Ghosts of Vesuvius: A New Look at the Last Days of Pompeii, How Towers Fell, and Other Strange Connections [Paperback]

I originally began reading this book out of a desire to find a thorough account of the exact events of the famous Vesuvius eruption in August 79 CE. I quickly realized that I had got more than I bargained for: along with a minute-by-minute report of those fatal 24 hours on the Bay of Naples, Charles Pellegrino provides a book that is equally a primer on the geological prehistory of the Earth and life on it; a melancholy meditation on some of history's most poignant what-ifs; a spiritual review of and an agnostic's indictment of the early (ugly) history of the Roman Catholic Church; a summary of the beliefs of Egyptian Gnosticism; and an impressionistic, rigorous account of the events of September 11 in New York City from the viewpoint of a volcanolgist-cum-paleontologist-cum-astrobiologist-cum-physicist-cum-ad infinitum. Along the way it becomes clear that Pellegrino has led one of the most interesting lives in recent memory; he name-drops a who's-who of the scientific community from Stephen Jay Gould to Stephen Hawking, and calmly recounts, in footnotes, such spectacular incidents as the time when he was nearly blown up with the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Does this sound exhausting? It is, but more importantly, it is fascinating. "Ghosts of Vesuvius" is one of the most engrossing books I have read in a long time. Though the narrative follows an associative rather than linear logic, Pellegrino manages, for the most part, to keep the connections he wishes to illuminate clear in his reader's mind. Herculaneum, Pompeii, and New York City are in the end far more alike than they are different, and Pellegrino's largest point comes through perfectly, though he never says it in so many words: our civilization may be ending. And it's our own damn fault.

Still, "Ghosts of Vesuvius" has flaws, some of them worth mentioning. At a stylistic level, Pellegrino loves ellipsis...far too much... He never learned, or doesn't care, that three dots is not an acceptable end to a sentence, let alone to a sentence fragment, and the ellipses become wearying. (As do his endless paragraphic, paranthetical remarks.) Furthermore, Pellegrino makes a few factual errors: the books of Lucretius were not burned by the Roman Church; they were in fact copied and recopied by monks. The upheaval in the Byzantine Empire of 537 CE (which Pellegrino contends was caused by a volcanic eruption in the Pacific) did not lead to that empire's 'downfall,' as that polity continued to exist, albeit never so gloriously, for another nine hundred years. Similarly, Pellegrino makes much of the fact that Marcus Tullius Cicero 'disappeared' in 43 BCE, when any competent classicist (or student of third-semester Latin) can tell you that Cicero was murdered by Mark Antony's goons on the Appian Way, and his head and hands were displayed on the Rostrum in the Forum as a warning to others who opposed Antony.

Yet these are minor quibbles. In the end, although Pellegrino's book provides a treasure trove on information on many more topics than the 79 CE Vesuvius eruption, it is far more an account of Pellegrino wrestling with the fact of September 11 than it is a work of nonfiction. Much as Bruce Springsteen did with "The Rising," and Art Spiegelman did with "In the Shadow of No Towers," Pellegrino stares into the abyss of humanity's nadir, and emerges with a flawed but brilliant masterpiece.

First of all let me say that I really learned a lot from this book. I had read some of the forensic information on the victims of Vesuvius in a journal article written in the 1980s and have often wondered what else had come of the work there. When I discovered Ghosts of Vesuvius by Charles Pellegrino, I felt I would at last learn a little more. I did indeed learn a great deal more but not all of it about Pompeii and Herculaneum.

Dr. Pellegrino is obviously a person of diverse interests and experience who has worked and corresponded professionally with researchers like Haraldur Sigurdsson (volcanology), Carl Sagan (cosmology), Issac Asimov (cosmology), Stephen Jay Gould (paleontology), Robert Ballard (marine science), Arthur C. Clarke (space engineer and astronomer), and Sara Bisel (forensic scientist). He also appears to be able to propound competently on both religion and philosophy and to speak knowledgeably about historical figures, events, politics, law and society. In short, he is an exceptionally well rounded individual. (E. O. Wilson would probably approve of his efforts towards consiliance).

The book is not probably for everyone, however, since it seems almost stream of consciousness in style. It took me a while to stand aside from the English Comp expectation that there be a beginning, middle and end with smooth transitions between concepts and a clear, up-front development of a central theme. I had the feeling that the author had a great deal to talk about and had decided to say it all in one book!

For those able to take information of various sorts and fit it into what they already know without necessarily needing a continuous thread, the author is a gold mine. Among other topics, he discusses the origin of the cosmos, the solar system, and the earth, the evolution of life, reveals our position in time by taking the reader backwards in leaps that double in length back to the big bang, discusses the mistakes and ambition of various Roman emperors and the development of Roman legal systems especially those regarding the rights of former slaves. He also discusses the effects of other volcanic events on the world, including that at Thera during the Minoan period and of Krakatoa during the 19th Century and analyzes the Old and New Testaments for indications of the psychological impacts of the AD 79 eruption on biblical stories. He outlines the various Gnostic sects of Christianity, their setting in the Roman world, and their beliefs vis a vis the Roman Catholic Church. He describes the historical background of the Vesuvian eruptions, points out the characteristics of what has become labeled a Plinian type of eruption, and describes some of the forensic data that provide insight into the human drama of the event. He narrates details of the 9/11 attack including the physics of the collapse of the buildings and of the odd pattern of survival of various individuals.

An excellent discourse, but suspend your English Comp notion of how a book should be written.

To the carpers below who have a difficult time reading a book whose scope extends beyond its beginning-point and title, the world is a complex place and always has been, and to limit those complexities and interconnectedness is unrealistically to reduce the scope of human understanding of how things work together. In fewer words, ----> :-P

More than almost any other author, Pellegrino has a sense of the diverse interconnectedness between and among events. Where other authors would take the less-complicated (and ultimately less-interesting) task of restricting their focus specifically to the events of AD 79, Pellegrino's vision stretches from Genesis to Apocalypse, from the big bang to the big crunch (or chill, as the case may be), from Pompeii and Herculaneum to the WTC and 9/11. The "connective tissue" linking these apparently dissimilar events is Pellegrino's discussion of force and change -- sometimes rapid and explosive change in the status of an apparently dormant volcano, and other times the change that this explosion wrought not only on the immediate surroundings, but on the story and progress of human civilization itself.

Pellegrino is a surprisingly accessible writer with the ability to have an almost binocular vision of events: one lens is focused on the vast expanse, the "big picture" of not only human history but the history of the cosmos, and the other lens is focused on the individual: Justa, Pliny the Younger, a young girl in the ashes holding not a valuable family idol, but a beloved doll to comfort her in the darkness. Never has this explosion come to life for me in this way; never has my understanding of the effects of a surge cloud or plate tectonics been so clear.

In short, the only carping in which I will engage is to say that to please the carpers, perhaps the book should have been given a different title beyond _Ghosts of Vesuvius_ -- maybe something that mentions how towers fall or the strange connections that can exist among apparently disparate events.

Oh, whoops. Guess it did already.