The FASEB Journal • Book Review

Brave Genius: A Scientist, A Philosopher,and Their Daring Adventures from theFrench Resistance to the Nobel Prize

by Sean B. Carroll (2013)

Crown, New York

Etienne-Emile Baulieu1

INSERM UMR 788, Le Kremlin-Bicetre Cedex, France

I really thank Sean Carroll, himself a scientist andeducator, for his accessible and scholarly book, dealingwith an intellectually unique interaction of two excep-tional individuals during �30 years of the 20th century:the philosopher and writer Albert Camus and thebiologist Jacques Monod. All readers, whatever theirmain interest in politics, history, or contemporaryevolution of metaphysical concepts and bioscience re-search, may learn a lot and enjoy this fascinating andpassionate account of a critical period when ideologies,biological discoveries, and their occasional confronta-tions evolved so much.

My invitation to review this book for The FASEBJournal is warmly appreciated. Perhaps I was asked,because when I was very young—before I became aresearch physician and biochemist —I was a member ofthe French Resistance in the Francs Tireurs et PartisansFrançais (FTPF), a fighting organization. Therefore, Ihad the privilege to be directly in contact with severalmatters that Camus and Monod approached andgreatly influenced but not to say decisively.

As Monod and Camus were born in 1910 and 1913,respectively, the book deals with most important polit-ical and economical aspects of the 20th century: thedevelopment of Communism and Fascism, the secondWorld War, and the following years, featuring theviolent and complex relationship between the Frenchand German people. After World War II, audaciousFrench moralists and philosophers, such as AlbertCamus, were at the forefront of their field, as were greatscientists, particularly those who, like Jacques Monod,revolutionized the basic foundations of biology. Theypublicly elaborated and discussed revolutionary con-cepts. Each published a book, creating an intellectualbreakthrough: Le mythe de Sisyphe (The Myth of Sisyphus)by Camus and Le hasard et la nécessité (Chance andNecessity) by Monod; these books are introduced to usby Sean Carroll. Camus and Monod, both French and

active resistants during the German occupation ofFrance, met after the war; they became mutualadmirers of each other and sincere friends. Monodhad to work experimentally for many years beforebeing able to speak openly on the significance of hisbiological discoveries with reference to questions andsuggestions of Camus (such as “What is worth livingfor?”).

Monod was the son of an American mother, andhis father was a free-thinking painter. Jacques, acellist and aspiring conductor, was encouraged to bea professional musician and did not make a definitivechoice of career in biology until he completed hisPh.D., even though he had visited the laboratory ofthe pioneer geneticist Thomas Hunt Morgan. Hemarried a specialist of Asian art, Odette Bruhland,and they had twin sons, born in 1939. Monod had notyet been conscripted into the army (a consequenceof childhood poliomyelitis), but he managed tosupport the regular armed forces. After the Armi-stice, he was demobilized in July 1940, and in Pariswith his family, he finished his doctorate on bacterialgrowth. Opportunities for obtaining food were diffi-cult, but more importantly, the collaborationistFrench government of Vichy developed an anti-Semitic policy (Statut des Juifs, or Status of Jews),and so, Monod sent his family to a suburban area. Hehimself became rapidly very active in the nascentResistance, writing and distributing clandestine pub-lications. Progressively, he played an important rolein underground networks and was promoted to the

1 Correspondence: INSERM UMR 788, Gregory PincusBldg., Secteur Marron, 80, rue du General Leclerc, 94276 LeKremlin-Bicetre Cedex, France. E-mail: etienne.baulieu@inserm.fr

doi: 10.1096/fj.14-1203ufm

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leading group of the Forces Françaises de l’Intérieur,the organization that coaligned the disparate forcesof resistance. In 1942, the communists had createdthe FTPF, and to participate fully, Monod became amember of the Communist Party. Jacques alreadyhated the totalitarian ideology/policy of the Partyand indicated immediately that he became a memberonly because of its “serious” anti-Nazi activity, statingthat he would stop belonging to the Party after thewar; so he did, although he never excused himself ashaving been a Party member for a few years. After thewar, Trofim Denisovich Lysenko, a Union of SovietSocialist Republics (USSR) agricultural scientist, ad-vocated that socialism could not only change societybut could also determine biological developmentthrough heredity of acquired characteristics. A vio-lent controversy developed. Monod refused the anti-Darwinist “Lysenkoism” (nothing scientific, he said),and he was hosted by Camus, who during and afterthe war, was a major contributor of the initiallyunderground newspaper, Combat. Monod wrote astrong article on September 15, 1948. In writing thispolemic, Monod began to consider chromosomes asa possible, major constituent of the biological func-tion that he studied. He met François Jacob during apublic discussion on the Lysenko theory. A fruitfulcollaboration started between them, associating ge-netics and bacterial biochemistry, also very muchinspired by André Lwoff.

