杏吧原创

Uncle Tungsten: memories of a chemical boyhood by Oliver Sacks, Picador,
拢17.99, ISBN 0330390279

Genes, Girls and Gamow by James D. Watson, Knopf, 拢18, ISBN
0375412832

NEUROLOGIST Oliver Sacks鈥檚 best-known book, The Man Who Mistook His Wife
for a Hat, describes people whose mental hardware has become degraded in
some way, converting ordinary intentions into bizarre behaviour. But there鈥檚 one
mental degradation we all have to undergo: growing up. Life with a full
complement of sex hormones seldom offers the vivid sense of wonder that comes
with every new experience in childhood.

Sacks鈥檚 Uncle Tungsten and James D. Watson鈥檚 Genes, Girls and
Gamow are both, in a sense, about childhood鈥攐r, more specifically,
boyhood. Sacks describes his pre-adolescent life as part of a scientifically
savvy London family. Watson, who with Francis Crick revealed the structure of
DNA in 1953, was not literally a boy in the years he describes, 1953 to 1956.
But there is something inescapably boyish about his life then, while he was
searching for both the structure of RNA and the perfect woman.

Both stories end wistfully. Sacks recalls the gradual displacement of what
Flaubert called 鈥渆rections of the mind鈥� by erections of the body. Watson, in an
epilogue that brings us up to 1968, records his and a host of collaborators鈥�
success in understanding genes, but also the end of his irresponsible youth as
he finally marries the woman of his dreams.

Sacks couples the account of his scientific awakening with a parallel history
of chemistry and physics. It鈥檚 a gamble鈥攖here鈥檚 even a periodic table
smack in the middle鈥攂ut he pulls it off. By evoking his boyish excitement
on encountering the basics of science, he captures the pristine wonder of
concepts that often don鈥檛 rate even a yawn. It鈥檚 a great teaching technique: as
a lifelong chemical duffer, I learned more chemistry from young Oliver鈥檚 stinks
and bangs than from many a textbook.

Of course, not every little boy starts life in what Sacks calls an 鈥渁verage
middle-class household鈥�, with seven servants. But he made good use of his good
fortune, and of his talented family. Among his endless scientific relations were
two in particular who opened his eyes. Uncle Abe was a physicist, and Uncle Dave
a chemist, the hands-on proprietor of a firm making light bulbs. The glowing
metal inside his products gave Dave his name: Uncle Tungsten.

Before Sacks could enter the garden of scientific delights, though, he had to
endure a boarding school cruel beyond belief. It left him with a desperate need
for the calm order of numbers and structures. He might, instead, have turned to
God; but a definitive experiment, in which two rows of radishes, supposedly
cursed and blessed, grew identically, suggested that science was the better
bet.

That鈥檚 just one of many wry anecdotes in Uncle Tungsten. Sacks was
an endlessly curious boy who just had to try things out. And he was able to do
this more thoroughly than most. He had his own home lab, and moved on to a top
London school with stimulating friends. These included a certain Jonathan
Miller, who at one point collaborated with Sacks in chucking a pound lump of
sodium into Highgate Ponds, creating frenetic motion and an impressive yellow
flame.

Miller is about the only name that Sacks drops, unless you count Lavoisier,
Davy, Faraday, Maxwell, Curie et al. Their stories fill the book, as they once
filled Sacks鈥檚 mind. Their influence diminished, however, when he discovered the
smelly fascination of marine biology. He realised he wanted to move from
molecules to whole organisms, and that he wanted do it in the States. He鈥檇 found
a new garden to explore, whose paths would eventually lead him to the subject
that made him famous, clinical neurology.

Watson, born in the States, was heading the other way: first, from organisms
to molecules, and later, from the US to Britain. Genes, Girls and Gamow
is about the huge 鈥淲hat next?鈥� that faced him after his leading role in the 20th
century鈥檚 biggest scientific breakthrough. The answer, obviously, was more work
on genes, and here he got unexpected help from the Russian physicist George
Gamow. Better known for rescuing the big bang from oblivion, Gamow helped Watson
and many others to focus on the next key question: how does DNA get translated
into proteins?

The standard approach would be to set up a boring committee or journal to
pursue the major lead, that RNA was somehow involved. Gamow, a hard-drinking,
overgrown naughty boy with scant knowledge of molecular biology but a mind that
easily matched Watson鈥檚, was also addicted to practical jokes and general
tomfoolery and would have none of this. Instead, he designed a necktie and
invented the exclusive RNA Tie Club. Restricted to 20 people鈥攐ne for each
amino acid used in living proteins鈥攎embers were supposed to wear the tie,
with a tiepin bearing the name of their chosen chemical.

The idea worked. People were brought together. Modern genetics leapt to life
with surprising speed. But a tie? With a pin? One great strength of Watson鈥檚
book, otherwise a pretty dull read for an outsider, is the way it evokes the
creaking formality of the 1950s, which included a lot more tie-wearing than we
expect today.

Watson immerses us in the period largely by ignoring political correctness:
the language and thought of his account remain firmly in the past. He always
calls women 鈥済irls鈥�, or even 鈥渂londes鈥�. And he assumes, with Jane Austen, that
as he is in possession of a good fortune (the good fortune to be famous, that
is) he must be in want of a wife, though he can鈥檛 quite work out how to get
one.

It shows the perils of hitting the scientific jackpot before you鈥檙e quite
ready to grow up. Behind all the jollity, all the travelling, drinking and
dining (there鈥檚 a meal or a party every five pages or so), lies a lot of
unhappiness. Watson鈥檚 life in this period achieves both quantity and
quality鈥攖he cast of characters includes 92 people, few of them
also-rans鈥攂ut rarely, it seems, clarity.

That鈥檚 why, in the end, these memoirs are not a patch on The Double
Helix, Watson鈥檚 earlier, gripping account of the DNA story, or indeed on
the gentle, slow-moving, but utterly focused Uncle Tungsten. Instead of
the thrill of discovery, we are offered three years of wandering that could only
delay the inevitable end of boyhood.