A Fondness for Distaste
September 13, 2009

On Saturday afternoon I was sitting at my desk working on this issue of BiblioBuffet when I heard the postal truck coming. Normally the driver doesn’t stop because I get most of my mail at a post office box. This time she did. Not only that, but she actually got out of her truck. I heard her slide a box, which proved to be from Powell’s Books, onto the porch.

The cloudy day suddenly brightened. Like most booklovers I thrill to the sight of a new box of books. And this one was particularly good. Three books of adventure—The Lost City of Z,: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon, Extremes: Surviving the World’s Harshest Environments, and The Fruit Hunters: A Story of Nature, Adventure, Commerce and Obsession—had entered my life. I ran my fingers over each cover, admiring the different but exciting covers that promised some of my favorite things in a book: passion, crazy dangers, hardship, dangerous and unpleasant bugs, overwhelming flora and oversized, ill-tempered fauna, unsanitary living conditions, extreme heat and sticky humidity or frozen and lifeless land, wayward journeys, even insanity.   

Sometimes I’ve asked myself why I am so fond of books that depict journeys I would bypass, places I have little interest in visiting or, especially, experiences I never want to have. The idea of encountering or even having to worry about the candiru or mamba or getting trapped and drowned more than two hundred feet beneath a cold Atlantic ocean is enough to cause, as the Victorians would say, vapors. But, oh how I love reading about them happening to others.

In Nick Middleton’s Extremes, he visits the coldest, wettest, hottest, and driest places on earth, habitats he noted in his Introduction, that he, “as an inhabitant of the comfortable mid-latitudes, would find particularly unpleasant.” In Papua, New Guinea, he questioned his guide-companion about mosquitoes in the swampland. How bad could he expect them to be?

‘Pretty bad,’ he replied. ‘They can cover your arms completely, so you can’t see any of your skin and they have to queue up to take a bite out of you. You get so covered, you know, that if they had bigger wings it’s almost as if they could lift you off the ground and carry you away.’ He turned as we reached the end of a row of vegetable stalls and gave me an impish grin. ‘Eating can be difficult too because they tend to fly into your mouth.’

It’s a pretty apt description because a bit further into the story, as their dugout canoe motor sputters out the mosquitoes, apparently immune to the 100 percent DEET Middleton is using, take aim. Even starting up the inlet again didn’t dislodge them.

For the next ten minutes, I conducted a thorough search-and-destroy mission on any remaining mosquitoes that had hitched a lift with us. They were lined up on the inside of the canoe’s hull like aeroplanes on an aircraft carrier, and perched in large numbers on every object below the level of the vessel’s sides, protected there from the wind we generated as we gained speed.

Once the boarders had been dispatched, I took stock of my person. The creases in my trouser legs held piles of small, waif-like deceased corpses, and more tiny dead bodies littered my shirt. But these deceased specimens were definitely in the minority. Most of the mosquitoes had been fed and left. I felt ravaged. The backs of my hands and my fingers were so covered in bites that when I clenched my fists it felt as if I was wearing gloves that were too small for me. I ran one hand over my neck an discovered that its topography had also been completely altered. It was jus a jumble of lumps and bumps. It felt as if a few hundred grains of rice had been implanted beneath my skin. My face had been reshaped too. It must have been about three times its normal size.

Who can read that without cringing? I can’t. But I find it enthralling even as I reach for the bottle of hand lotion I always keep nearby for passages like this to soothe the sympathetic itching that invariably arises. So why do I read it? Because it’s not me having my face reshaped! 

One of my favorite adventure books is Candace Millard’s The River of Doubt, yet another Amazon adventure, this one experienced by Theodore Roosevelt. I’ve read it at least a half-dozen times, probably because it is full of extreme distress that isn’t mine. It seems particularly well suited to bedtime reading when I am freshly showered and comfortably ensconced between clean sheets. That always makes the “ick” factor extra good.

As they were quickly learning, the greatest challenge they faced from the rain forest came not form any creature or adversary that they could confront and defeat, but from the jungle as a whole—in the ruthless efficiency with which it apportioned food and nutrients, in the bewildering complexity of its defense mechanisms, in the constant demands that it placed upon every one of its inhabitants, and in the ruthlessness with which it dealt with the weak, the hungry, or the infirm.

