Carl Djerassi , the chemist who helped invent the nativity - control oral contraceptive in 1951 , has drop the retiring couple of X crafting a new type of literature , which he calls “ science - in - fiction . ” It ’s not science fable , it ’s fiction about science .
In a new audience with the Stanford Daily , Djerassi explicate that he started writing novels in 1983 when his girlfriend , English Professor Diane Middlebrook , forget him . He pour his rage into a 383 page novel about her . When they finally reunited a year later and got marry , she take his novel and tell him , “ You sleep with , it ’s not really very good . ” But she helped him improve his writing , and he started creating novels about the lives of scientists and the scientific cognitive operation . ( Middlebrook died in 2007 , sadly . ) More recently , Djerassi has graduated to writing frolic , also about science .
He tells the Stanford Daily :
“ I make that if I wanted my idea to reach a across-the-board hearing , doing it through scientific article would get me nowhere , ” he said . “ I wanted to lecture to the 99 percentage of hoi polloi who are not just anti - scientific ; they ’re ascientific – or afraid of it . ”
This gave birth to “ science - in - fiction”–which , he emphasise , is very different from “ science fiction”–a genre that apply fictional forms to analyze the ethical , moral and personal quandary that often arise in the “ tribal culture ” of skill , as he qualify it .
After his success with novels , he moved to “ science - in - fiction ” drama around 2000 after being breathe in by a similar scientific gaming . He favour drama because of the ever - acquire nature of a free rein : even after it has been publish as a script , everyone interpret it differently , giving it unexampled life .
But the overlap between scientific discipline and lit remains short , and Djerassi is sorely aware of this .
“ I ’m really sit between two schools , ” he said . “ To the literary establishment , I ’m still the outsider chemist who ’s flummox his nozzle in a field that ’s not his business . And to the chemists , I ’m scourge my time . ”
[ Stanford Daily ]
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