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In 1966 Jean Rhys reemerged after a long silence with a novel called Wide Sargasso Sea. Rhys had enjoyed minor literary success in the 1920s and '30s with a series of evocative novels featuring women protagonists adrift in Europe, verging on poverty, hoping to be saved by men. By the '40s, however, her work was out of fashion, too sad for a world at war. And Rhys herself was often too sad for the world--she was suicidal, alcoholic, troubled by a vast loneliness. She was also a great writer, despite her powerful self-destructive impulses.
Wide Sargasso Sea is the story of Antoinette Cosway, a Creole heiress who grew up in the West Indies on a decaying plantation. When she comes of age she is married off to an Englishman, and he takes her away from the only place she has known--a house with a garden where "the paths were overgrown and a smell of dead flowers mixed with the fresh living smell. Underneath the tree ferns, tall as forest tree ferns, the light was green. Orchids flourished out of reach or for some reason not to be touched."
The novel is Rhys's answer to Jane Eyre. Charlotte Brontë's book had long haunted her, mostly for the story it did not tell--that of the madwoman in the attic, Rochester's terrible secret. Antoinette is Rhys's imagining of that locked-up woman, who in the end burns up the house and herself. Wide Sargasso Sea follows her voyage into the dark, both from her point of view and Rochester's. It is a voyage charged with soul-destroying lust. "I watched her die many times," observes the new husband. "In my way, not in hers. In sunlight, in shadow, by moonlight, by candlelight. In the long afternoons when the house was empty."
Rhys struggled over the book, enduring rejections and revisions, wrestling to bring this ruined woman out of the ashes. The slim volume was finally published when she was 70 years old. The critical adulation that followed, she said, "has come too late." Jean Rhys died a few years later, but with Wide Sargasso Sea she left behind a great legacy, a work of strange, scary loveliness. There has not been a book like it before or since. Believe me, I've been searching. --Emily White
Book Description
The fortieth anniversary reissue of the best-selling "tour de force" (Walter Allen, New York Times Book Review).
Jean Rhys's reputation was made upon the publication of this passionate and heartbreaking novel, in which she brings into the light one of fiction's most mysterious characters: the madwoman in the attic from Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre.
A sensual and protected young woman, Antoinette Cosway grows upin the lush natural world of the Caribbean. She is sold intomarriage to the coldhearted and prideful Rochester, who succumbsto his need for money and his lust. Yet he will make her pay forher ancestors' sins of slaveholding, excessive drinking, and nihilistic despair by enslaving her as a prisoner in his bleak English home.
In this best-selling novel Rhys portrays a society so driven by hatred, so skewed in its sexual relations, that it can literally drive a woman out of her mind.
Customer Reviews:
The horror... the horror... Wide Sargasso Sea is a searing indictment.......2007-09-14
Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea is a dreamlike feverish novel awash in passion and trauma. Forget for a moment that it's a sequel to "Jane Eyre" or that it is a seminal text in Feminism and Colonialist studies. Simply as a strikingly modern story of trauma and madness it is brilliant. Disorienting, agonizing, nightmarish yet stunningly beautiful; I was forced to read it in dribs and drabs - as the knife edge of Rhys' vision would compel me to come up, panting for air. This book is powerful - yet unforgivingly dark. But, of course, it is much more - it's a modernist masterpiece which brilliantly critiques the human costs of crimes of patriarchy, colonialism, slavery and subjugation. It is a searing indictment at the same time it is a haunting work of art.
Antoinette grows up poor and isolated at her family's plantation. Her companions are the black laborers and their children who simmer with resentment at the legacy of slavery. Slavery may have been abolished but has been replaced with economic and social subjugation and the resentment is palpable. Mr. Mason disregards this in a classic example of colonialist arrogance - which destroys their lives. Her mother's anger at Mr. Mason leads to her imprisonment as a mad woman. Women are not permitted to express rage. Patriarchy is central because Antoinette/Bertha is chattel. Her marriage to Rochester is effected because she owns land - it's an economic arrangement to gain property for Rochester. Once married, Antoinette/Bertha is stripped of all her claim to property and is completely under her husband's authority. Their marriage is marked by passion but it becomes apparent how culturally Caribbean (black) she is, tainted with scandal. Their relationship flames out spectacularly. When he decides he can't deal with her and chooses to abandon her to be locked as "the madwoman in the attic" she is reduced to, essentially, a prisoner. A woman, in that society, is literally the prisoner of her husband. Both Antoinette and her mother, Bertha are confined as mad - but their pathologies are the simple act of blaming their spouses and acting out their anger. Rebellion is seen as madness - both in the context of rebellion against slavery and rebellion against patriarchy.
