Richard Preston “The Demon in the Freezer”

A book about the dangers of biological warfare. Using the example of smallpox, one of the most terrifiying viruses on earth, Preston describes the threat posed by modern bioterrorism. Not a very uplifting book, I can tell you.

I quite liked it anyway, because, as I have stated oftentimes before, I have a thing for apocalyptical tales about the demise of humankind. That this one is supposedly a true story doesn’t make it any less entertaining for me.

Smallpox were officially eradicated from nature in 1978 through a worldwide vaccination effort. But some small stores of the virus remained in several labs, ostensibly for research purposes (Yeah, right. Reading that, one has to ask oneself, what’s to study when there are no naturally occuring cases anymore?). After the end of the cold war scientists feared that the virus would fall into the wrong hands and terrorists would, with the help of genetic engineering, construct a powerful bioweapon from it. One against which no existing vaccine would work.

According to Preston, this is exactly what has happened and the question is not so much if anybody will ever use it, but rather when that will happen.

The terrifying thing about smallpox - apart from the way the disease kills, which is explained in the book in gruesome detail - is that human beings are the only host for this particular virus. This fact, which was the one that made the eradication of the naturally occuring virus possible in the first place, is at the same time the biggest obstacle to developing effective vaccines against it. Because animal tests don’t work here, and you can’t obviously just infect humans with the virus and then try out new vaccines on them. I must admit, though, I do have a problem of seeing the point of developing a vaccine if they don’t even know the particular strain of virus yet. But once more, this conundrum appeals to my sense of irony.

Preston paints a very grim picture of our future, but I don’t doubt that it is true.

Somebody somewhere has got stores of genetically engineered viruses (the book mentions twenty tons of “hot,” genetically altered smallpox that went missing from russian labs and are suspected to have ended up somewhere in the Middle East - no big surprise there).

And somebody will someday deploy it for a terrorist attack - given the human predilection for unbelievable stupidity on a large scale, it’s just inevitable. And I guess we all know which country will probably be the first target of such an attack. Not that that is much of a consolation for the rest of us on the other side of the world, because a virus like that will spread like wildfire through today’s ultramobile society.

So, our future seems to look pretty bleak. If it’s not smallpox, then it’ll probably be some other virus that gets us. It’s all just a matter of time.

But, of course, as an average person there is not much you can do about all that - so why worry about it? I suppose, the one thing you can learn from this book is to live your life as if every day might be your last. Because, frankly, this is exactly the case.

So, can I recommend this book as a good read? It certainly was interesting and entertaining for me. If you, on the other hand, do scare easily or have a predilection for paranoia, you better go and read something less depressing.

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Recently, my friend Nicholas over at A Gentleman’s Domain posted this strangely fascinating meme, and even though I still don’t get what the levels are supposed to signify, I decided to have a go at it myself.

Level 1
(x) Smoked a cigarette.
( ) Smoked a cigar.
(x) Kissed a member of the same sex.
(x) Drank alcohol.

Level 2
(x) Are/been in love.
(x) Been dumped.
(x) Shoplifted.
( ) Been fired.
(x) Been in a fist fight.

Level 3
(x) Had a crush on an older person.
(x) Skipped school. (Still do all the time.)
( ) Slept with a classmate.
(x) Seen someone/something die. (And helped it along. Does that count?)

Level 4
( ) Had/have a crush on one of your friends who is now on Facebook.
(x) Been to Paris.
(x) Been to Spain.
(x) Been on a plane.
(x) Thrown up from drinking. (Only once and I will never in my life get that drunk again.)

Level 5
( ) Eaten sushi.
( ) Been snowboarding.
( ) Met someone BECAUSE of Facebook.
(?) Been in a mosh pit. (I don’t even know what that is, so maybe that’s a yes?)

Level 6
( ) Been in an abusive relationship.
(x) Taken pain killers.
(x) Love/loved someone who you can’t have. (All the fucking time.)
( ) Laid on your back and watched cloud shapes go by.
(x) Made a snow angel. (I must have, because all kids used to do that, back in the days when they still used to play outside, right?)

Level 7
( ) Had a tea party.
(x) Flown a kite.
(x) Built a sand castle.
(x) Gone mudding (offroading).
( ) Played dress up.

Level 8
(x) Jumped into a pile of leaves.
(x) Gone sledging.
(x) Cheated while playing a game. (Another one I do all the time.)
(x) Been lonely.
(x) Fallen asleep at work/school.

Level 9
(x) Watched the sun set.
( ) Felt an earthquake.
( ) Killed a snake.

Level 10
(x) Been tickled.
( ) Been robbed/vandalized.
(x) Been cheated on.
(x) Been misunderstood.

