some other examples are - X-Rays, Radar, Hydro Electric Plant, Transistors. 

He died in his room on 7th Jan 1943. He was found by his maid. Tesla obtained around 300 patents worldwide for his inventions through out. Any gratitude to this man I harbor is simply not enough.