As for the literary context - "Wide Sargasso Sea" as sequel to "Jane Eyre". By situating WSS's story within the classic Victorian novel "Jane Eyre", Rhys sets up a host of powerful resonances. Jane Eyre is a tale of redemption; of love's power to redeem. England's brutal social and economic inequities are hurdles to be overcome - but ultimately love overcomes them all in a healing and redemptive way. The fly in the ointment is Bertha, the mad woman in the attic. Her presence complicates the otherwise straightforward romantic narrative and gives it tension and fire. By inverting this tale to tell the story of Antoinette/Bertha, Rhys deepens the misery by shattering "Jane Eyre"s redemptive message. In "Wide Sargosso Sea" love is a tragic by-product of the economic abuses of patriarchy. Love has no redemptive power for Antoinette. It's just more salt in the wound. A lot of the negative reviews here center around resentment at Rhys for besmirching their beloved innocent "world of 'Jane Eyre'". They've missed the point. Inverting and besmirching the innocent world of 'Jane Eyre' is exactly the point. Colonialist England's apparent grace is built on the blood and toil of subjugated peoples. The subjugation extends to English women as well. You are meant to see that and the experience is not meant to be pleasant.
I can't say enough about this book's importance or the brilliant, polished skill with which it is written. Published in 1966 - at the height of the civil rights movement and free speech movement - WSS's issues were dead on the zeitgeist of the moment. You can imagine how the lush, dark, evil imagery of the jungle must have resonated in with an America embroiled in Viet Nam and a rising anti-war moment. It's not a pleasant read, however. The messages are hard, dark ones. There are no happy endings here and as the story unfolds the brutal details big and small are as oppressive as the tropical humidity. This is fine literature, indeed - but also a journey into pain, deprivation, madness and tragedy. It's not a journey to be taken lightly.
confused.......2007-07-04
This story is confusing and keeps shifting from one thing to the other. It wasn't what I expected it to be. I think it should have been better thought out. It doesn't make much sense and is not entertaining.
Has potential, but doesn't succeed.......2007-06-07
You should probably understand that like a lot of the reviewers who have written in here, Jane Eyre is one of my favorite books. Also, I am a stickler for canon, and anything that's off even a little will drive me crazy.
Honestly, it was hard enough for me to get over the basic changes that Rhys made. Changing the character's name is probably the worst offense. An earlier reviewer said that it was probably just because the name "Bertha" didn't sound pretty enough to her 20th century ears, and I completely agree. Second, changing the character's background. Rhys tried to make Bertha (no, I will not call her Antoinetta) into herself, and impose her own views upon her--if you read about Rhys's life, it makes perfect sense. Perhaps you will argue that Jane Eyre was also a carnation of Charlotte Bronte, but Bronte was creating the world, not trying to fit herself in it. Also, in doing this, Rhys had to make Antoinetta half Creole, and completely violate canon by making Mason only her half-brother. In Jane Eyre, Rochester says that Mason will also one day likely become an imbecile like the rest of the family, so his not being related to the psychotic mother makes absolutely no sense.
These are just superficial complaints, however. As you read the rest of the novel, it goes deeper. Some may claim that Rhys was merely trying to draw parallels between Jane and Bertha, but to me it felt like a blatant ripoff and way of cheating through the novel to get to the "good part." Lessee... poor birth and low social status, check. sad childhood, check. Cold and unfeeling school where the character doesn't quite fit in. Check. However, unlike Jane, you never really like Bertha all that much. She doesn't have Jane's pride and fighting spirit. Why should I root for this sad, mopey character who rarely even speaks in complete sentences? I'd say that it was the negative symptoms of schizophrenia beginning to kick in, but I think that would be giving Rhys too much credit (more on the mental illness as portrayed in the book later.)
