The Ghost Map
By: Steven Johnson / Narrated By: Alan Sklar
Length: 8 hrs and 38 mins
The rambling Epilogue can’t mar what’s a really nifty story of sage sleuthing
Yup, I gotta admit that I’m TOTally onboard with other reviewers who dolefully went on about the Epilogue of the book. Still, tho’ the Epilogue does go on and on, please Do NOT take my dismissal of it to be a dismissal of one of my favorite books of all time, The Ghost Map by the prolific and far-thinking Steven Johnson. Just gotta love a man who can combine histories of all sorts of things, whether it be of Victorian medicine or it be of just how the British drank beer instead of water.
Johnson opens the book with an in-depth: Get to know who your inhabitants are introduction to those who were some of history’s most notable recyclers. These were those who cruised the sewers for human excrement, who trolled the streets for “pure” (That’s dog poop to me and you), the children who followed and gathered the castoffs of others scanning the garbage heaps for bits of cloth, bits of bone. You name it, everything in the teeming filth of the over-crowded London could bring in a touch of money here and there. So we start off with just how… diiiiiiiisGUSting life in London was in the mid 1800s, the time when the cholera outbreak here is.
Our heroes are Dr. John Snow and Rev. Henry Whitehead. When there’s a horrific cholera outbreak in 1854, these are the two who will come to do the footwork, gather the growing stats, make the declarations.
Snow is our main man, and Johnson does a fine job in displaying him in all his deep-thinking, ever-pondering glory. Whether the venerable doctor is fine-tuning formulations on the proper use of ether as an anesthetic (A difference of 20 degrees Fahrenheit doubles a dose), or testing substances on himself, or of trying to get a bird’s eye view of London and drinking water systems, Snow comes off as a humble man whose thoughts race and whir. And that he’s told, after one of his maaaaany articles to a journal, one which AGAIN rattles on about how this that or the other person is totally wrong about something, to maybe hush up and do something himself? The man rolls up his sleeves and looks for ways to educate and advance.
There’s a huuuuuge discussion within the book as to two varying camps’ beliefs as to what causes the cholera outbreak (It was a little baby’s choleric “rice water” contaminated output, tossed into drinking water, actually): The contagionists v. those believing London’s foul miasmas caused it. Snow does his best, as his sleuthing continues and his knowledge grows, to bridge the two together. It’s not so much a contagion, and yes things are foul, but it’s foul drinking water that person to person is consumed that causes it. Thus, entire families can be struck down, but those working in the belly of London’s beast can walk along, unthwarted though they happen to be wallowing in the worst of the miasma.
Rev. Henry Whitehead adds to it all by his observations as he goes from house to house, family to struck-down family, knowing his flock as he does. He too is a keen observer, and he contributes his knowledge. (And he lives a good long time, long enough to see theories come and go).
Sometimes Johnson’s writing has a tendency of going too deep into history of this and that, and narrator Alan Sklar’s low baritone doesn’t jazz things up. As such, I didn’t find the audiobook to be just as breathtakingly exciting as I did whenst I read the book, my paperback in hand. Still, he does a lowdown Cockney accent now and again that perks things up, and one never ever forgets the magnitude of the events, nor can one dismiss how serious and how important the findings of the day were. So good job, Mr. Sklar; well done.
What I really like about Johnson’s writing is just how many and varied his subject matter can become. The Ghost Map is awesome history of sooo many things, great and engaging biographies, the cutting edge science of the day, all wrapped up with night soil and excrement galore.
Are you feeling claustrophobic and wanna listen to another day, another age, where there was disease and fear and flawed information? Well, the cholera outbreak of 1854, though not nearly as deadly as COVID-19, will have you on the edge of your seat as Snow and Whitehead walk the streets and as they walk their talk.
But doooo get past that ol’ Epilogue whereby everything from 9/11 to nuclear arsenals are discussed. No, I too could not for the life of me see how Johnson was trying to tie it all together with his work here, but interesting enough for one listen.
The rest, however? MOST enjoyable to listen to time and time again!
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