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hardcover $25.95
Harpercollins Publishers
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ALSO SEE
the Economist
The Observer
The IHT
More reviews by Paul McGuire
Readers may purchase reviewed books from Paddyfield.com, Asia's online bookseller.North American readers may prefer to buy US editions from Powells.com.
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Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883 by Simon Winchester
The story of the eruption of Krakatoa on 27th August 1882 is much more than a tale of physical devastation. It was by no means the largest or most destructive in recorded history. But the shock waves not only killed thousands and destroyed large tracts of real estate but also presaged a number of political, social, religious and geological developments with chillingly contemporary resonance.
SIMON WINCHESTER combines his skills as a talented writer, journalistic observer, historian and geologist to tell the volcano's explosive story and tease out its worldwide significance. The timing, for example, made it the first news story that impacted quickly around the globe using the new telegraph system. While calling it the birth of the global village may be a little strong, Winchester's case for having human attention focused on one event is compelling.
Krakatoa's geographical location also made it the ideal stimulus for research that eventually led to the understanding of plate tectonics which determine how the fragile crust on which we all live shapes and literally moves mountains and drifts continents. Winchester delights in recounting his own small part in that story as a member of an expedition as a student.
And it is this personal touch and an intense interest in people that marks out the book as a classic of its type. It is the characters and their professional and social interactions that find themselves connected, however tenuously, to the volcano and how they play their various parts that bring the whole story to life. And in doing so, Winchester successfully makes the crater a living thing fully playing the major role: majestic in its existence, awesome in its own self-destruction.
In many ways the eruption was a significant factor in the deterioration of the Dutch trading empire in the East Indies. The book leads readers through the battle for supremacy in the region and the uneasy relationship of the colonisers with the local inhabitants. The tensions surrounding the aftermath of the pumice clouds and giant terrifying tsunamis were fuelled, perhaps strategically and deliberately by Islamic leaders abroad converting what was a relatively benign form of Islam into the fundamentalist movement said to be responsible for the Bali bombings.
Whether Winchester is talking about the spice trade, the science of seismic forces or the changing geography of a dangerously unstable region, he combines an analytical genius with a descriptive talent that flows just as effectively as lava and with almost as much power. There is drama on every page and endlessly fascinating speculation on causes and effects. The human tragedy of the eruption is effortlessly combined with its scientific significance and social, political and historical perspectives.
What is particularly impressive is the thoughtful description how life emerges from death: renewal from destruction. Krakatoa has re-emerged in a new and equally potentially dangerous form and the debate about whether life regenerated or simply repopulated from elsewhere on the remains of the original site is still a hot topic today.
Winchester writes with a poetic authority and strikes just the right balance between certitude and circumspection. His cameos on subjects such as how the volcano's name has evolved and how the explosions (there were four of them) have been depicted in books and films are almost worth a book in themselves. He applies his wry wit appropriately throughout the piece.
Spiced, as it is, with pinches of irony and black humour, the result is a powerful and fiery cocktail that serves to inform, entertain and stimulate in turns. This book not only cements Krakatoa in history it places it in a wider context that illuminates its history, its story and the light that continues to shine clear through to the present.
Paul McGuire
16/07/2003
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Paul McGuire is a freelance author, writer and reviewer. He is also Deputy Principal of Sha Tin Junior School. |
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