And then we get to the Rochester part. This, ladies and gentleman, is character assassination at its finest. I am not arguing that Rochester was the greatest guy ever in Jane Eyre, but Rhys's argument that he was whitewashed makes no sense to me. Jane recognizes that Rochester has sinned, and she even reproaches him for how he has treated Bertha. Also, it is implied that Bertha cheated on Rochester--not the other way around. If Rochester did cheat on her, why would it be with another Creole, a group with which he obviously feels no affection? There were plenty of Englishwomen in Jamaica. Also, we're supposed to feel that his locking her in the attic is the worst crime imaginable, but it's hard for me to agree: being locked in the attic is kind compared to what Bertha would have undergone in a 19th century insane asylum.
The implication, too, that Rochester is the one who drove Bertha mad makes no sense, psychologically (sorry, I am a psychology student, and I have spent much time analyzing the character of Bertha, as I am particularly interested in psychosis) when one considers Jane Eyre. The general view of schizophrenia is that it requires two "hits": genetic and environmental. You are genetically predisposed, but it takes things in the environment to set it off. Rochester makes indications of having disliked Bertha before her symptoms were completely manifested, but he also claims that he would do things such as attempt to make conversation. Also, from what he told Jane, he was initially infatuated with his wife. It was not until she began to act off-hinged that he became disgusted (remember that Bertha was Jamaican, but also well-off and English: I doubt that she would have committed mannerisms so offensive were they not inspired by pathology.) The childhood that Rhys gives Bertha alone would make her suspectible to the disease. Schizophrenia usually does not manifest itself until the early 20's, so it would make sense that her psychosis would appear to begin after the marriage.
Also, part the reason schizophrenia is so dehabilitating is because of the negative symptoms. Rhys's portrayal of Bertha does not appear to have those negative symptoms; most schizophrenics would be not too passionate, but not passionate enough. Granted, there are always exceptions, but someone who is lacking those negative symptoms would be healthier than someone who has them, and I was always under the impression that Bertha was severely ill. Also, Bertha lacks the language and cognitive problems associated with schizophrenia (it is a language and cognitive-based psychosis.) She speaks in fragments and perhaps her speech is a little disorganized, but there is nothing even close to the level of what an unmedicated schizophrenic would say (granted, then we might not understand the book, but such is the problem with first person--it has to be realistic.) I don't know how much about schizophrenia was known when Rhys wrote this book, but if she'd only done a little research to see how schizophrenics truly behave... Maybe attended therapy sessions or visited an institution?
Basically: I understand what Rhys was trying to do, and I think that if you read it on paper, the novel's idea is good. But in trying to fit it with the world of Jane Eyre, she made her mistake. The girl portrayed in this book does not fit with Bertha, and her husband is certainly not Rochester. Also, the portrayal of a character's descent into madness could have been handled so much better. I didn't really feel that Bertha was psychotic until the last part, which isn't too long before she dies.
Sorry if this review wasn't well-organized. Also, I read the novel a while ago, so I may be a bit rusty on it. Consider the fact too that I am a diehard Jane Eyre fan, and thus may be biased.
Wide Sargasso Sea.......2007-05-10
I love this book. At last, a face and soul for the woman in the attic. How fascinating to accompany her on her descent into madness.
The island imagery was spot on. I can almost feel the wind in my face, smell the pure sweet air and hear the noises in the night.
The only thing wrong with this book is that it was too short.
How the hell did this make the MLA 100?.......2007-04-05
This is not a good book. It is incoherent. It is poorly written. It is silly, pretentious, and, at times, melodramatic. How can this be one of the hundred best novels of the 20th century? Bryce Courtenay's The Power of One is ten times the book that this is. The only positive thing I can say about Wide Sargasso Sea is that it doesn't take very long to read.
Book Description
In this riveting narrative of family, betrayal, vengeance, and murder, Lillian Baptiste is willed back to her island home of Dominica to finally settle her past. Haunted by scandal and secrets, Lillian left Dominica when she was fourteen after discovering she was the daughter of Iris, the half-crazy woman whose life was told of in chanté mas songs sung during Carnival: Matilda Swinging and Bottle of Coke; songs about a village on a mountaintop and bones and bodies; songs about flying masquerades and a man who dropped dead. Lillian knew the songs well. And now she knows these songs -- and thus the history -- belong to her. After twenty years away, Lillian returns to face the demons of her past, and with the help of Teddy, the man she refused to love, she will find a way to heal.