Camus, born in Algeria, was the son of a farmworker, killed at the Battle of the Marne when Albertwas less than 1 year old. He adored his mother, whowas deaf-mute and illiterate. At school, a professorremarked on his intelligence and gave him free dailylessons for a while. He could therefore discoverliterature and philosophy. Tuberculosis led him tothink of death. His answer to “Should we accept thehuman condition?” was strong and strange to manypeople: “On the contrary I think that revolt is part ofthe human condition.” For several years, he had toaccept relatively uninteresting jobs, even the last onefor the newspaper, Alger Républicain, which allowedhim to find some free time to write on one of hisfavorite matters, “the Absurd.” Before he was 21 yearsold, he married a beautiful woman, Simone Hie.Unfortunately, she was a morphine addict, and theyseparated rapidly. He wrote some antiwar editorialsconsidered as outrageous by many people. However,the war was starting, and as a firm French patriot, hetried twice in vain to enlist. Then, he suffered againfrom tuberculosis and was advised to spend sometime in the French mountain Massif Central, butthanks to pneumothorax therapy, he soon recovered.His second wife, Francine, a teacher, went back toAlgeria, and he described his feelings while being leftalone. In addition to some activity as an employee ofthe popular newspaper, Paris Soir, he wrote severaltexts that he sent to well-known authors. Thus, hemanaged to get in touch with already well-knownwriters, such as Louis Aragon, André Malraux, Fran-

çois Mauriac, Jean Paulhan, and others, and alsobecame a good friend of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simonede Beauvoir Camus was offered a role in their newtheater play, Huis Clos (No Exit). He became a readerat the famous publishing house, Gallimard. In paral-lel, he was more involved with intellectuals of theResistance, among them, many Jews with whom heremained close and he praised throughout his life.He became a staff member of Combat. Literally, hehad two lives: one, on the intellectual scene, as hepublished two masterpieces: L’Etranger (The Stranger)and Le mythe de Sisyphe, and two, with the anti-Nazicombat, during which, he described France “as anadmirable and persevering nation.”

After the war, Camus and Monod met, first, intellec-tually, during the Lysenko controversy, when they re-peatedly confirmed their Darwinist option, and theystarted a political, ongoing discussion. As one example,both were unhappy with the development of scientificresearch in France, and inspired, in part, by the Colloquede Caen (1956), together with the influential PresidentPierre Mendès-France, they urged the French govern-ment to favor more basic science education in univer-sities. Camus agreed with Monod to condemn theSoviet invasion of Hungary, although he was less activein the protection of individuals than Monod; Camusexpressed vocally his anti-USSR feeling with all theprestige of his Nobel Prize in literature (1957).

There were slight differences between Monod andCamus in some political issues. If both were stronglyhostile to the USSR, Camus was more radical andexcluded any association, even partial and tempo-rary, with communists who would accept some toler-ance to a totalitarian society because of so-calledsocial improvement. Another difficulty in the Camus-Monod friendship was the case of the Algerian war:even as an anticolonialist, Camus was not as stronglyopposed to the French presence in North Africa aswas Monod.

The accidental death of Camus in 1960 left Monoddeprived of his friend. He said, “Camus has not pro-duced his best work.” During the next 16 years, Camus’influence on Monod remained intact. He had indicatedthat “I have known only one true genius: JacquesMonod.” Sean Carroll writes that “Monod was Camusreincarnated in a lab coat.” Scientifically, the funda-mental contribution of Monod was a direct follow-upcontribution to the description by Watson and Crick ofthe double-helix DNA’s importance for understandinglife function and reproduction. The Nobel Award inphysiology or medicine (1965) could have been ac-claimed by Camus and even more so when JacquesMonod developed, in Chance and Necessity, his owncomprehension of molecular biology discoveries andtheir doubly logical and yet absurd significance. Pub-licly, not to say politically, Monod was also involved intough controversies on teleonomy, feminism, and re-productive control. In each case, Camus’ and Monod’sviewpoints have been identical, reinventing for us the

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value of realism (not to say objectivity) when associatedto ethics. Monod also followed, with persistency, Ca-mus’ hate of the death penalty (abrogated in France in1981).

The book of Sean Carroll helps us to conceive aunique prism to admire the life, work, and friendshipof two courageous individuals—a philosopher and ascientist. As indicated at the end of the Le mythe deSisyphe, “The universe, from now on without master,appears (to Sisyphus) neither sterile nor trifling � By

itself, to fight toward summits is enough to fill up ahuman heart. We should imagine Sisyphus happy.”This was written by Camus, and Monod chose to startChance and Necessity with that quote. Each and bothdesigned concepts that greatly influenced the thinkingof their time.

I thank Drs. Agnès Ullmann and Georges Cohen (PasteurInstitute) for assistance on some historical details and foreditorial help.

The opinions expressed in editorials, essays, letters to the editor, and other articles comprising the Up Front section are those of the authors anddo not necessarily reflect the opinions of FASEB or its constituent societies. The FASEB Journal welcomes all points of view and many voices.We look forward to hearing these in the form of op-ed pieces and/or letters from its readers addressed to journals@faseb.org.

5041BOOK REVIEW: BRAVE GENIUS