Level 11
( ) Won a contest.
( ) Been suspended from school. (I wish!)
( ) Had detention.
(x) Been in a car/motorcycle accident.

Level 12
( ) Had/have braces.
(x) Eaten a whole pint of ice cream in one night. (Is that supposed to be something extraordinary?)
( ) Danced in the moonlight.

Level 13
(x) Hated the way you look.
(x) Witnessed a crime. (Do the ones I committed count?)
( ) Pole danced. (Now here’s an idea…)
( ) Questioned your heart.
( ) Been obsessed with post-it-notes.

Level 14
(x) Squished barefoot through the mud.
(x) Been lost.
(x) Been to the opposite side of the world.
(x) Swam in the ocean.
( ) Felt like you were dying. (Every time I sit in class and am bored to death, but I guess that doesn’t count.)

Level 15
(x) Cried yourself to sleep.
(x) Played cops and robbers.
(x) Recently colored with crayons/colored pencils/markers.
( ) Sang karaoke.
(x) Paid for a meal with only coins.

Level 16
(x) Done something you told yourself you wouldn’t.
(x) Made prank phone calls.
( ) Laughed until some kind of beverage came out of your nose.
( ) Kissed in the rain.

Level 17
( ) Written a letter to Santa Claus.
(x) Watched the sun set/sun rise with someone you care/cared about.
(x) Blown bubbles.
(x) Made a bonfire on the beach or anywhere.

Level 18
( ) Crashed A Party.
(x) Have travelled more than 5 days with a car full of people. (Boy, was that a crappy idea!)
(x) Gone rollerskating/blading.
(x) Had a wish come true.
(x) Slept with a member of the same sex.

Level 19
( ) Worn pearls.
(x) Jumped off a bridge.
( ) Screamed “penis” or “vagina”.
( ) Swam with dolphins.

Level 20
( ) Got your tongue stuck to a pole/freezer/ice cube.
( ) Kissed a fish.
(x) Worn the opposite sex’s clothes. (Practically all my life.)
(x) Sat on a roof top.

Level 21
(x) Screamed at the top of your lungs.
( ) Done/attempted a one-handed cartwheel. (I can’t even do two-handed ones.)
( ) Talked on the phone for more than six hours (in one day).
(x) Recently stayed up for a while talking to someone you care about.

Level 22
(x) Picked and ate an apple right off the tree.
(x) Climbed a tree.
(x) Had/been in a tree house.
(x) Been scared to watch scary movies alone.

Level 23
(x) Believed in ghosts.
( ) Have had more than thirty pairs of shoes (not necessarily all at once).
( ) Gone streaking.
( ) Visited jail.

Level 24
( ) Played chicken.
( ) Been pushed into a pool with all your clothes on.
( ) Been told you’re hot by a complete stranger.
( ) Broken a bone.
(x) Been easily amused.

Level 25
(x) Caught a fish then ate it later.
( ) Made a porn video.
( ) Caught a butterfly. (I’m terrified of butterflies, I wouldn’t think of catching one. Ever. *shudder*)
(x) Laughed so hard you cried.
( ) Cried so hard you laughed.

Level 26
( ) Mooned/flashed someone.
( ) Had someone moon/flash you.
(x) Cheated on a test.
(x) Forgotten someone’s name.
(x) French braided someone’s hair. (My own.)
(x) Gone skinny dipping.
( ) Been kicked out of your house.
(x) Tried to hurt yourself.

Level 27
( ) Rode a roller coaster. (That’s one of those things you couldn’t pay me enough to try.)
( ) Went scuba-diving/snorkelling.
(x) Had a cavity.
( ) Black-mailed someone.
( ) Been black mailed.

Level 28
(x) Been used.
( ) Fell going up the stairs.
( ) Licked a cat.
(x) Bitten someone.
(x) Licked someone - not in private places…

Level 29
( ) Been shot at/or at gunpoint.
( ) Had sex in the rain.
(x) Flattened someone’s tires.
(x) Rode your car/truck until the gas light came on.
(x) Got five dollars or less worth of gas.

Hm, now that I have read it again, I am still puzzled by some of the questions. But whatever. I don’t have to understand everything. I’m not going to tag anyone, but if you like to play along, feel free to do so.

Oh, and if you know anybody who can honestly say of himself that he ever licked a cat or kissed a fish: let me know, because people like that sound like fun.

This guy received a Nobel Prize for his writing. So I guess I should be impressed by this book.

Sadly, I wasn’t. When I first heard of it, I quite liked the premise of the story: people are going blind for no discernible reason and slowly the so-called civilized society is breaking down as everybody tries to survive as best he can.

