The Double Helix

These two closing chapters present an interesting change of perspective. If Chapter 28 concludes in high spirits, with a sense of celebration, and the feel of a happy ending, Chapter 29 strikes a different tone. There is a subtle note of anti-climax, and a restless wondering about new horizons beyond the victory of the double helix.

The Epilogue returns us to the outer frame of this book, and is a companion piece to the Preface in this respect. It presents a measured, older perspective, with the benefit of hindsight and the distance of several years. It is also touched by the sadness of Rosalind Franklin’s premature death, and provides an important revision of the way she is represented in the bulk of the narrative.

Pauling’s acceptance of the double helix follows the patterns of others in Chapter 28, but when he arrives in Cambridge, weeks after, as the defeated and gracious king of chemistry, the sense of celebration and triumph has diminished. This is felt in the somewhat subdued last dinner with Pauling.

Their paper being published in Nature marks, as Watson notes, a “famous event” (160) in the history of science. We see here, too, a little of the now-familiar etiquette of fair play and intellectual acknowledgement in the concession to Fraser’s work on hydrogen bonds at Kings College.

It’s interesting Watson and Crick opt for a more allusive, understated approach, rather than spelling out the full biological implications of their finding. The turn of phrase has precisely that poise and style which Watson saw in Pauling’s papers and dreamed of emulating. It is effective precisely because it is understated and restrained—because of what it holds back, but suggests at the same time. This makes for an ironic contrast with Crick’s habitual approach to discourse, which is to talk excessively, to overstate, to spell everything out. Here the double helix is allowed to speak for itself. Indeed, to draw a comparison with the double helix and writing: good style is often about simplicity, and the way a lot can be done with a little.

Crick seems relatively subdued in these final chapters, with fewer flights of fancy and a more practical focus. He remains unfaltering in his scientific commitments, immediately turning his attention to the task of solving the DNA A-structure. He is critical of Watson’s more laissez-faire approach. Since solving the DNA riddle, Watson’s focus has been more diffuse; he’s spent time enjoying his victory, and taken two trips to Paris.

Perhaps after every great victory there is an inevitable come-down, a question of what’s next, and even a sense of disorientation. This seems particularly so for Watson. So much of his efforts up to this point were focusedsingle-mindedly on solving DNA. Now, at such a young age, and having achieved this feat, what should he do next? A note of furtive restlessness and indirection creeps into this final chapter, and clashes somewhat with the earlier tone of celebration.

Watson seems to be by nature to be both an explorer and a wanderer, and his attentions already seem to be drifting from Cambridge, the site of their victory, to new, unknown climes. Crick’s path is a different one, and we can sense their intense partnership, which was held together by the problem of DNA, already weakening.

Tellingly, the narrative ends not in Cambridge or the Cavendish, or with Crick, but in Paris, with Watson contemplating the future. His sister’s forthcoming marriage and his own 25thbirthday raise for him the question of change and maturity. This is something alluded to in the meal with Pauling, where he calls himself “an unfinished member of the younger generation” (161). He sees the end of an era (an era of youthful escape and adventure) in his sister’s coming marriage, and perhaps in his own time in Cambridge. This is reflected in the enigmatic last line, “I was twenty-five and too old to be unusual” (162). His narrative has been one of personal and scientific eccentricity, of bold thinking and intellectual adventure, where “being unusual” was part of their success. But now we end on a note of self-reflexive caution.

Having just accomplished their victory as two eccentrics and underdogs, that role is no longer straightforwardly theirs to hold. They have beaten the system, proved themselves to the scientific establishment, but that means they are not the same tenacious outsiders they have been. Perhaps there is a sense of new responsibilities, a maturing perspective, in contrast to the youthful devil-may-care attitude that characterised much of Watson’s narrative. The question remains: what next?

The epilogue comes notably from a different older voice, both in tone and content. Partly it is a formulaic summing up, and an authorial reminder that this is just “a version” of events.

Most of the key participants are alive and can respond with their own act of narration, their re-interpretation of the DNA story and the human drama around it. But this is not true for Franklin, who died of ovarian cancer in 1958.

The epilogue serves as a homage to Franklin, and ends The Double Helix on a poignant note. Watson effectively rejects his earlier characterisation of her and raises, in the process, a key problem that his narrative has often been symptomatic of: the way women, at the time, were viewed in the scientific community and beyond. His comments acknowledge and critique that dichotomy we have noted before, between the serious business of science and women seen as “mere diversions” (164). To be caught in this dichotomy was part of Rosalind Franklin’s struggle; to have accomplished so much in spite of it is a tribute to her strength and talent.