by Jenifer Glynn, Oxford University Press, 拢14.99/$27.95
MARIE CURIE is an unspoken presence in this touching but unsentimental memoir in which historian Jenifer Glynn tells the story of her older sister, physical chemist and molecular biologist Rosalind Franklin. Both Curie and Franklin enjoyed great family support and were drawn to French culture. Neither wanted to be held up as an example of a successful female scientist. Most significantly of all, perhaps, neither cared for the conventional rewards of science.
The controversy over Franklin鈥檚 credit for her contributions to the discovery of the structure of DNA has inspired many books, but Glynn offers fresh insight into her sister鈥檚 much-discussed life with family letters. In one, Franklin, newly arrived in Paris as a postgraduate researcher during a post-war, rationed winter, writes to her worried parents in London: 鈥淢y living conditions are extremely primitive compared with home 鈥� though they might well be worse. I wash in a little tin bowl, the only water being from one cold tap in the kitchen at the other end of the flat鈥� I have practically no heating鈥� but I would willingly go more primitive if it were necessary to preserve my freedom.鈥� This invites comparison with Curie鈥檚 reflections on her own Paris student accommodation in her autobiography: 鈥淭his life, painful from certain points of view, had for all that, a real charm for me. It gave me a very precious sense of liberty and independence.鈥�
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Unlike Curie, however, Franklin鈥檚 love of independence made her essentially a lone worker. Although she made a few close friends and relished debating scientific ideas with equals 鈥� not least her friend Francis Crick 鈥� she was never able to form the kind of argumentative collaboration that was so fruitful for Crick and James Watson. 鈥淩osalind鈥檚 hates, as well as her friendships, tended to be enduring,鈥� her mother admitted. 鈥淪he was prickly,鈥� Glynn writes.
Franklin fell out miserably with her research supervisor Ronald Norrish when she was at the University of Cambridge, and her later clash with King鈥檚 College London colleague Maurice Wilkins almost certainly deprived her of her rightful share of the credit for decoding the structure of DNA.
The science in this story gets its due with the help of Franklin鈥檚 later colleague, chemist and biophysicist Aaron Klug, and physiologist Ian Glynn (the author鈥檚 husband). But it is the lively, atmospheric, personal details, uniquely known to Franklin鈥檚 family, that make this book more substantial than its brevity would suggest.