Book Reading | The Gene: An Intimate History

"This book is the story of the birth, growth, and future of one of the most powerful and dangerous ideas in the history of science: the "gene," the fundamental unit of heredity, and the basic unit of all biological information. I"

~Siddhartha Mukherjee

There can be nothing better than reading books but it becomes quite a luxury when we add the time constraint. Having oversubscribed myself to quite a good number of magazines, I find it hard to commit myself for a book.
However, the other day while browsing through the non-fiction section of the Public Library I stumbled upon the second book by Siddhartha Mukherjee; The Gene: An Intimate History. 

The author has mathematically noted down each milestone in genetic science in this book, rather descriptively. But with all this, the author ensures that his readers do not lose their focus from the fact that study of genes is not anymore just a progressive or evolutionary aspect in science and medicines, rather it is a study and observation about how an individual is insufficiently deciphering the technological advancement in the science of genetics as well as the study of oneself.

I had always longed to read the first and Pulitzer winning book by this author - The Emperor of Maladies. So when I saw ‘The Gene’ available on the rack I couldn’t avoid grasping it. The book is voluminous but still I decided to take up the challenge. And I have been doing pretty good at that.

It would be futile attempt for a person like me who last read biology in 10th standard to write an academic review of the book. But I would rather limit myself to writing why this book is a worthy read for a person who loves science.
‘The Gene: An Intimate History’ as the name suggests tracks historically one of most important discoveries of science right from the ancient times, when it was just as concept to the ancient thinkers and philosophers, to the modern day unraveling of the mysteries related to the unit of heredity.
I have always had a liking for history but the history of science is something we get very seldom to read. We have well documented history of society, politics, war but science lacks its share. What we get of science history are only the first one or two pages at the beginning of text-books which are written as part of the introduction. We always miss the point that it is important to know the history behind a scientific discovery or invention to understand its importance. It is also important to know the society and politics of the time and then we will understand the weight-age of what Galileo, Copernicus, Darwin or others had achieved.

Knowing the history of science is necessary to understand the painstaking efforts put by scientists to arrive at the final objective. As the author discussed in this book how Mendel toiled for 8 years just growing peas in his garden and conducting the experiment which statistically or theoretically established the presence of a unit of heredity. That experiment or the results thereof may seem quite trivial in context of the recent advances made in the field. But appreciating the scale of the achievement is important for a student to understand how big an effort is needed to arrive at small conclusions.

Reading the book would help a reader from non-life science background to get answers quite a few curious questions they may have. What is gene? What is DNA? How is gene different from DNA? Where do you find the gene? How does gene carry traits? The reader would be amazed to read how a chemistry transforms into life form. It would also seem that at a very basic level human being is nothing but an aggregation of chemical compounds and chemical reactions taking place at minuscule levels.

Reading the book I tend to ask the question where is the soul? Is soul nothing but proteins which are the driving blocks inside the human body? Reading the book, it almost seems that expanse of the universe is encoded in the expense of the DNA.

The historical parallels presented by the author are equally fascinating. We may have read how the Bolsheviks overthrew the Tsar but how gene originating from the lineage of Queen Victoria of England had to play a role in that is hard to fathom and find mentioned in any book on history of the revolutions.

The book goes into technicalities quite often but then the author does a good job to bring it back in sync with broader theme of Gene’s history.

These are type of books which should be included as reference material with school curriculum. Sometimes just studying science without knowing the applications and implications it has led to becomes quite monotonous. Reading such books as this one would help establish everlasting love with subject.