Science is exploration, both systematic and creative, and as such, it is an activity innate to humans.

"Oxygen" offers an insider's glimpse into two facets of science often shrouded in mystery, but filled with expressions of human splendor--and folly: the struggle for recognition of ones scientific discoveries and the awarding of a Nobel Prize for discoveries deemed singularly important.

The playwrights, Carl Djerassi and Roald Hoffmann, have each contributed their own singular scientific discoveries and literary creations to the world. They use the occasion of the centenary of the Nobel Prizes to mirror fictional experiences involving the historical chemists Lavoisier, Priestley, and Scheele--and the women in their lives--with the arguments and self-reflections of a committee of modern-day Swedish scientists trying to award a retro-Nobel for the most important discovery in chemistry before 1901.

Both sets of characters, those of the 18th Century who discovered oxygen and those of the 21st who seek to honor that discovery, act out the passions that drive the men and women who pursue science--and do so in ways at home in either century. The play reveals to the reader, whether a student of science (of any age) or not, the issues and emotions that underlie a scientist's compulsion to question, and hopefully to understand, the workings of the natural world, all the while striving for primacy in discovery. The book offers a voyage of discovery worth taking.

The year is 1777- the American Revolution and the chemical revolution are both burning brightly. In a Stockholm sauna, Mary Priestley and Marie Anne Pierrette Paulze Lavoisier, the wives of Joseph Priestley and Antoine Lavoisier, and Sara Margaretha Pohl, the companion of Carl Wilhelm Scheele, open this imaginative play and set the stage for the scientific, emotional and ethical struggles that follow. It is a tempestuous period: the wealthy Lavoisier was guillotined during the Reign of Terror in 1794. Joseph Priestley, a founder of the Unitarian Church and also a friend of Franklin, was forced to flee England for America, as a mob burned his church to the ground.

The authors of this play comfortably inhabit both of C.P. Snow's "Two Cultures". Roald Hoffmann is a winner of the 1981 Nobel Prize in Chemistry and Carl Djerassi performed the first synthesis of a steroid oral contraceptive. Prior to "Oxygen", Hoffmann had published widely acclaimed poetry and other "cross cultural books" for scientists and non-scientists while Djerassi had published successful novels as well as a play and a book of poems.

Nobel Prizes are awarded to living practioners and the practice has been, where sharing is appropriate- usually in the sciences- no more than three co-awardees. But in 2001, the hundredth anniversary of the Nobel Prize, Astrid Rosenquist, the first female chair of a chemistry Nobel committee springs two surprises on her three male committee members. The first is that the Swedish Academy of Sciences will begin a new Retro-Nobel Prize for early discoveries. The second is the participation of a mysterious and alluring recorder or "amanuensis" named Ulla Zorn.

The play alternates scenes between the Court of King Carl Gustav the Third and the Stockholm of 2001. The discussion of candidates by the modern committee rapidly converges to the discovery of oxygen and the understanding of fire that transformed chemistry into a modern science. The problem is this-we now know that Scheele first discovered oxygen around 1771-2; Priestley discovered it totally independently in 1774, disclosed his discovery to Lavoisier during a visit to Paris in that year and published first. History proves that Scheele also disclosed his discovery in a letter addressed to Lavoisier two weeks before Priestley's visit. Lavoisier never responded to Scheele's letter. But Priestley and Scheele did not understand the significance of their discovery. They believed that the new "fire air" sucked an essence of fire (phlogiston) from burning matter. It was Lavoisier who understood that burning, rusting and respiration all involved addition of oxygen (oxidation) rather than loss of something to the air. One committee member, Bengt Hjalmarsson, is reasonably fluent in French and is assigned Lavoisier. Scheele is assigned to Sune Kallstenius, comfortable in the German language frequently employed by Scheele. Ulf Svanholm is assigned Priestley. Not surprisingly they each become advocates for their "charges". But other human frailties emerge. Bengt and Astrid have a history. Ulf harbors a grudge against Sune, who he is convinced, caused him to be "scooped" on his major discovery. The stage has been set to play off the issues of scientific priority, ambition and motivation, complicated by human passions, among powerful women and men of the eighteenth and twenty-first centuries. Indeed, it is the women who, according to Ms Zorn, are "...usually expected to clean up the dirt" and so they do by clarifying history and moving the modern committee to an acceptable concensus.