To witness the devastating impact of this kind of danger, the men needed to look no further than the insects that filled the air around their faces, and swarmed over every tree, vine, and leaf they touched. . . . The Brazilian colonel, Roosevelt wrote, regarded the threat that even jaguars posed as “utterly trivial compared to the real dangers of the wilderness—the torment and menace of attacks by the swarming insects, by mosquitoes and the even more intolerable tiny gnats, by the ticks, and by the vicious poisonous ants which occasionally caused villages and even whole districts to be deserted by human beings.

In The Lost City of Z, David Grann describes what veteran explorer Percy Fawcett, the object of his search who disappeared in the Amazon in 1925, experienced, among them piranhas, and puraques or electric eels capable of sending 650 volts of electricity through their victims but not just once. As Fawcett wrote, “the way of the puraque is to repeat the shocks to make sure of its victim.” I feel myself wince. Then I snuggle in for more.

Of course there were also anacondas, wild pigs, toxic frogs, coral snakes, and as always the ceaseless pests: ticks, sauba ants, chiggers, cyanide-squirting millipedes, parasitic worms, berne flies, piums, kissing bugs and disease-carrying mosquitoes that were a normal part of Amazonian exploration. Each one of them makes me shudder, even itch in horror. What is so gripping to me is that horror. I want to know what it is like. I want to feel it, at least via the words read and in my imagination if nowhere else. And in reading these books I do.

Shadow Divers was yet another book that had a powerful impression. You may remember it as the story of two divers who found and eventually identified a World War II German submarine. Part of its power came from the haunting descriptions of the deaths of some of the divers—the one who at the sandy bottom of the ocean simply “walked” or drifted away from the wreck the only object within miles, the ones who became entangled in safety lines turned death traps when they twisted around broken metal parts. I was a longtime scuba diver, albeit a recreational one, but the description of the empty ocean bottom and of a diver walking only yards away from a 250-foot submarine and seeing only blackness, of having no sense of direction—left right, forward, backward, up, down—and of imagining the panic that running out of air with nothing but ocean all around could induce . . . well, let’s just say it was all too real for me to have any desire to join them. Read about it, yes, because it is exciting. But to actually feel it? No. The words infused my imagination and that “adventure” felt as real to me as I needed to satisfy my thirst for it.  

But not every adventure has to include deaths to attract me. It’s the danger and the hazards that I find appealing. In the superb Men of Salt, I hung on the harshly vivid description of a way of life, a history and a culture that may die out if the modern world has its way. Or it may not. There may be some areas of the world where the old ways work—and new ones won’t because some places like the middle of the Sahara will not be conquered however much will is used. Camels will always work the Caravan of White Gold because they are suited to the sandy travails of the immense desert. It’s hard to imagine an automotive engine that could stand up to the moving sand that is the Sahara however much people may wish it so. 

In Beyond the Deep and Fatal Depth, books about diving in caves and on the wreck of the Andrea Doria, both places where the attraction and challenge come with warning signs, I find myself extrapolating my own small experiences into these larger ones. I did a bit of spelunking so I have at least a passing familiarity with the sense of being deep inside the earth. (Coming from earthquake country I can tell you it’s an eerie feeling to have nothing but walls of rock over, under and on all sides of you because I know how rock can move when it wants to.) Plus my diving experience was limited to no more than 100 feet, all of it in open ocean. Both experiences were sufficient to add a sense of uncomfortable reality to the words on the page. 

I could go on, but why. Not everyone finds descriptions of mosquito buffets, twelve-foot snakes, weeks-old underwear, sweaty armpits, emergency jungle surgery, death by poisoned arrows, and so on to be appealing. The question here is why do I find it appealing?

