Solid research underlies a tragic story with explosive implications. (8 pages b&w photographs, not seen)
A Portland Oregonian science reporter investigates two recent volcanic eruptions in Colombia and skewers a scientist/survivor of the latter tragedy for misrepresenting his role and taking credit for the discoveries of others.
Bruce begins on the summit of Mt. Galeras, whose 1993 eruption killed nine people who were exploring the crater at the time: three sightseers and six scientists. But, she declares, it is not possible to understand that tragedy without knowing something of the prior, and far more destructive one that took place in 1985, when Nevado del Ruiz exploded and sent a surging river of mud 60 to 100 feet high through the towns of Chinchiná and Armero, killing more than 23,000 people. Bruce tells the story of that disaster in great and grim detail, with an interruption for some geological history of Colombia, then returns to Galeras and describes some of its prior eruptions. She also introduces seismologist Bernard Chouet, one of the heroes of this tale, whose pathfinding discoveries of “long-period events” have proved the most accurate predictors of eruptions. And we meet the principal villain, Stanley Williams, a vainglorious chemist specializing in volcanic emissions. Bruce cites other volcanologists who disdain Williams’s belief that the chemical composition of volcanic gases has predictive value, then chronicles the January 1993 scientific conference near Galeras and the fateful expedition into the crater led by Williams, whom the author blames for insufficient safety precautions and for unsavory self-aggrandizement after the incident. (Williams repeatedly told representatives of the news media—whom he contacted aggressively—that he had been the only survivor. For his own version of the story, see p. 248.) Bruce portrays Williams as unrepentant and academically dishonest—serious charges, well documented. By contrast, two heroic scientists, Patty Mothes and Marta Calvache, risked their lives, descending into the smoking crater to look for survivors. The author includes much sanguinary detail of wounds and carnage (visible brain matter and cooked flesh) and sometimes permits a hackneyed phrase to impede her otherwise swift narrative (e.g., “Seconds seemed like hours”).
Solid research underlies a tragic story with explosive implications. (8 pages b&w photographs, not seen)Pub Date: April 2, 2001
ISBN: 0-06-019920-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2001
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Unsentimental nature writing that sheds as much light on humans as on eels.
An account of the mysterious life of eels that also serves as a meditation on consciousness, faith, time, light and darkness, and life and death.
In addition to an intriguing natural history, Swedish journalist Svensson includes a highly personal account of his relationship with his father. The author alternates eel-focused chapters with those about his father, a man obsessed with fishing for this elusive creature. “I can’t recall us ever talking about anything other than eels and how to best catch them, down there by the stream,” he writes. “I can’t remember us speaking at all….Because we were in…a place whose nature was best enjoyed in silence.” Throughout, Svensson, whose beat is not biology but art and culture, fills his account with people: Aristotle, who thought eels emerged live from mud, “like a slithering, enigmatic miracle”; Freud, who as a teenage biologist spent months in Trieste, Italy, peering through a microscope searching vainly for eel testes; Johannes Schmidt, who for two decades tracked thousands of eels, looking for their breeding grounds. After recounting the details of the eel life cycle, the author turns to the eel in literature—e.g., in the Bible, Rachel Carson’s Under the Sea Wind, and Günter Grass’ The Tin Drum—and history. He notes that the Puritans would likely not have survived without eels, and he explores Sweden’s “eel coast” (what it once was and how it has changed), how eel fishing became embroiled in the Northern Irish conflict, and the importance of eel fishing to the Basque separatist movement. The apparent return to life of a dead eel leads Svensson to a consideration of faith and the inherent message of miracles. He warns that if we are to save this fascinating creature from extinction, we must continue to study it. His book is a highly readable place to begin learning.
Unsentimental nature writing that sheds as much light on humans as on eels.Pub Date: May 5, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-296881-4
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Ecco/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 29, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
Drawings, words, and a few photos combine to convey the depth of a tragedy that would leave most people dumbstruck.
A new life and book arise from the ashes of a devastating California wildfire.
These days, it seems the fires will never end. They wreaked destruction over central California in the latter months of 2018, dominating headlines for weeks, barely a year after Fies (Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow?, 2009) lost nearly everything to the fires that raged through Northern California. The result is a vividly journalistic graphic narrative of resilience in the face of tragedy, an account of recent history that seems timely as ever. “A two-story house full of our lives was a two-foot heap of dead smoking ash,” writes the author about his first return to survey the damage. The matter-of-fact tone of the reportage makes some of the flights of creative imagination seem more extraordinary—particularly a nihilistic, two-page centerpiece of a psychological solar system in which “the fire is our black hole,” and “some veer too near and are drawn into despair, depression, divorce, even suicide,” while “others are gravitationally flung entirely out of our solar system to other cities or states, and never seen again.” Yet the stories that dominate the narrative are those of the survivors, who were part of the community and would be part of whatever community would be built to take its place across the charred landscape. Interspersed with the author’s own account are those from others, many retirees, some suffering from physical or mental afflictions. Each is rendered in a couple pages of text except one from a fellow cartoonist, who draws his own. The project began with an online comic when Fies did the only thing he could as his life was reduced to ash and rubble. More than 3 million readers saw it; this expanded version will hopefully extend its reach.
Drawings, words, and a few photos combine to convey the depth of a tragedy that would leave most people dumbstruck.Pub Date: March 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3585-1
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Abrams ComicArts
Review Posted Online: Nov. 25, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2018
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