The issue of priority for the discovery of oxygen is to be settled in The Judgement of Stockholm. Did Lavoisier, Scheele and Priestley ever meet together? Probably not- but what an exciting thought. And in the best tradition of modern science, the critical experiments of one must be performed by another. There are thrilling scenes here: Lavoisier performing Scheele's generation of "fire-air" under the latter's supervision; Antoine confiding his intuition about Scheele to Marie ("I trust him"); Joseph to Mary about Scheele ("I trust him"); Carl Wilhelm to Fru Pohl on Lavoisier ("I do not trust him"). And there is an extra bonus. There is evidence that to celebrate their chemical revolution, Antoine and Marie performed a brief play or masque. Alas, the script, if one ever existed in writing, is unknown. But Djerassi and Hoffmann offer us a delight- Marie, as "oxygen" publicly humiliates and vanquishes Antoine, as "phlogiston", in a performance witnessed, with amusement, by King Carl Gustav and with increasing discomfort and then consternation by the Priestleys, Scheele and Fru Pohl.

The twists, surprises and the denouement will be left for the discovery of the reader. The authors have succeeded wonderfully in combining solid history, with the informed nuances and rich humor of two of the world's most accomplished scientists. Hoffmann and Djerassi do not recognize the boundaries of the "Two Cultures" and readers of this play will be the richer as a result. One last thought- the number of actors in this play is quite small and the settings simple. A reading of the play can be readily staged by high school or college chemistry classes. What a way to enliven chemical history and bridge the sciences, humanities and fine arts!

To read from the works of Carl Djerassi is to sample the mind of a creative genius the breadth of whose life activities spans scientific research to writing fiction and plays. His autobiography is best read in the context of some of his other works. This review of his autobiography will reference two of his works of fiction, The Bourbaki Gambit, and NO.

These books will never be on the best seller lists. Yet it precisely because of this that they should be read by scientists and engineers as food for thought. These books grew on me. By the time that I had finished them, I had experienced compelling plot lines. More importantly I had experienced the emotions of scientists at the beginnings and ends of their careers. Is Djerassi, at an age where many are spending their days playing golf or reliving their pasts, using science in fiction as metaphor for his own career? Is not the promise of the medical advances of the last several decades the time and the vitality to explore new horizons and to boldly embark on a new career, rather than to ride quietly into the sunset? If nothing else, these works celebrate creative solutions to how one manages one's career throughout one's life.

The Bourbaki Gambit has Max Weiss, professor of chemistry at Princeton University, being forced into a retirement that he neither wants nor is prepared for. Stunned at a sudden loss of all that has been his life, Max considers others in his predicament and hatches a plan to show that retirement age does not mean the end of contributions. The plan? Nothing less than to jointly make a fabulous scientific discovery, and publish it as a sole, fictitious author. Does the plan work? Read the book.

If this was all you read, you might be tempted to say that this is the swan song of an old professor, but NO takes us to the other end of the spectrum. The device for this book is the molecule nitric oxide, which is active in many physiological processes. Specifically this book is a fictionalized account of the development and commercialization of a predecessor to Viagra. urialism. In the end, both husband and wife fulfill their careers by going full circle.

To better understand these works as metaphors for a scientific career, you must read Dieresis's autobiography. The rather cumbersome title, The Pill, Pygmy Chimps, and Degas' Horse, prepares the reader for what comes -- a highly readable journey through a series of defining events in his life. Question: is it better to read the fiction first, or the autobiography? Clearly this is a man the power of whose ideas transcends science or literature. Approach the autobiography as an insight into his mind. From persecution in 1930's Vienna as a teenager; to dealing with the provincial culture of the Mid West at the outset of World War II; to performing world class chemical synthesis from an isolated setting in Mexico in the early 1950's (activities which led to the synthesis of compounds that ultimately became the oral contraceptive); Carl Djerassi defined his surroundings. Lesser individuals may have been victims of their circumstances, but Carl Djerassi took his surroundings and prevailed. This is the message of this autobiography.

Now back to the question -- which to read first. Read the fiction first. Technologists can enjoy these as stories that speak to them. An engineer nearing retirement will immediately bond with Max Weiss, who struggles with the complexities of retirement. A young technologist, one contemplating entrepreneurship, or a dual career couple will find kinship with the protagonists in NO as they struggle with pursuing their visions. Then read the autobiography. What makes the stories so good is that he is writing from experience. The young technologists in NO, working in Israel, could be the young Djerassi working in Mexico City. Max Weiss could be Djerassi at a Gordon Conference poking fun at priority at any cost mentality of some scientists. And the ever cool Diana Doyle-Ditmus represents the ideal for an intellectually and physically active senior lifestyle.

These books, read either as a set or individually, can be an inspiration to technologists at any point in their career.

Revealing autobiography of the scientist who transformed the world by synthesizing the Pill.
"I have no regrets that the Pill has contributed to the sexual revolution of our time and perhaps expedited it, because most of those changes in sexual mores would have happened anyway."

