I’ve previously read Kean’s third book, The Tale of the Duelling Neurosurgeons, which I found very informative and fun to read, so I was looking forward to reading The Disappearing Spoon.

Initially, The Disappearing Spoon was a more difficult read than Duelling Neurosurgeons, although that’s partly because I have less background knowledge about chemistry than I do about psychiatry or neurology. In comparison to Duelling Neurosurgeons, TDS is denser and more complex. While I could read a chapter of Neurosurgeons in one go and follow its major ideas and mechanics, I couldn’t do the same with TDS. Instead, I needed to stop and retrace my steps frequently to ensure I was keeping track of how new details related to previous information. (This applies most to the early chapters, which focused on the chemicial knowledge required to make sense of featured elements.)

At about 25% in, the stories switched to a more human focus, beginning with stories about people who tried to harness the most poisonous column of the periodic table. From here, individual chapters became more accessible. Many characters from various parts of 19th and 20th century Europe were included — some as one-shot characters, and others as recurring heroes or rivals (as a challenge, try to count how often people from the University of California appear). TDS also showed how political changes affected scientific progress and individual scientists, such as how political battles over who owned current-day Poland made Marie Curie a refugee and a political activist, and how World War II prevented Lisa Meitner from receiving a Nobel Prize. The book shows just how international and collaborative science was at the time, and weaves the real-world context of the scientists into their discoveries. It also explained some of the scientists’ flaws; from stubbornness, to denying errors, to the (thankfully rare) times people carried out faulty or unchecked research.

The final section of TDS looked at the rules of science itself, and how some of the measurements and constants that underpin modern science were chosen. This part brought in fascinating new ideas such as superconductors and new states of matter, but also rushed through them too quickly in my opinion. Finally, the book returned to the periodic table by discussing how the table could change in the future as new discoveries disrupt what we know about atoms and elements. These final few pages made a lot of sense and wrapped up the book well. However, the rest of this section felt a little disjointed, like Kean tried to put all the fun trivia he hadn’t covered yet in one place so it didn’t go to waste.

Conclusion

Comparing TDS and Duelling Neurosurgeons demonstrates how Kean’s writing style has developed over time. TDS-era Kean is less flashy, in terms of how he describes people and situations. Still erudite, and still fond of wordplay, alliteration, and colourful analogies, but without the bordering-on-arrogance sometimes seen in Duelling Neurosurgeons. So people who found Duelling Neurosurgeons a little too flippant would probably prefer the more straightforward tone used here. However, TDS faltered a little in terms of structure. Kean jumped from idea to idea so rapidly, and with so many layers of callbacks, digressions and call-forwards, that sometimes the patterns he tried to make clearer were instead obscured.

Having said that, the patterns were my favourite part of TDS. Seeing how individual scientists helped, hindered, and annoyed each other, and how scientists’ past inventions affected their future inventions, was really informative. The “great man” view of science can always do with being poked at and countered, especially now that major discoveries are rarely made by individuals, so having these concrete examples here was helpful. Similarly, I enjoyed the stories which showed how chemistry and physics moved from being intertwined to independent. While I factually knew that the two topics used to be part of the same area of knowledge, the examples and stories helped me understand that more clearly. The one thing TDS lacks here is a way to keep the relationships between people in focus. A visual timeline of events, or even a Wait But Why-style horizontal history approach, would have been incredibly useful.

Overall, I’d say that if you already have solid background knowledge about chemistry and an interest in its history, or in the history of science more generally, then you’ll gain plenty of knowledge from TDS. For chemistry novices, the beginning and end of TDS might be hard to follow; however, the human side of chemical history is still worth a read.