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The Perfect Storm ::
A substantial amount of activity occurs during a storm. Its energy is mind-boggling, its destructive nature is terrifying. There’s a longstanding fascination with storms on the part of all of humanity, which I think results in some of us going out and getting educated in meteorology, others leading lives that butt heads aggressively with the all but unpredictable weather patterns of the earth. Which leaves the rest of us to sit at home and clutch our loved ones and our pillows whenever a significant front comes through. Here we sit, ignorant of the science and terrified of the possible deadly outcome. What can help abate our terror?
A book, that’s what. The Perfect Storm is filled with meteorology, economics, and small bits of culture, all of which explain not only how storms work, but what drives a certain small group of Sword fishermen to drive their boat headlong into the worst storm we have seen in the past 100 years. We see not only the collision of a hurricane with a Nor’Easter, but also the block-headed decisions of many different people to not be scared of the weather, which lands them in a situation that is significantly more dangerous than it had to be, had they decided to simply stay home and not challenge the forces of the world that kill people.
This book was so strong in some respects -- the research involved and the ability of the author to make the information he retrieved interesting and digestible for the lay audience -- that it made its weak parts more unbearable. The combined facts of 1. you knew what was going to happen in the end, and 2. you didn’t wind up really caring that it did, really made the narrative aspects of the book torture (which probably at least partially explains why the cinematic adaptation was as bad as it was). The simplistic characters (whose lives could be summed up thusly: he lived, he drank, he hid from his wife, he neglected his children, he ran outta money, he hit the sea when he shouldn’t have, he died) only exacerbated the weak story. I didn’t even feel remorseful when they finally perished.
But for all its problems, I feel a bit better having read it. Because the next time the sky begins to summon up all its black fury and spray down wind, lightning, hail, and snow, I can look to that scared person across the room and simply say, “don’t worry, that’s just a dissipating tropical storm colliding with a weak Nor’easter. Seen much worse in my lifetime. It’ll all be over soon enough.”
I wouldn’t want to be out on the open ocean, though.
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