| ||
The zombie wars
by Joe Foster ‘World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War,’ by Max Brooks. Crown Publishers, 2006. 342 pages. As I write this, the Writers Guild of America is still striking, forcing many shows into the ratings-killing land of reruns. While it may “inconvenience” home TV viewers to be forced to watch the same crap over and over, it seems to me a good thing that the people actually responsible for the success of these shows be adequately compensated for their work. The actors, producers and probably even the caterers get their cut, but the writers are apparently considered expendable resources. Strange. I hope their strike ends well. I don’t watch TV. Don’t have one, and haven’t for a few years now. Anytime I’ve said this to someone, they generally get all defensive and tell me the precise amount of time to which they limit their airwave consumption. But I don’t care. I don’t tell people about my decision to forego TV out of smugness; there are times when I almost violently crave “The Simpsons” or some African safari show on the Discovery Channel. What it comes down to, really, is that I frickin’ hate commercials. I also hate that not-so-fresh feeling left in my head after an extensive bout of screen-zombie-ism. One of the greatest things about not watching the idiot-box (see, not smug at all) for hours every night is that I read a bunch of books. Maybe that can be the solution for anyone pissed off about reruns right now: Read a %*&^#ing book! Hey, speaking of zombies… Mel Brooks’ son, Max Brooks, is making quite a name for himself in the book world. He started with the spoofy (of course) Zombie Survival Guide, an exhaustive guide on how to survive any conceivable human/zombie interaction. It was funny, but I definitely found myself skimming quite a bit of stuff. This one, though, World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, is fantastic. Max Brooks traveled the world at the conclusion of the Zombie War, collecting the stories of people who survived, hoping to hear voices that give the unique and the collective accounts of humanity’s brush with eradication. A series of interviews, World War Z is funny, yes, but because it treats its subject matter so damned seriously. It is within these completely ridiculous accounts, though, that the stiff upper lip of humanity shows itself, and some of these stories are incredibly thrilling, heart-warming, heart-breaking, and hopeful. I couldn’t help but laugh at how touched I was when the guy who was part f a K-9 unit recounted the heroism of his best friend and wartime partner. The breadth of Brooks imagination is impressive. He truly thought through the possible realities of a Zombie uprising on a personal and global level. The books starts with the whispers of a rising terror in China, as a doctor recounts his first, and the first recorded, contact with an infected individual. We hear from the blind old kung-fu master and his disciple who helped clear the Japanese countryside, and the Supreme Allied Commander of the European Forces in the midst of organizing “hunting season,” when the spring thaws mean the reanimation of winter-frozen zombies. Normal American families who fled North, only to face starvation and the elements, the tough-as-nails female fighter pilot that crash-landed in a swamp and barely made it out alive thanks to the comforting voice on the other end of a short-wave radio. One of my favorites is the zitty Japanese kid that was so wired into the internet that he didn’t really even realize that his parents had disappeared. As it turned out, the video games he played so much of gave him some pretty good moves. There are dozens of interviews, all with strikingly different voices and personalities, showing Brooks’ startling range. As the interviews progress, you get a very complete picture of the Zombie War and the ways in which it drew humanity together in a common cause, the human spirit eventually overcoming even the tenacity of a flesh-eating zombie. Seems like there might be a bumper sticker somewhere in that statement … . Rather than throwing your remote in disgust that “According to Jim” is another rerun tonight, or worse yet, watching it anyway, maybe you should give your brain a bit of a workout and check out what happened during World War Z. Please, don’t become part of the zombie problem. Turn off the TV and take a walk, cook an extravagant dinner, paint a nude portrait of your partner, write a letter of disgust to your congressman, or maybe, possibly even pick up a book. •
|
The Independent Weekly Line on Durango and Beyond
