Books

Peter Pan

The original adventure to Neverland.

I read the play hoping for surprises, but the old Disney movie does a faithful enough job that nothing stood out.

It’s an ecstatic fever dream of a story and Peter Pan is a timeless character.

Watch the cartoon and watch Hook. It’s more on brand for this content.

The Double Helix

Nobel prize winner tells a personal account of the discovery of structure of DNA, as it says on the tin.

It’s delightfully catty, gossipy, and petty. When he’s not casually throwing around polysyllabic jargon, he’s mostly either freely discussing his own relatively minor priorities or unabashedly dragging his contemporaries. 

He spends more time on the challenges of securing grants, housing, and worldly comforts than he does on the actual mechanics of doing science. 

He roasts poor Rosie. No clue if it was a fair picture, but it smacked of spurned lover to me. The other scientists get a spectrum of warts-and-all portrayals ranging from mostly favorable to disdainful.

And I absolutely loved it for all this. It amounts to a compelling and believable portrait of Watson’s mind at the time of his discovery. You just have to treat him as an unreliable literary narrator and not as a faithful reporter. 

The juxtaposition of the importance of the discovery with the immaturity (nonjudgmental) of the co-discoverer is rewarding in itself and highlights how accessible achievement can be.

Highly recommended, especially for anyone who enjoyed Surely You’re Joking Mr. Feynman.