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rowanglass 's review for:
The Serpent and the Rainbow
by Wade Davis
adventurous
informative
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
This book is an interesting melange: part popular ethnography, part travelogue and memoir, part history, and even arguably something of a novel (insofar as autobiographical and narrative writing is frequently and perhaps unavoidably fictionalized), it tells the story of the author's investigation of the pharmacological basis of zombification in Haiti, one that leads him into the world of the secret societies of vodoun, a religion much misunderstood and unfairly maligned by outsiders ignorant of its true practice and significance within Haitian society. This journey, both scientific and personal, is told with wit and elegance by one of the greatest anthropological writers of our time, one who knows how to keep both specialists and a general audience intrigued and entertained. This, as with other books by Wade Davis, is the greatest accomplishment of the book; he makes both the rigorous scholarly work and the adventures in travel and intercultural contact of anthropology available and relevant to a wide audience, a skill that other science writers should take his example to learn. The ethnography of Davis is the kind that I should like to write and is well-situated in a tradition going back to the early greats of anthropology, such as Boas, Mead, and Levi-Strauss.
As concerns the content of the book, a lesser scientist (or one merely interested in the pharmacology and toxicology of zombification) may have stopped their work with the discovery of the pharmacology of the zombie poison. The reader under the impression that that mystery is all that's of concern here will be surprised to find the case solved halfway through the book. For Wade, the discovery of the poison was only the beginning of the investigation--and one that on its own would be insufficient to explain the entirety of the zombie phenomenon, which, of course, is situated within a social and cultural context (secret societies and vodoun) outside of which the complexity and importance of the phenomenon cannot be understood. And to define and establish the significance of such social and cultural systems is, after all, the work of the anthropologist. This Davis achieves through gaining direct access to the secret societies of vodoun with the help of local contacts and friends, eventually becoming an initiate himself. Talk about participant observation.
At the end of the day, although this isn't a particularly scholarly text (again, it even strikes me as something of a novel, given its narrative focus and the undoubtedly many conversations featured in it which we can presume Davis more or less invented), it is one well worth reading whether you're an anthropologist, a student, or just an interested layman looking for a good read and a bit of adventure.
As concerns the content of the book, a lesser scientist (or one merely interested in the pharmacology and toxicology of zombification) may have stopped their work with the discovery of the pharmacology of the zombie poison. The reader under the impression that that mystery is all that's of concern here will be surprised to find the case solved halfway through the book. For Wade, the discovery of the poison was only the beginning of the investigation--and one that on its own would be insufficient to explain the entirety of the zombie phenomenon, which, of course, is situated within a social and cultural context (secret societies and vodoun) outside of which the complexity and importance of the phenomenon cannot be understood. And to define and establish the significance of such social and cultural systems is, after all, the work of the anthropologist. This Davis achieves through gaining direct access to the secret societies of vodoun with the help of local contacts and friends, eventually becoming an initiate himself. Talk about participant observation.
At the end of the day, although this isn't a particularly scholarly text (again, it even strikes me as something of a novel, given its narrative focus and the undoubtedly many conversations featured in it which we can presume Davis more or less invented), it is one well worth reading whether you're an anthropologist, a student, or just an interested layman looking for a good read and a bit of adventure.