The answer is: I don’t know. I’ll tell you what I do know, and that is I like to read about these things not just for the attractive “ick” factor but for the opportunity to live things I either won’t live or no longer have the chance to live in person. Having personally known half the experience provides me with sufficient memories that in combination with reading about the other, more dangerous parts, some with disastrous consequences, brings these things alive for me. It’s not to say I cannot enjoy books that take me where I have never been before. I’ve never been up Mt. Everest. I’ve never been to the Amazon. And I am just old enough to know that I will likely never travel to either place. But what I can do is go there at any time through the wonder of these books and others like them. It doesn’t matter to me that most of my future adventures will come out of books I read while I enjoy the comfort of my sofa, my refrigerator, and an American bathroom with hot and cold running water. I’ve already got the passion for the adventure. I can satisfy the urge for, to borrow a phrase from Hunter S. Thompson, the bad craziness of it without sacrificing the comfort to which I have become accustomed. Perhaps I’ve reached an age where having both seems equally good. I don’t need to prove anything to myself or anyone else. But I’m happy that others pass along their seat-of-the-pants experiences for me to read while I sit at home with an iced tea at my feet, knowing the mosquitoes are  bothering somebody else.

Upcoming Book Festivals:
Coming up this week and next weekend are four festivals, two on the west coast, one in the country’s center, and one in the northeast. Those of you are who are fortunate enough to be near them—enjoy.

Saturday, September 19 is when Santa Rosa, California, will host the Sonoma County Book Festival. Nearly four dozen authors including children’s book authors and playwrights, ninety exhibitors and other participants will offer a full day of panels, presentations, signings, stage performances, art, music, along with special entertainment for teens and children at the Children’s Tent. 

Also on Saturday, September 19 is the Wyoming Book Festival to be held in Cheyenne at Lions Park. Even though, they say, they have had to scale down the festival a bit you will still find eight Wyoming authors coming to share their experiences and their books. 

Interested in used books, rare books, and old paper? Then come to the Sacramento Antiquarian Book Fair on Sunday, September 20 in Sacramento, California. It will take place at the Scottish Rite Temple; admission is five dollars. For that you will get to meet, talk with and buy from sixty dealers who will be offering books, pamphlets, paper, ephemera, autographs, photographs and more.

And also on Sunday, September 20, but on the opposite coast is the Maine Book & Paper Show in S. Portland, Maine. Same thing: collectible, rare and used books, ephemera and other old paper, photographs, etc.

The Pub House:
You probably think of it more in terms of a yellow-covered magazine, but National Geographic also publishes a wide array of wonderful books in Adventure & Exploration, Animals & Nature, Culture, Geography & Reference, History, Photography, and Science & Space. Under Adventure & Exploration, for instance, you’ll find Exploration Experience , a book expanded into what they term “a fun and dynamic format.” This means you get a book thirty reproduced and removable documents such as maps, watercolors and a dinner menu from different expeditions. There is also a CD-ROM.  Don’t forget to check out their other categories for books as well as other things for sale. (Upcoming holiday hint: children will likely be attracted to their remote-controlled tarantulas or radio-controlled seaplane)

Of Interest:
Fondness for old typewriters has led to the creation of numerous typewriter collections, exhibitions, websites, blogs, forums, organizations, and even gifts. Two that particularly attracted my attention come from MyTypewriter.com, The first is a set of die-cut notecards in the shape of an Underwood No. 5 typewriter. Initially produced in 1901, this Underwood was the first typewriter with a “front strike” mechanism that allowed the typist to see what was being typed. The die-cut image is perfect so the typewriter itself is the notecard with no white space around it. Six cards and envelopes are included in the box.  

Also on my favorites list is their sterling silver 7-link typewriter key bracelet. The links are from old typewriters (rather than being modern beads), and they are gorgeous! You can select from two sizes, and if you want to designate specific keys they will do that for an extra charge. A second design with eleven keys, the Authentic Vintage Typewriter Key Bracelet, is also available and this can be customized as well.

This Week . . .
I want to share with you how the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin digitalized its copy of the Gutenberg Bible, one of only five complete examples in the United States. All of us know about the Gutenberg Bible, but how many of us have actually seen one. Given that so few exist and are so precious, not many.

The Center’s copy was one of the first printed in 1454 or 1455. Gutenberg began working on it about 1450 by inventing the printing press. The press itself was made of wood, the paper was Italian, but no one knows what the type material was. What is certain is that nearly 300 different pieces of type were used in the Bible. The number of copies printed is uncertain, but educated guesses have put the number at around 180, of which 145 were on paper and the rest on vellum. The cost at the time is unknown to us, but it is likely they were very expensive. And they have not become less so today. Most of us will never see one, but here is your opportunity to enjoy a superb exhibition of one of the best copies around.  

Until next week, read well, read often and read on!

Lauren