With Krakatoa Simon Winchester gives a very interesting account not only of the actual eruption of the Krakatoa and its immediate aftermath, but also spend a lot of time to set the scene and look into consequences of the eruption.
It was the first book I read by Simon Winchester and I enjoyed it a lot. Not everything was new information for me, but I liked the writing and the general pace of the book. I would recommend it.
[Still reading children's books. Why we have them around is covered in this review. Short version: children's reading program, public schools.]
Oddly I'd read about this book before I realized there was a copy lying around here. In the book Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded, August 27, 1883 (link to my vague review of mostly quotes) by Simon Winchester, this book is mentioned in the chapter called Recommendations for (and, in One Case Against) Further Reading and Viewing. It's not one that Winchester is recommending you avoid, if you were curious. But he does give a plot summary, and I am lazy so I'll quote. (The fact that I have the book handy is another reason to do this. It's rare that this happens.) So um, spoilers?
p 386: ...a slim volume of a children's book, published to near-universal praise in 1947...
...The children's story was The Twenty-One Balloons by William Pene du Bois: it won America's reknowned Newbery Medal in 1948, and has never been out of print since. It tells the story of a math teacher from San Francisco named William Waterman Sherman, who flies in a balloon westward across the Pacific, crash-landing (after seagulls pecked holes in the silk fabric) on what turns out to be "the Pacific island of Krakatoa." Here the impeccably dressed locals are all fabulously rich, since the volcano in the island's center sits directly on top of an immense diamond mine.
The resulting story is all about the professor's adventures among the remarkable people of a utopia, which, because of the eruption of 1883, swiftly becomes a dangerous dystopia. All have to flee in a specially built balloon-lifted platform. The book - 180 pages, endearing, illustrated by its thirty-year old author - is enchanting; most intelligent children will have read it, and they will in consequence know Krakatoa as, at the very least, a place both dangerous and beautiful, and wondrously exotic.
Winchester then goes on to discuss the movie to avoid, unless you enjoy bad films: Krakatoa, East of Java, directed by Bernard Kowalski, who is also to blame responsible for Night of the Blood Beast and Attack of the Giant Leeches. (I've seen the leech film, and possibly the Blood Beast. I'm not entirely sure because I slept through it, which is sad seeing that it's the MST3K version.) Krakatoa was never east of Java by the way - it's to the west.
If you want a much more through plot description, here's a really lengthy one:
Wikipedia: The Twenty-One Balloons
The story reminded me a lot of Jules Verne, and I'm pretty sure the reader is meant to think that. It refers to Around the World in Eighty Days in the book itself - but it's attitudes toward exploration of unknown lands and fabulous adventure, not to mention balloons, are all hat-tips to Verne.
For much of my reading of this book I've been all "squee" over science and science history. However! I am still the same person who bought and read Death in Yellowstone and Over the Edge: Death in the Grand Canyon (seriously, you would not believe the stupid things people do in these parks), so I can't pretend there's not a "let me marvel at the horror of this trainwreck" sort of thing about volcanoes. But there's no need to feel guilty or ghoulish (too late, I was anyway) - Winchester seems to suspect we might be wondering about what happens to someone caught in an eruption.
First you have to get to chapter 8, and up to that point Winchester teases you along about the greatest explosion ever, etc. But once you're at chapter 8, you get all the eyewitness reports. Then in the section called The Effects, starting on p 239, you get the details. Which could also be titled Ways Die in A Volcanic Eruption. (Note: there's nothing overtly gory in these quotes.) Since not every danger was to occur at Krakatoa, Winchester cites other volcanic events. I've also added some wikipedia links for those who want more science and/or lava photos. (This way I can absorb the educational info while all awe stuck by the horror of these scenarios. Multi-tasking!)
p 241-243: "...Erupted boulders and lumps of partly congealed lava - generally known by the term tephra, from the Greek word for "ash" - scream back down from the skies and flatten anything in their path. Perhaps a relatively small number of people, fewer than a thousand, died in this way from the Krakatoa eruption. All of them were in southern Sumatra, in the path of the prevailing wind: The hot ash that burned them alive had sped westward from Krakatoa on top of a cushion of superheated steam.