Djerassi give us an incisive picture of his personal life. But the biggest part of this book tells the intriguing story of the synthesizing of the Pill and the problems to prove that there were only minor side-effects: a battle with the FDA. A good lesson for every scientist.
He is perhaps too harsh for the environmental fundamentalist. But he remarks among other things that "... in general, life in the modern industrial world has not contributed to increased death from cancer", and that "99.9 percent of all pesticides consumed by humans are derived not from synthetics but rather from the plants themselves".
Also interesting is the story of the Pugwash Conference, whose altruistic goal was corrupted by a struggle between the cold war warriors.
His biggest confession "At heart, I'm still a gambler."
Excellent work, not only for scientists.

This excellent book explored the collaborative process of science in the framework of an interesting story. It is a must read for scientists who should learn lessons from this book. It should be noted however that the author is not a nobel prize winner as the first review would have us believe.

I was at the talk of a certain Nobel Prize winner once and he said, half jokingly, that all science is motivated by hatred and envy. This certainly doesn't discount that and is fun to read for what it's worth.

I would however like to vent on the two main female characters. They're insultingly the most one-dimensional characters I've read in years. Granted, anyone who reads this book is looking for science anecdotes not general storytelling but I do have my limits

It's just not fair. Academic novels - for all their delights - seem never to be set in science departments. From Lodge (Changing Places, Small World) to DeLillo (White Noise) to Russo (Straight Man), the hero or antihero is inevitably a professor of English Literature or some closely allied field within the liberal arts. (Some might point out that Jane Smiley's Moo is an exception; I would counter that it is also a disappointly weak novel.)

Of course, the temptation is always to dramatize (or satirize) that which one knows best, and with English faculty more prone to writing novels than are scientists, the scarcity of novels about physics, chemisty, or biology should come as little surprise. But finally, a scientist - Carl Djarassi - has entered the fray with a fine series of academic novels focused upon the natural science encampment of the Ivory Tower. Indeed, Djarassi's literary skills (while less likely to win him a second Nobel prize than his scientific ones) are of substantial merit.

The first of this series - Cantor's Dilemma - is not an academic satire, a la Lodge; instead, it is often praised as an exploration of the very serious ethical issues that arise when the stakes get high in the world of science. Indeed, the book does delve into this territory, and does so adeptly. And despite the serious subject matter, Cantor's dilemma is a fun read, and the pages fly by. The book's true strength, however, is overlooked in many reviews: Djarassi manages to present a penetrating look at the complex academic and personal relationships between two very driven men at very different stages in their careers. The strongest aspect of Cantor's Dilemma is its exploration of the complex blend of politicking, emotion, ambition, and collaboration, and friendship that together compose the interactions between a young postdoctoral fellow and his internationally-renowned mentor.

So why only three stars? Ultimately, the book disappoints. In his ending, Djarassi has chosen to abandon any pretense of realism, and to do so without any valid purpose. Neither irony nor necessity lie beneath Djarassi's plot direction; I can only conjecture that he allowed his novel to unfold as it does in order to provide some kind of grand and exciting narrative. A sad mistake; the drama here is truly all in the details.

It reveals the bones of human and tells us the reality

These "novels" with science in them are very poor as fiction. For those who want to know how science works, I recommend "Arrowsmith" by Sinclair Lewis or "The Search" by C. P. Snow. Djerassi is not a novelist, and would not get published as such if he were not such a distinguished scientist.

"Welcome to the tribe." So concludes Carl Djerassi's latest novel, NO---the final work in his science-in-fiction tetralogy. His terse ending summarizes one of the novel's recurring themes---the often primal behavior of research scientists. By referring to their "Nobel lust" or to their quest for financial rewards, Djerassi compels the reader to consider scientists from a more human perspective---one where fierce competition motivates decisions in scientific activity. In previous novels Djerassi has examined this cutthroat mentality in the context of authorship, in vitro fertilization , and cancer research. This time, by picking up on the frenzy surrounding Viagra, Djerassi sets the stage when he turns his characters' attentions toward the molecule nitric oxide (NO) as a potential cure for penile dysfunction.

However, the real focus should be on a drug to cure Djerassi's fictive dysfunction. Although his science is engaging, his fiction remains uninspired. Detached dialogue fails to light any sparks on the page and leaves the reader with an array of one-dimensional characters. Renu Krishnan, the protagonist of the story, is an Indian chemist who works with a group of scientists and investors to bring a device to the market that helps male impotence. We watch her transform into a biotech executive and lose sight of pure science; her sacrifices are many, often at the expense of her family. Yet in spite of her struggle, Djerassi fails to give Renu depth and her unconvincing flawlessness precludes a connection with the reader. This is unfortunate, since her position as a female scientist in a predominantly male field is exceptional.