Set partly in contemporary Washington, D.C., and partly in post-World War II Dominica, Unburnable weaves together West Indian history, African culture, and American sensibilities. Richly textured and lushly rendered, Unburnable showcases a welcome and assured new voice.
Customer Reviews:
Takes a while to get started.......2007-09-07
I took a little while for me to get into this book. I, quite frankly, didn't care about Lillian the main character until I was almost a third of the way through. The most dimensional and complex characters were of course Matilda and Iris. Once the novel's focus shift primarily to them, it becomes a page turner. If you feel like investing the time to get to the heart of this tale, give it a read.
Chimamanda Adichie's comments on Unburnable.......2007-07-23
Chimamanda Adichie (Half of a Yellow Sun, Purple Hibiscus: A Novel) had these wonderful things to say about UNBURNABLE in the book review section of London's Guardian newspaper on Saturday June 23, 2007:
"I read Marie-Elena John's novel Unburnable on the plane from New York to Copenhagen. I laughed aloud so often reading this wondrously intelligent book about Dominica and the United States and Africa, about gender, class and race, about love and sexuality, that the bespectacled man sitting next to me put his Wall Street Journal down and leaned over to see what the title was. He asked what it was about. I could have told him how it dealt honestly with issues without ever forgetting to keep character and soul as its centre, but instead I told him a tiny anecdote from the book about black women and thongs. And I much enjoyed his blush."
A Must Read.......2007-03-27
This is a great book to kick back in silence and just immerse yourself into suspense, deep thinking, and a few tears. I was just a little disappointed with the ending, but all in all this was a great read.
Not a Fluff Read!.......2007-01-14
I have been blessed enough in the last week to read not one but TWO great books this one being the greater. I will admit I wasn't wrapped up in the book by page two but by page ten I was all caught up in this story. Marie-Elena John is an EXCELLENT story teller. Her words are beautiful and her descriptions come off the page so effortlessly. I could've easily believed this was her third novel instead of her first. I laughed, I cried and I called all my friends and advised them to please read this book. I did not know anything about Dominica before picking up this novel and now I cannot learn enough. This book intrigued me to no end and I cannot wait to read future publishings from Marie-Elena John. This story is not in the least predictable and her knowledge on the subject matter is outstanding! If you are looking for a mind challenging novel that will shock and educate you at the same time then look no further.
Long Story Short.......2006-11-08
Interesting story, you have to continue to read this book and not stop or you might get side tracked if you put it down for too long.
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Jean Rhys's Historical Imagination: Reading and Writing the Creole
Veronica Marie Gregg
Manufacturer: The University of North Carolina Press
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Wide Sargasso Sea: A Novel (Norton Paperback Fiction)
ASIN: 0807845043 |
Book Description
As the foremost white West Indian writer of this century and author of the widely acclaimed novel Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys (1890-1979) has attracted much critical attention, most often from the perspective of gender analysis. Veronica Gregg extends our critical appreciation of Rhys by analyzing the complex relationship between Rhys's identity and the structures of her fiction, and she reveals the ways in which this relationship is connected to the history of British colonization of the West Indies.
Gregg focuses on Rhys as a writer—a Creole woman analyzing the question of identity through literary investigations of race, gender, and colonialism. Arguing that history itself can be a site where different narratives collide and compete, she explores Rhys's rewriting of the historical discourses of the West Indies and of European canonical texts, such as Rhys's treatment of Jane Eyre in Wide Sargasso Sea. Gregg's analysis also reveals the precision with which Rhys crafted her work and her preoccupation with writing as performance.
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Jean Rhys: The West Indian Novels
Teresa F. O'Connor
Manufacturer: New York University Press
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ASIN: 081476164X |
Book Description
Term paper due tomorrow? Need to cram for a test? Or just looking for the best information about a favorite literary work?