So far, so good. Of course, the idea of a total breakdown of society after a disastrous event isn’t really new at all. But since I am very fond of dystopian fiction I fully expected to love this book. Unfortunately, even though the initial situation with people going blind from one second to the next surely was scary and disturbing (even more so for me, since I am suffering from Glaucoma and am facing a very real possibility of going blind eventually), it all went downhill from there.

The story itself is easily told: since the blindness seems to be contagious, the first blind people are rounded up and quarantined all by themselves in a former mental asylum. They have to fend for themselves, which being newly blind, isn’t really possible, so they’re rapidly descending into a very sorry state of chaos. The only thing holding them together is the one person in there still able to see (the wife of one of the internees, who didn’t want to leave her husband). Subtly, she helps maintaining order, while trying to keep her secret. When ever more internees arrive, the situation gets worse and worse. Outside, order is crumbling as well as more and more people turn blind. Eventually, there is a fire in the asylum and most of the internees break out, only to find out that meanwhile everybody else has turned blind, too. The only seeing woman leads her group to their respective houses, to see if they can find relatives. In the end they end up in her own apartment, where they are trying to figure out how to go on living in a world full of blind people, when suddenly, one by one their sight returns.

So much for the story. Does it sound a bit less than overwhelming? Well, that’s because it was. Wyndham certainly did make a much better job of the same situation with his “The Day of the Triffids”back in the fifties.

But that’s not my main gripe with this book. I don’t even know where to start, because there’s so much that is wrong with this book.

One thing that really annoyed me from page one was the book’s style. There are virtually no paragraphs, dialogue is not marked as such - you have to infer it from the context. Sentences run on endlessly, sometimes changing topic halfway through. Punctuation is erratic, to put it mildly. There are virtually no chapter breaks, the story just runs on and on and on, being one big messy blob. Morevoer, none of the characters are named, which makes it necessary to cumbersomly call them “the girl with the dark glasses” or “the boy with a squint”, and - my favorite! - “the dog of tears”. Jeez. Overall, it just isn’t really readable. The whole thing feels like a hastily scribbled first draft. If that guy wasn’t an overhyped Nobel Prize winner, he never would have gotten away with that stuff.

Also, I feel to publish such a book is a slap in the face of every other writer, who makes the effort to write in a way that is enjoyable to read - no matter the subject. A really good writer can actually tell a harrowing story in a way that is touching and graphic and relentless in its intensity without sacrificing readability. To stoop to a cheap literary device like this stream-of-consciousness style of writing just tells me that Saramago is not one of those good writers.

His characters are cardboard cutouts. None of them felt in any way real, no matter how much we heard about their backstory. They all did unreasonable, unbelievable, completely stupid things all the time that left me shaking my head in disbelief. The good guys were too good to be believable, the bad guys were too steroetypically bad. The descriptions of the filth and degradation in the asylum went on for ages and seemed totally contrived as well. I just didn’t buy any of it. I didn’t feel like I was there, because I didn’t believe the way he told it was the way it would have happened. He didn’t convince me of any of it. And that alone is the worst failure an author can suffer.

The other thing that drove me up the wall was his predilection for straying off topic. He could just never stick to the plot. Instead he went off on a tangent, moralizing, or going on endlessly about one person’s faults and mistakes, or just generally blathering on uselessly for a page or two, before returning to the point. That totally got on my nerves. Not only did it interrupt the flow of the story, I also don’t appreciate authors trying to hit me over the head with their views on morality or the human condition, or anything else for that matter.

If you have something to say about humankind as a whole, weave it into your story and trust me to get your point. Don’t bore me to death by inserting your personal views on matters into a fictional story. When I read a novel I am interested in the story. If you want to share your personal opinions with the masses, write a damn essay.

I mean, I get it: the story was meant metaphorically. In a way we are all blind, because we choose just not to see certain things, and if we could just open our eyes to the truth …. bla, bla bla. I’m still not impressed. Tolkien once said that he disliked metaphor and allegory in all its forms. Once again, I can only agree with him.

So, what exactly did Saramago get the Nobel Prize for? I sure hope it was not for this book.

Well, apparently not all that much. At least judging by the contents of this site, containing the 100 Greatest Quotes from fundamentalist christian chat rooms.

These are actual quotes of actual religious nutcases. If it wasn’t so damn funny, it would be tragic that people can actually be THAT stupid. I had tears streaming down my face from laughing so hard.
Funnily, just earlier today I read a blog post of a religious woman, who was asking why atheists don’t take people seriously who believe in Intelligent Design. I was tempted to write a comment with a lenghty explanation (along the lines of “because ID has got nothing to do with science and is just as much a fairytale as the rest of religion”), but in the end I decided it just wasn’t worth it. Now, if I could just find that blog again, I would post this link as my explanation. It says it all, really. How can you take anybody seriously who sprouts nonsense such as this:

There are a lot of things I have concluded to be wrong, without studying them in-depth. Evolution is one of them. The fact that I don’t know that much about it does not bother me in the least.