Djerassi struggles in other aspects of the book as well. By disclosing from the outset that nitric oxide does in fact work, he has erased the element of mystery that normally paces a book. In later sub-plots he similarly fails to create suspense. As a result, NO loses momentum early on and emerges only as a stodgy, carefully constructed tale.

Nonetheless, the book does have value. His science-in-fiction approach differs from science fiction in that the science is accurate, and his examination of the step-by-step process involved in developing a new drug---ranging from FDA requirements and clinical trials to marketing and potential lawsuits---is highly informative. Djerassi's commentary on the opportunities for research in academia versus the biotech industry is intriguing, as is his occasional reference to Indian and Israeli customs. And, if one has enjoyed Djerassi's other works, NO is replete with characters from previous novels. Just don't expect them to move you.---Vanessa J. Silberman

I have come across scientists who claim that reading the journal Nature is as exciting as reading a Jules Verne novel. I guess NO can be exciting, too, if one is interested in knowledge about patenting scientific findings, fundraising, and getting FDA approvals. All that information in a neat package.

However, as a novel, NO has its shortcomings. When I was reading the book, I had a hard time picturing the female protagonist, a young female Indian scientist, Indian. Apparently the author knew little about Indian culture, and Indians who came to the U.S. Other characters in the book did not fare much better, either. There is simply no character development.

The book doesn't have much of a plot, either. The author is certainly familiar with the science involved, but too much expounding on this matter bores the uninitiated. (The author does claim that he writes for the general public, not just the scientific crowd.)

To make the matters worse, the author made hundreds of sex jokes in the beginning chapters of the book, as if these jokes could be funny forever. I found this attempt to hold the readers' attention juvenile.

To sum it up, this book is not that enjoyable, if you read it as a novel. Perhaps the book should be renamed and placed in the non-fiction section, along with other how-to books.

Carl's Djerassi's novel Menachem's Seed tells a complex story about people who have to face moral dilemmas created by reproductive technology. Carl Djerassi, the creator of the birth control pill, is very familiar with this theme. The fact that the book was written by a biochemist is clear from the beginning. His digressions on scientific matters are sound throughout the whole novel. Djerassi also raises interesting questions about ethics in science and also about ethics in relationships between men and women. His purpose in writing this book was to bring these issues to public attention, but unfortunately his literary talents do not reach the same level as his scientific achievements, and his lack of artistic imagination renders his prose dry and the characters stiff and lifeless. As a result he may lose many of his readers in first chapters of the book.
Menachem's Seed raises serious ethical questions about human reproduction by weaving them into a love story between an Israeli nuclear physicist, Menachem Dvir, and an American biochemist, Melanie Laidlaw. The protagonists meet at an international scientific conference and fall in love with each other. Melanie's work allows her to learn about the newest achievements in fertility science. Recently widowed, she decides to use new biotechnology in order to become a mother. But does Menachem have right to know that Melanie is going to use his sperm? Slowly the story becomes a great cooking pot into which the author adds more and more ingredients. If biotechnology is not yet as developed as it is in Djerassi's novel, it may soon reach that level, and the questions which the author raises will be faced in real life. From this perspective, the book is a great achievement.
Yet if we think of Djerassi as a cook he has definitely ruined the stew. The cooking pot of Menachem's Seed was a great opportunity for the author to create serious food for thought. The ingredients are quite flavorful: science, politics, history, love, sex, and religion. The basic recipe was good too: a story with an ethical dilemma. Anyone reader who reads such a recipe would feel hungry. However, the disappointment comes after the first bite. Djerassi's vocabulary is too small and frustratingly repetitive. For example, the word 'murmur' appears eight times by page 142, and three times in the same five pages. Finally, the bland character development and insipid eroticism in the sex scenes make this meal unappetizing.
This book may be interesting for those who really care about ethical issues in science and who have enough patience to finish it. In general, I would not recommend this book to anyone. Djerassi's attempt to draw public attention to an important problem fails completely because of his shortcomings as a writer.

Djerassi opens a world unseen by most, the world of the scientific elite. This is the first Djerassi book I've read, but it most certainly will not be the last.

This book has a strong female lead with impressive professional drive and a male lead just as passionate about his own beliefs. I found the scientific and cultural digressions much more enjoyable than the political asides. Not that the political asides were all bad, but many of them did supply the book with most of its unappealing aspects and I found the reading became a bit laborious during those segments.

MS is full of moral dilemmas and ethical quandries, and Djerassi displays an impressive ear for dialogue as his characters voice those issues to each other. This book is sort of like an army stew which has many varied ingredients but one undeniable discernible feature. The focus of MS is the world of the elite scientists, engineers, and doctors of the world, but there is enough romance, intrigue, and suspense thrown in to keep you happily chewing along.

All of Djerassi's novels feature compelling plots and I'm eager to read them all.