Edward Marriott

Nicaragua does not appear to have entered the late twentieth century intact, especially the Atlantic coast or the interior.
I am pretty sure if I was to ever go there the only water I would enter would be a swimming pool or shower. Between the sharks in the ocean, rivers, and lakes, the piranhas, and the alligators it sounds a little to much wild kingdom for me. The author had some major guts to travel the way he does in a country as dysfunctional as Nicaragua. This was a very entertaining book.… (altro)

I ran across this book while browsing through a Barnes and Noble where Sheila was signing her latest book. I ordered it when we returned along with several others by Marriott, an excellent sociologist/anthropologist.
The bull shark, notorious for its aggressive behavior and a fearsome appetite, is unique in that it inhabits both fresh and salt water. They can maneuver and attack in as little as three feet of water, so it’s been difficult to sell the area as a tourist attraction since swimming is a hazardous pastime. It’s also a source of revenue for the local fishermen who eke out a meager living by selling the fins and other body parts of the fish.
Marriott chronicles his journey through the area around Bluefields and San Juan del Norte -- replacement for the infamous Greytown that had sparked high hopes of being the location for the beginning of the canal that eventually went to Panama and was shelled by one of our earlier jingoistic presidents.
Nicaragua is not a nice place. Trammeled and bedeviled by war and nature – it was devastated by an earthquake in 1972 and again by the hurricane of more recent vintage – the people, once proud descendants of Mestizo Indians, black Caribs, and Spanish pirates, are poverty-stricken gaining what little cash they can through fishing and selling drugs that wash up on the beaches.
The shark travels up the San Juan River into Lake Nicaragua and back, but it is seriously becoming depleted. The shark processing plant established by former dictator Anastasio Samoza was too efficient.
The hardship Marriott voluntarily endured is most startling. In his anxiety to see the former Greytown, he manages to persuade a couple of boys – no one else will go – to canoe him through fearsome swamp and tangled brush, not to mention hoards of mosquitoes, to see the overgrown remains of cemeteries. It’s questionable which is worse: the shark attacks or the devastating poverty nature and revolution have wrecked on the country.… (altro)

Plague. There is a lot of books on the stuff. In fact, trying to link to this book on the forums using touchstones is quite difficult, considering the countless other books with the same name. Many of the books use plague as a blanket term to describe a disease in general, however. This, of course, is a testament to how deeply-rooted our fear of plague has become, that its name can be used to describe any disease that causes widespread destruction. It has wreaked a lot of havoc in the past, and the mere mention of its name has come to signify terror.

Edward Marriott's Plague focuses on two outbreaks a century apart, 1894 Hong Kong and 1994 Surat. I found this going back and forth a bit confusing as I sometimes didn't realize which time period I was reading from, but then I realized how scary that was, that I couldn't tell the difference between a plague outbreak in the 1800's and one from less than 20 years ago.

The book also focuses on the rivalry between Alexandre Yersin and Shibasaburo Kitasato. Both were in Hong Kong in 1894 trying to solve the same riddle of plague, but both had entirely different experiences. Kitasato was the local hero, who had anything he wanted and the support of the public. Yersin on the other hand, was rejected, restricted, and forced to work in a straw hut in horrible conditions. Not that it mattered, there is a reason plague is known as Yersinia Pestis today.

Plague is a perfectly decent book. It's a little all over the place and I sometimes felt the author couldn't decide where he wanted to go with his book, and in the end I felt like there was a little something missing. It left me with that vague, slightly-unsatisfied feeling. I can't find a whole lot to complain about but I find a good reason to praise it either. It's just okay.… (altro)