Most of the other means with which volcanoes kill their victims were not experienced here. In other eruptions lava flows surround and trap victims and sear them to death. Earthquakes associated with volcanoes destroy buildings, and huge seismically caused cracks in the earth swallow people and buildings in which they live. The terrifyingly fast-moving clouds of hot lava, ash pumice, and incandescent volcanic gases, known... to the rest of the world as pyroclastic flows, sweep people up and incinerate them in seconds...
...Clouds of sulfur-dioxide gas, usually released during eruptions, choke and poison their victims. Clouds of carbon dioxide suffocate them. Clouds of hydrochloric acid gnaw away at their lungs. The torrents of volcanic mud and water slurry that course down the sides of certain volcanoes and that have the Javanese name lahars...carry victims miles away, and drown and bury them.
...There are still more obscure risks: For example, volcanoes that erupt beneath glaciers - which tend not to have too many people living near them - produce sudden floods of melting ice, which have recently been given the exotic Icelandic name jokulhlaups...
However, all of the victims whose deaths can be attributed directly to volcanic activity during the last 250 years, fully a quarter are now believed to have died - drowned or smashed to pieces - as a result of the gigantic waves that were created by the eruptions. The entire Minoan civilization on Crete was supposedly wiped out in 1648 BC when volcanic tephra from the eruption of Santorini - or, much more probably, the tsunamis thrown up by the eruption - destroyed the palaces at Knossos.
...the greatest of these [tsunamis of the last 250 years] by far was the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa. About 35,500 men, women and children died as victims of the two gigantic waves that accompanied or were caused by the death throes of this island-mountain, and they account for more than half of all those in the world who are known ever to have died from waves caused by an erupting volcano.
The book deals with the explosive eruption of the Krakatoa volcano in Indonesia on August 27, 1883, an event that led to over 36,000 deaths, mostly due to the resulting tsunami, which was heard almost 3,000 miles away, caused spectacular sunsets and affected the climate globally for months--and which Winchester credits with triggering a militant Muslim resurgence that led to rebellion against Dutch colonial rule and eventual independence.
Winchester is a journalist who is a geologist by training, thus well suited to tell this story. He takes his time building the context--it's over 200 pages before we get to the eruption itself--so the reader can fully appreciate the scientific, technological and historical circumstances that made this such an important world event. Winchester explains the scientific concepts of evolutionary biogeography, plate tectonics, vulcanology and meteorology very lucidly. I thought I learned quite a bit of both earth science and Indonesia as a result of reading this book. Some facts stood out in particular--that "Indonesia... has... more volcanic activity than any other political entity on Earth" and that it's the world's "most populous Muslim country" and that there's a rather clear line bisecting the nation with the western part filled with Indian flora and fauna and the eastern part filled with Australian creatures such as kangaroos. It has a fascinating history as the "Spice Islands" of legend growing pepper, cloves and cinnamon and then as the Dutch East Indies became a major exporter of rubber and coffee.
So why isn't this rated higher? In short what's missing is awe. When I think of the best non-fiction books I've read about the power of nature, I think of The Perfect Storm about a fearsome Northeaster and Into Thin Air about a tragedy on Mount Everest. In terms of lives lost and global consequences, neither is anywhere near as important as the eruption of Krakatoa--but they're wonderful books that bear reading more than once and with unforgettable passages. I don't think this book rises to that level. It's a good, solid book about an interesting subject--but it's not fascinating and awe-inspiring and moving in the way of great books such as those two.
when I first saw KRAKATOA some eight or whatever years ago, I flipped through it at the bookstore and thought it unimpressive. hardcovers are what, $25 these days, and if you think about it, that's four or five movies (depending on the theatre/ netflix or blockbuster) or it's a lobster dinner or its a night's stay at a guesthouse in bali or singapore. don't underestimate the power of $25 ! since that time, I've now read 7 full Simon Winchester books and have a copy of one or two more buried somewhere on the e-reader, and this wide-ranging, curious, evocative writer really deserves the praise he's received.
Log in with Facebook 
