MADreads

The perfect storm

September 18th, 2006 Jon - Central Library

Sarah’s post about book design proved very prophetic for me, because the very same week a book caught my eye. As someone who subscribes to the idea that “complicated doesn’t make it good,” the black-and-white cover with orange lettering stood out. I had never heard of The Storm, and I never had much interest in Daniel Defoe. But the new Penguin Classics cover pulled me in.

When you read a 300 year-old book, you never know what you’re going to get. Same with those introductions they get some intellectual to write to help orient the reader. In this case, both were pretty good. The introduction made Defoe and The Storm sound very contemporary. According to the introduction, Defoe was accused of plagiarising parts of the book, and with altering the supposedly first-hand accounts of the storm that he received. This seemed right in line with and Kaavya Viswanathan’s lack of originality and James Frey’s liberties with his own life.

As for the book itself, the prose takes some getting used to, but the contents are really quite remarkable. A hurricane slammed Britain on November 26, 1703. Ships sunk, houses were blown down, and 8,000 people died. Defoe took out a newspaper ad requesting testimonials to the storm’s power, and he published a representative batch. It’s a terrible catalog of damage, but concludes on a more hopeful note with what Defoe calls “remarkable deliverances,” or, cases where people narrowly escaped with their lives.

Another book was recently published under the same title: The Storm: What Went Wrong and Why During Hurricane Katrina: the Inside Story from one Louisiana Scientist.

Entry Filed under: Nonfiction