A Passion for DNA: Genes, Genomes, and Society (review)

James D. Watson. A Passion for DNA: Genes, Genomes, and Society. Introduction, afterword, and annotations by Walter Gratzer. Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y.: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, 2000. xx + 250 pp. $25.00 (0-87969-581-1).

This collection of essays, some of which are specifically autobiographical, is in effect a sequel to The Double Helix. They are bound to send the reader hustling to TDH for a reread, and perhaps particularly to the edition produced under the direction of Gunther Stent in 1980, with republication of the original Nature papers of 1953 and of reviews of TDH that appeared after its publication in 1968. (The year 1968 was a particularly significant one in the life of the forty-year-old Jim Watson: not only was TDH published, but also he became director of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, and married Elizabeth Lewis, a former Radcliffe student who critiqued and typed the manuscript of TDH. Watson dedicates A Passion for DNA to his two sons, Rufus and Duncan.)

Some of the essays were prepared specifically for this collection, such as the one on the circumstances of Sir Lawrence Bragg's writing the foreword to TDH. Difficult as it is for those who know Watson now to imagine, Jim states that "I was naturally nervous when I approached his office for the second time" (p. 35)--on the first trip to the office he had left a manuscript of TDH for Bragg's review. But Bragg did write the foreword, and Watson concluded: "In retrospect I do not know whether I would have had the courage to see the publication of The Double Helix through to the end without Sir Lawrence's backing" (p. 36).

The pleasure and informativeness of reading A Passion is enhanced greatly by the introduction, afterword, and annotations by Walter Dratzer--an emeritus professor of biophysical chemistry, a popularizer of science, and a presumed acquaintance of Watson in England and/or Harvard. Watson is a superb writer, as was evident in TDH. This must have come in part from the fact that he was a voracious reader and had early literary ambitions. "Beginning when I was about 12, my father and I every Friday evening made the mile-long walk to the library on 73rd St. [in Chicago] to browse among its stacks and invariably bring several [books] home to digest during the following week. Our house was also filled with books" (p. 3). Later he wrote: "My object [in writing TDH] from the first was to produce a book as good as The Great Gatsby" (p. 120). "In America you are seldom taught enough about word usage and my English years were essential to my becoming an accomplished writer. A few people here do occasionally use words cleverly, but it is not a national virtue" (p. 121). The language of Roosevelt and Churchill, reaching Watson by radio in his formative years, influenced him as well (p. 119).

Some of the essays are specifically biographical (e.g., those on Luria, Hershey, and Pauling). Throughout, wonderful insight is given into many of the scientists with whom Watson had contacts. A few examples: Paul Weiss "had a good brain but was lacking in vision" (p. 124), as indicated in the mind of Watson by the fact that he took away Watson's stipend when he decided to move from Copenhagen to Cambridge. Later: "As a student I had a course on invertebrates with Paul Weiss, and despite being scared by his nasty frown, I enjoyed his Principles of Development" (p. 51). Joshua Lederberg: "Lederberg also began to come, adding a new dimension, because he could give nonstop three- or four-hour orations without making a dent in the experiments he thought we should know about. . . . My guess is no one left the meetings remembering more than a small fraction of the ingenious alternative explanations that Lederberg dropped to...