From Chapter One

Christopher was settling down to some Japanese television when the knock on the door came. It was the imperial security forces and they wanted him downstairs. He dressed and came down to the cocktail party with gray-suited men on either side of him. I spied him in the doorway looking interested but also like a high school student who had been dragged away from the television. He was promptly sent through the receiving line, and the emperor's face lit up when Chris introduced himself in Japanese. It was a memorable night.

    I was confident I was going to receive the Nobel Prize in 1992. The host of a German TV show had called and explained that each year he did a documentary about the winner of the Nobel Prize in chemistry, and he was preparing the 1992 show. In the past, he had successfully picked every winner of the prize for chemistry. He claimed he was a very good guesser, but I figured this bastard must get inside information, he must be getting the word from somebody on the committee. That means I'm going to win it this year. His TV crew spent a week filming me in La Jolla and Mendocino. I was very excited. And I was actively humble.

    As it turned out, I had good reason to be humble. I didn't win. I stopped speculating about when I might get it and I tried not to pay attention. About six months before the 1993 awards were to be announced, my mentor from Berkeley, Joe Neilands, from whom I had learned a little bit about chemistry and a whole lot about life, told me, "I wouldn't be surprised if you got the Nobel Prize this year. But you'd make it easier for the committee to give it to you if you did