Turn to "Novels for Students" to get your research done in record time. Brought to you by Thomson Gale--the world's leading source of literary criticism and analysis--this e-doc contains: author biography; plot summary; character analysis; an overview of the novel's themes, style, and historical context; a compendium of in-depth critical material; study questions; suggestions for further reading; and much more.
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Book Description
Informed by unparalleled access to still–secret documents, interviews with top field commanders, and a review of the military’s own internal after–action reports, Cobra II is the definitive chronicle of America’s invasion and occupation of Iraq—a conflict that could not be lost but one that the United States failed to win decisively. From the Pentagon to the White House to the American command centers in the field, the book reveals the inside story of how the war was actually planned and fought. Drawing on classified United States government intelligence, it also provides a unique account of how Saddam Hussein and his high command developed and prosecuted their war strategy.
Written by Michael R. Gordon, the chief military correspondent for The New York Times, who spent the war with the Allied land command, and Bernard E. Trainor, a retired Marine Corps lieutenant general and former director of the National Security Program at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, Cobra II traces the interactions among the generals, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and President George W. Bush. It dramatically reconstructs the principal battles from interviews with those who fought them, providing reliable accounts of the clashes waged by conventional and Special Operations forces. It documents with precision the failures of American intelligence and the mistakes in administering postwar Iraq.
Unimpeachably sourced, Cobra II describes how the American rush to Baghdad provided the opportunity for the virulent insurgency that followed. The brutal aftermath in Iraq was not inevitable and was a surprise to the generals on both sides; Cobra II provides the first authoritative account as to why. It is a book of enduring importance and incisive analysis—a comprehensive account of the most reported yet least understood war in American history.
Customer Reviews:
The best account of the planning for and invasion of Iraq.......2007-09-27
This is a must read book for someone who wants a comprehensive, top-to-bottom understanding of the invasion of Iraq.
If you look at the references of this book, it is dozens of pages listing all of the first-hand interviews that were done for this book. Everyone from GEN McKiernan down to company commanders were interviewed and it shows in the incredible top to bottom detail. This book comes down very hard on many people and shows how much of the problems we face in Iraq today are of our own making. It is frustrating beyond belief to read about the micromanaging of Donald Rumsfeld or the idiocy of then MG Ray Odierno. Then there are some fascinating accounts of the individual battles from the sergeants and company grade officers. You see how many people tried to do the right thing or actions that would have greatly helped the US and Iraqis.
A Mixed Bag.......2007-09-20
Michael Gordon's and Bernard Trainor's "Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq" tells the story of Operation Iraqi Freedom from the initial planning stages through the summer of 2003. This is a very comprehensive book and based, in part, on a secret report created by the Joint Forces Command after the war. Although this book has generally received fawning reviews, I had very mixed feelings as I read the book.
As others have noted, the authors tell a comprehensive, thorough story of the entire campaign. They usually offer good analysis and (at times) good criticisms, supported by the facts. However, their criticisms often outshine the better parts of the book.
The authors are extremely critical of Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, General Tommy Franks, and many others who planned and executed the invasion. The authors criticize the planners primarily for ignoring the need to invade with a much larger force. While they are certainly justified to be critical of a war that was supposed to last a few months and is now dragging into its fifth year, their criticisms form the thesis of the book and become a repeated mantra that permeates the entire narrative. This really detracts from the story they are trying to tell and often tell well.
The authors' treatment is not even-handed and their critical outlook clouds the story of the invasion. The authors focus so much on the negatives of the initial campaign to capture Baghdad that they ignore what an immensely successful campaign it was -- no one expected the Iraqi regime to fall in four short weeks. However, reading their narrative one would think that the American forces (the authors ignore the British forces) made mistake after mistake and were lucky to even reach Baghdad. Their story lacks the perspective that even the best-laid plans can be thrown away once contact is made with the enemy. The story they ignored was that, like all military operations, Operation Iraqi Freedom, was fraught with mix-ups, screw-ups, miscalculations, blunders, and other problems - Clausewitzian friction. However, the American forces overcame all of this and waged an extremely successful land campaign.
One other negative was that the book lacked a real unity of approach to describing the war. The authors attempted to narrate the war from the "big-picture," but then, during the actual fighting, spent a lot of time describing the blow-by-blow and minute-by-minute actions of the fighting at the platoon, company, and battalion level. The story was too detailed when they took this approach to selective engagements. While authors such as Max Hastings may be able to pull this off as part of their larger narrative, it was cumbersome and distracting when Gordon and Trainor tried to.
