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THE PILL, PYGMY CHIMPS AND DEGAS' HORSE

THE REMARKABLE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF THE AWARD-WINNING SCIENTIST WHO SYNTHESIZED THE PILL

Best known as the chemist who first synthesized the steroid oral contraceptive popularly called ``the Pill,'' Djerassi (Chemistry/Stanford; the novel Cantor's Dilemma, 1989, etc.), now 68, demonstrates once again that he's no white-coated specialist working in isolation in a lab but a colorful, even eccentric and sometimes self-indulgent man of the world—one who's got chutzpah and a sense of humor and who's deeply concerned with social issues. Indeed, this memoir is a reflection of Djerassi's idiosyncratic personality, offering a mix of serious treatises on chemistry (complete with diagrams of the chemical structure of steroids); lighthearted accounts of his mishaps abroad; thoughtful essays on birth control and world population growth; and revelations of personal tragedies and triumphs. Djerassi has drawn on previously published writings (The Politics of Conception, 1980; various short stories and poems), and many of the chapters can easily stand alone; yet somehow they all hang together, giving a picture of a brilliant, complex man whose world of science transcends geographic and political boundaries. ``Filling the gaps in an autobiography serves no more purpose than filling the holes in Swiss cheese,'' says Djerassi, who has left sizable gaps in his own story. Possibly he had in mind the show-business dictum that one should leave the audience wanting more; that certainly is the result. Any man whose autobiography weaves together stories about pygmy chimps, anti-Semitism, Alfred E. (``What—me worry?'') Neuman, cockroaches and the King of Sweden, death and poetry, and a Degas bronze horse has led a life worth the telling. Happily, Djerassi closes with the promise that he'll continue to write—in a genre he dubs ``science-in- fiction.'' A fascinating if incomplete look at a 20th-century Renaissance man. (Twenty-five photographs—not seen.)

Pub Date: April 6, 1992

ISBN: 0-465-05759-4

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Basic Books

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1992

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THE RIGHT STUFF

Yes: it's high time for a de-romanticized, de-mythified, close-up retelling of the U.S. Space Program's launching—the inside story of those first seven astronauts.

But no: jazzy, jivey, exclamation-pointed, italicized Tom Wolfe "Mr. Overkill" hasn't really got the fight stuff for the job. Admittedly, he covers all the ground. He begins with the competitive, macho world of test pilots from which the astronauts came (thus being grossly overqualified to just sit in a controlled capsule); he follows the choosing of the Seven, the preparations for space flight, the flights themselves, the feelings of the wives; and he presents the breathless press coverage, the sudden celebrity, the glorification. He even throws in some of the technology. But instead of replacing the heroic standard version with the ring of truth, Wolfe merely offers an alternative myth: a surreal, satiric, often cartoony Wolfe-arama that, especially since there isn't a bit of documentation along the way, has one constantly wondering if anything really happened the way Wolfe tells it. His astronauts (referred to as "the brethren" or "The True Brothers") are obsessed with having the "right stuff" that certain blend of guts and smarts that spells pilot success. The Press is a ravenous fool, always referred to as "the eternal Victorian Gent": when Walter Cronkite's voice breaks while reporting a possible astronaut death, "There was the Press the Genteel Gent, coming up with the appropriate emotion. . . live. . . with no prompting whatsoever!" And, most off-puttingly, Wolfe presumes to enter the minds of one and all: he's with near-drowing Gus Grissom ("Cox. . . That face up there!—it's Cox. . . Cox knew how to get people out of here! . . . Cox! . . ."); he's with Betty Grissom angry about not staying at Holiday Inn ("Now. . . they truly owed her"); and, in a crude hatchet-job, he's with John Glenn furious at Al Shepard's being chosen for the first flight, pontificating to the others about their licentious behavior, or holding onto his self-image during his flight ("Oh, yes! I've been here before! And I am immune! I don't get into corners I can't get out of! . . . The Presbyterian Pilot was not about to foul up. His pipeline to dear Lord could not be clearer"). Certainly there's much here that Wolfe is quite right about, much that people will be interested in hearing: the P-R whitewash of Grissom's foul-up, the Life magazine excesses, the inter-astronaut tensions. And, for those who want to give Wolfe the benefit of the doubt throughout, there are emotional reconstructions that are juicily shrill.

But most readers outside the slick urban Wolfe orbit will find credibility fatally undermined by the self-indulgent digressions, the stylistic excesses, and the broadly satiric, anti-All-American stance; and, though The Right Stuff has enough energy, sass, and dirt to attract an audience, it mostly suggests that until Wolfe can put his subject first and his preening writing-persona second, he probably won't be a convincing chronicler of anything much weightier than radical chic.

Pub Date: Sept. 24, 1979

ISBN: 0312427565

Page Count: 370

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1979

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THE MAKING OF THE ATOMIC BOMB

A magnificent account of a central reality of our times, incorporating deep scientific expertise, broad political and social knowledge, and ethical insight, and Idled with beautifully written biographical sketches of the men and women who created nuclear physics. Rhodes describes in detail the great scientific achievements that led up to the invention of the atomic bomb. Everything of importance is examined, from the discovery of the atomic nucleus and of nuclear fission to the emergence of quantum physics, the invention of the mass-spectroscope and of the cyclotron, the creation of such man-made elements as plutonium and tritium, and implementation of the nuclear chain reaction in uranium. Even more important, Rhodes shows how these achievements were thrust into the arms of the state, which culminated in the unfolding of the nuclear arms race. Often brilliantly, he records the rise of fascism and of anti-Semitism, and the intensification of nationalist ambitions. He traces the outbreak of WW II, which provoked a hysterical rivalry among nations to devise the bomb. This book contains a grim description of Japanese resistance, and of the horrible psychological numbing that caused an unparalleled tolerance for human suffering and destruction. Rhodes depicts the Faustian scale of the Manhattan Project. His account of the dropping of the bomb itself, and of the awful firebombing that prepared its way, is unforgettable. Although Rhodes' gallery of names and events is sometimes dizzying, his scientific discussions often daunting, he has written a book of great drama and sweep. A superb accomplishment.

Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1986

ISBN: 0684813785

Page Count: 932

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1986

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