Voltaire, a literary genius, and Emilie du Chatelet, a scientific genius, had a fascinating and complex relationship. David Bodanis depicts that interweaving of love, admiration, respect, insecurity, secrecy, betrayal and reconciliation. It is to his credit that he has written about an important relationship that has for some time not been given the attention it deserves. Bodanis's thesis is that Voltaire and Emilie provided models of thinking people in an unconventional relationship (she was a married aristocratic woman, he an unmarried writer known for making caustic remarks) for thinkers throughout France, greatly influencing the movement of the Enlightenment.

Most poignant to me was Voltaire's feelings of inferiority to Emilie's brilliance with mathematics and science. As a man who wanted to be a modern thinker, he wanted to prove his ability in scientific fields but always fell far short of her. But he soon learned to apply scientific methods to the field in which his genius lay -- literature. Emilie, for her part, did not want to feed his insecurity and did much of her experimentation in secret.

However -- and I don't want to sound to snooty about it -- the book was not as intellectually vigorous as I would like. Bodanis does not attempt any meaningful analysis or criticism of either Voltaire's or du Chatelet's work, especially in how they influenced each other. He makes reference to a play Voltaire wrote to impress Emilie without even properly summarizing its plot; Emilie's revelation having to do with Newton's work about conservation of energy is never properly explained.

This is a fine book as an introduction to both Voltaire and du Chatelet. But I longed to delve deeper into the psychology and work of both people -- I'll be looking at other sources for that.