Three other criticism: 1) This book completely ignored the British actions in and around Basra; 2) This book didn't "complete" the story and take the story to a logical stopping point (such as the Sadr uprising in April 2004). The authors just trailed off in the summer of 2003 (they didn't even cover the UN bombing that summer) instead of showing how one of their major criticism - lack of sufficient troops - could have made a major difference in late 2003 and early 2004; and 3) the authors' narrative style was difficult to read at times. The book felt like it was cobbled together and written on a deadline, and because the authors relied on so many sources and described the actions of so many officers and soldiers (especially during the battle narrative), it was difficult to follow everyone they were writing about, especially since they usually did not use their rank after the first mention.
Overall, though, this is a very good book for anyone interested in the military planning and history of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Despite the many problems listed above, the book is thorough (if not even-handed) and full of good information.
greta read indepth look .......2007-09-18
this has been the best book writen (in my opinion) about the planning of the invasion of iraq and the first year of the occupation. i really think it is critical of everyone involved (republicans, democrats, civilians, media, military and even the iraqis) and accurately shows how all sides misjudged the situation.
Great Content - Flawed Media.......2007-07-27
Three of my CDs had dropouts; not enough to stop them from playing. I looked at the last CD and it has several scratches on it. [I just opened the case]. Seems like Random House contracted with the absolute cheapest supplier for their products.
The content (book) is very complete in a depressing way. Only the Captains and Majors seem to come out as heroes; the GOs seem to suffer from Careerism. During the runup to the war Tommy Franks was obviously "played" by Rummey; but he seemed to be easy pickings. Franks theatrical yawning during the discussion of casualties [with British officers present and immediately after a fratricide incident where U.S. killed British soldiers] is especially endearing.
Is it January 2008 yet?
Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq.......2007-07-05
I really enjoyed this book and it's content. Offered an inside look at what really happened behind the sceens before and after the invasion.
Amazon.com
In New York City in the late '90s, a 17-year-old girl heads off to her private school even though she has a cold. By art class her nose is gushing mucus and she's severely disoriented. Within seconds, it seems, she's in convulsions and, most bizarrely, can't stop biting herself. All the reader can do is hope she'll die quickly, but Kate Moran's body still has a few more disgusting turns to undergo, and Richard Preston--a Jacobean master of ceremonies par excellence--takes us through them in bizarre and bloody detail.
Clearly, whatever Kate had was a head cold with a scientific vengeance. Preston's heroine, Alice Austen, a doctor with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, realizes--in the first of several gripping autopsy scenes--that the girl's nervous system had been virtually destroyed. So far, only one other person is known to have died in the same way, but he was a homeless man. Austen must connect the two cases, seemingly linked only by the subway, before the media gets hold of them and drums up a paranoia-fest--and before the virus's creator can kill again.
The Cobra Event is itself a paranoia-fest, a provocative thriller that makes you wonder exactly how much bioterrorism is taking place in the real world. Preston, best known for his terrifying chronicle of the Ebola virus, The Hot Zone, and other impeccably researched nonfictions, is not content to create fast-paced nightmarish scenes. His novel is instead a complex morality tale anchored in uncomfortable fact. Preston is keen to convey the "invisible history" of bioweapons engineering and, equally, to show the unsung heroism of his scientific detectives (along with that of the nurses and technicians who literally sacrifice their lives for medicine). Like their creator, these characters are not without a sense of humor. One calls the manmade virus "the ultimate head cold." Readers will never forget literally dozens of scenes and will never again see the subway, rodents, autopsy knives, and--above all--runny noses in the same light.
Book Description
"A PAGE-TURNER . . . THOROUGHLY FRIGHTENING."
--Newsweek
"ENORMOUSLY ENTERTAINING."
--The New York Times Book Review
"THIS BOOK SCARED THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS OUT OF ME. . . . Manages to grab you with the authenticity of its scientific detective work and haunt you with its sheer plausibility."
