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Ron Peters's Reviews > The Secret of Life: Rosalind Franklin, James Watson, Francis Crick, and the Discovery of DNA's Double Helix
The Secret of Life: Rosalind Franklin, James Watson, Francis Crick, and the Discovery of DNA's Double Helix
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It appears that Cambridge in the fifties (was it only in those days? let’s hope so!) was like fly paper for personality disorders. A bigger bunch of egocentric, back-biting, credit-stealing, misogynistic, antisemitic creeps is hard to imagine.
I’d been meaning to read Brenda Maddox’s (2013) Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA but never got around to it. I recently saw Markel’s book and picked it up instead. That was probably a mistake. Partly because, although her name appears first in the subtitle, Rosalind Franklin’s story only shows up substantially in the second half of the book.
In large part, though, it’s because of Markel’s writing style. The worst history books are those where the author loses sight of the story he or she is trying to tell. They have done so much research that they can’t bear to part with any of it. Markel’s book could have been cut by half with no harm and, in fact, it would have gained much-needed focus.
The core story is well worth telling and reading, but it is repeatedly lost and buried here in trivia. Rosalind Franklin’s story deserves to be made into a movie along the lines of Hidden Figures.
I’d been meaning to read Brenda Maddox’s (2013) Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA but never got around to it. I recently saw Markel’s book and picked it up instead. That was probably a mistake. Partly because, although her name appears first in the subtitle, Rosalind Franklin’s story only shows up substantially in the second half of the book.
In large part, though, it’s because of Markel’s writing style. The worst history books are those where the author loses sight of the story he or she is trying to tell. They have done so much research that they can’t bear to part with any of it. Markel’s book could have been cut by half with no harm and, in fact, it would have gained much-needed focus.
The core story is well worth telling and reading, but it is repeatedly lost and buried here in trivia. Rosalind Franklin’s story deserves to be made into a movie along the lines of Hidden Figures.
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