American Prometheus: A Final Review
RIP to Oppie Corner. You'll always be famous.
I have a law review deadline at 11:59 and I’m not really close to being done yet but this is more important.
Well the day has come. A 2 month journey has come to a close. (Dear God I’ve been in the Oppenheimer trenches for 2 months???)
Anyways, a final review on the Book of All Time.
5 stars, obviously. I didn’t invest 26 hours of my life to give it anything less. But at least it is legitimately a fantastic book.
He dies at the end of the book (obviously) and made me really sad. He’s been dead since the 60s so I shouldn’t be sad about it but this poor guy. Chronic chain smoker. Skinny. Always wore a pork pie hat (even when boating). Zero convictions. Man of my dreams.
Strauss (Robert Downey, Jr.) remained a lil bitch till the end.
Some criticisms:
They went into so much detail about EVERYONE and I mean EVERYONE. The scientists, the secretaries, the friends, the NEIGHBORS. I simply did not need to know them that intimately.
Towards the end I could hear the reader swallow and I hated it.
The writer hated Kitty Oppenheimer (Emily Blunt) and wrote constantly about how she was a bad mom. Like okay, guy, I get it. And she was like a terrible hostess apparently. Not my business.
Otoh, loved to write about how pretty Jean Tatlock (Florence Pugh) was. Like constantly described her as like the prettiest woman ever. Again, guy, we get it. For context, Jean was Oppie’s gf and mistress and then she committed suicide, and was also a reason for losing his security clearance bc she was hella communist.
I’m going to learn how to make his martinis now. (Extremely cold dry gin, splash of vermouth, rimmed with lime juice and honey.)
May we always remember this phase of my life (fondly?).