--Entertainment Weekly
Five days ago, a homeless man on a subway platform died in agony as startled commuters looked on. Yesterday, a teenager started having violent, uncontrollable spasms in art class. Within minutes, she too was dead.
Dr. Alice Austen is a medical pathologist at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. What she knows is that the two deaths are connected. What she fears is that they are only the beginning. . . .
Customer Reviews:
Good Public Health Service procedural; novel or polemic?.......2007-09-23
I have great respect for Richard Preston's nonfiction work, and this book is at its best when he is dealing with the doings of the FBI, CDC, USAMRID, and with the truly creepy life-cycles of the organisms threatening to decrease the world's human population. In that mode, the book is like a good police procedural. As a cohesive novel, though, Preston undercuts his own narrative a number of times with two nasty habits: overwrought gory details and polemics. The book is not for the squeamish, as anyone who has read his nonfiction would understand, but Cobra Event goes way beyond accurately detailed descriptions of *hot* autopsies and into the realm of David Cronenberg's "Scanners", complete with anatomically detailed exploding heads. I mean, leave something to the imagination, Richard, OK? The "splatter" descriptions are overstated and unsubtle, even if they do serve as plot points and have to be there. The other problem (for me) is that from time to time he stops the narrative cold to deliver-to the reader- a denunciation of some international organization or some other clearly dangerous situation somewhere in the world. I don't know, maybe it's just me, but I didn't like the film Lord of War because it stopped occasionally to remind the audience, with written messages at the center of the screen, how bad arms trafficking is; and I don't like it when an author drops the story temporarily to yell at me. That didn't prevent me from picking the story back up and continuing to the end, but it seems to me that Fiction should remain fiction. Harper Lee didn't break into To Kill a Mockingbird to inform her audience that a black person can't get a fair trial in this country, she showed us with her characters' interactions. I can't help thinking that Preston, a capable writer, could have worked the same way to make his points.
Richard Preston's Terror.......2007-07-17
Preston is a gifted writer. He has knowledge of contemporary society's terror threat and writes his fiction along the lines of "what could be" happening. This guy knows his stuff.
Good Story.......2007-04-20
I liked this book, however at times I felt it got a little bogged down with the textbook type style. I agree with the other reviewers that Preston tends to over-explain things that are rather easily understandable. Overall, i thought it was a great story and would recommend it.
Just as good.......2007-03-25
While reading this novel, I had to repeatedly remind myself that this was a work of fiction. Since all of Preston's other work that I have read is nonfiction, it's a change.
He wrote it the same way as he writes his other works and also included an informational section in the back of the book. I definitely think this novel is just as good as his others (I have read: The Hot Zone and Demon in the Freezer).
I definitely liked the way that the writing was similar to his other nonfiction novels. And though it was strange to have to remind myself every 100 pages that this was not a true story, I still liked that. Also, everything that happens within this novel is possible--so it is a warning of sorts.
An All-Too-Plausible Medical Horror Story.......2007-01-17
When a seventeen-year-old girl dies a horrifyingly grotesque death on her way to school, authorities are baffled. When a homeless man dies in a similarly terrible way, Dr. Alice Austen of the CDC takes an interest. When a third victim is discovered, the case becomes an official epidemic investigation. Dr. Austen teams up with the FBI and initiates a full-court press, hoping to find the cause for these frightening deaths.
What she finds turns out to be a terrorist attack. Someone in New York City is preparing for an artificial outbreak of one of the most lethal and easily communicable diseases the world has ever seen: a genetically modified version of the common cold virus combined with the small-pox virus and a rare and bizarre (and real) disease that turns afflicted persons into self-cannibals. Victims die within minutes of displaying symptoms, but they can be contagious for days beforehand. And even after death, their bodies remain contagious until cremated. As more people around the city turn up dead, the stakes rise for Austen. And when members of her own medical team start dying of the disease, she knows time is running out.
Now Austen and the FBI are in a race against time, trying to find and stop the terrorist responsible for the deaths before he unleashes the disease upon the city at large. What starts as a medical investigation turns into a manhunt and thereafter into a stakeout and finally an all-out pursuit through the dark underground of the New York subway system.
The book certainly holds one's attention, though much of the intrigue is based not on the plot but on the disgusting accounts of the victims' deaths. The death scenes are incredibly graphic and highly disturbing.