Although I have to say morons like this one make me a tiny bit angry:

[Talking about an eleven year old girl who was raped and then buried alive]
god was sacrificing this child as a way to show others the light. much as he did his own child. what a beautiful gift he has given us.

I’m really trying to be tolerant towards religious people, I try to respect the fact that they believe in fairytales with no basis in reality whatsoever. Everybody is entitled to their own private beliefes, right? But reading such utter foolishness doesn’t exactly make it any easier.

Here is another example that just leaves me shaking my head in disbelief:

Everyone knows scientists insist on using complex terminology to make it harder for True Christians to refute their claims.
Deoxyribonucleic Acid, for example… sounds impressive, right? But have you ever seen what happens if you put something in acid? It dissolves! If we had all this acid in our cells, we’d all dissolve! So much for the Theory of Evolution, Check MATE!

Is it any wonder I can’t take people like that seriously? Gahhh!!! My belief in humankind has taken quite a dive again. We are all doomed, I tell ya. DOOMED.

Even though I am not feeling all that much like blogging right now, I thought it was time for another post. But since I really can’t think of anything mind-blowing to write about, I will just go on about random things that pop into my head.

I’m still planning to do a couple of “Best of 2007″ posts soon. They just take ages to write up for some reason (I’m easily distracted these days). At the moment I am reading Jose Saramago’s “Blindness”, about which I will have to say a few things as well as soon as I manage to finish it. Not an easy read.

I just spent 3 hours randomly clicking through websites, starting with my Google Reader backlog of about 350 posts or so. But of course one thing leads to another and soon you got 2 dozen websites open at once and just wander around aimlessly. Well, at least that’s how it works for me usually. I really have to change that habit, because it’s a time thief like no other in my life. (Well, that and watching “Law & Order: Criminal Intent” episodes over and over again. But since there can never be too much Vincent D’Onofrio in my life, I’d rather curb my web surfing habit.)

One thing I found was a blog that was completely new to me: The FAIL Blog. How could I miss out on that one until now? It’s hilarious. Looks like I Can Has Cheezburger has got competition now in my RSS reader.

Then I noticed that I almost missed out on Grace’s Bloggy Giveaway over at Sandier Pastures. Since she is giving away an Amazon gift certificate this would be tragic. Those gift certificates being one thing you can never have enough of. For me, at least. And apparently for quite a few other people as well, judging by the 500+ entries in the contest.

I spent another 15 minutes scanning through all those comments to see if anybody mentioned an interesting book worth checking out and adding to my wishlist. I did find a few, but one thing that jumped out at me was how incredibly many people wrote that The Bible was their favorite book. That scares me. I never want to believe that there are so many of them out there…

Last weekend I spontaneously grabbed a pair of scissors and cut off my hair at just above shoulder length. No particular reason for that, I just felt like it. Didn’t even get it quite right, so one side is a tad longer than the other one. On Monday one of my colleagues told me how good it looked and asked what hair salon I went to. I had to bite my lips to stop from laughing in her face. Poor girl probably just wanted to be nice. *sigh* I just don’t have any patience with the people in this course anymore.

Last night I finally got around to watching one of Vincent D’Onofrio’s old movies I had not seen yet: The Whole Wide World. He plays Bob Howard, the pulp fiction writer who invented the Conan character (not my usual reading material, I have to admit). Apparently the guy suffered from depression and killed himself at 30. As usual, Vincent was brilliant (ok, I might be a tad biased, but who cares?). Only bad point was the fact that Renee Zellweger had the other main part. Not only do I hate her eternally pinched face and her little, squinty pig eyes, she also can’t act to save her life. To put her opposite Vincent is just a complete waste of his talent. But nevertheless the movie was beautiful. I even cried at the end (ok, I do that with a lot of movies).

And since I am on a mission to get to see every movie Vincent made at least once, I have ordered “Guy” - which isn’t available from Amazon or any other source I know of, including the usenet - from a danish DVD store. Needless to say I don’t speak danish, so I didn’t even understand the confirmation email. I can just hope they will send me the right DVD.

Speaking of things that aren’t available: Ever since I watched the movie “Love the hard way” (excellent film, by the way) I have been looking for a couple of songs from its soundtrack. The artist is called “Me and the other guy”, but I can’t for the life of me find any website that sells his music. All I found was this one song as the background music to some YouTube video. It drives me nuts that I can’t find a CD of this guy anywhere.