The author writes in a rather pedantic manner, and much of the narrative comes across more like a lecture than a story. Nevertheless, Preston is able to generate a fair amount of suspense in his action scenes. The chase through the subway tunnels bears an interesting resemblance to certain aspects of Reliquary, written by the author's brother (Douglas Preston, with Lincoln Child), which makes me wonder if perhaps he used some of the same research done for that book.
As with other terrorism-related books written prior to 9/11, the terrorist's motive is not particularly believable in today's world (Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six is similarly afflicted).
The book was obviously painstakingly researched. Preston has an excellent grasp of medical horrors. The bulk of the research done for this book was in the history of bioweapons manufacturing. Preston presents the astonishing and almost unbelievable (but all factual) history of biological weapons in a number of "aside" sections throughout the book (called the "Hidden History"). His research, in fact, was so convincing that then-president Bill Clinton ordered a plausibility investigation after reading this book. It's definitely scary stuff.
The book is quite simply too gross to recommend. However, the nonfiction information presented in the story is worth being aware of, particularly in light of the very real possibility of a bioterrorist attack in today's world.
Product Description
Cafeteria Plans In General; Health Reimbursement Flexible Spending Accounts; Funding And State Tax Treatment Of Cafeteria Plans, Impact Of The Family Medical Leave Act; Health Savings Accounts; Health Reimbursement Accounts; COBRA; Ethical Considerations
Average customer rating:
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Cobra Event
Richard Preston
Manufacturer: Ballantine Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000OVGENM |
Average customer rating:
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Cobra Event
Richard Preston
Manufacturer: Ballantine Books (Mm)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OV8A0C |
Customer Reviews:
Impressive compilation of terrorist incidents.......2001-05-01
Messieurs Picquet and Shanty have produced an impressive compilation of terrorist incidents for the year 1998, outlining event criteria and event descriptions - some 398 incidents in all. What we don't know about terrorist events that occurred in 1998 could fill a book, and this is it. They have performed a useful service in describing in detail this violent international phenomenon. Turning this work into an annual series will be public scholarship of the highest order and will do much to further our understanding of terrorism.
Excellent tool for defense analysts and more.......2001-03-22
Ray Picquet and Frank Shanty have produced in International Terrorism: An Annual "Event Data" Report, an extremely useful tool for the terrorism researcher, policy analyst, or anyone interested in this timely and important phenomenon. This study of international terrorism events occurring in 1998 is presented in a very well-conceived format with the reader clearly in mind. The introduction is very thorough and includes excellent information on terrorism definitions, source and collection methods, event criteria, and provides the reader with detailed, yet simple instructions for navigating and using the chronology. Following the introduction is a very useful, global overview of data, complete with easy to read charts showing quantitative rankings and regional reports to provide the reader with concise geographic snapshots. It is evident throughout that Picquet and Shanty have gone to lengths to cross check data reliability and to provide a "street level" perspective on terrorism...especially helpful to this analyst's own counter-terrorism assignments. Also helpful are the numerous criteria which compose each incident, providing the particulars that too often stymie detail-oriented research. Finally, the heart of the "Event Data" Report provides six excellent chronologies of terrorist incidents for all the world's major regions. Any researcher or analyst will tell you that the comprehensive and user-friendly format presented by Ray Piquet and Frank Shanty is the most helpful in finding information. Coupled with extensive findings and a solid methodology, this report will be a frequently consulted resource.
Thomas M. Sanderson Defense Analyst Science Applications International Corporation
Top Book in the Field, A Must Have for Professionals.......2001-01-05
International Terrorism: An Annual Event Data Report,1998 (Cobra Institute Studies on Terrorism #1) is a simultaneously comprehensive and concise database of terrorism for 1998. The authors' extensive backgrounds in the intelligence, national security policy, and CBRN (Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear) weapons fields have contributed greatly to its quality. It is thoroughly researched and provides more information than any other I have read on the subject. This annual review of terrorism is sure to become a standard on every professional's bookshelf.
Product Description
The Street Lawyer by John Grisham
The Cobra Event by Richard Preston
Message in a Bottle by Nicholas Sparks
Sooner or Later by Elizabeth Adler
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