Ghosts of Vesuvius
by Charles Pellegrino.
Harper. 490 pages.

I picked up this book after listening to the author on a talk radio show. He impressed me, holding forth on the universe in a distinct Long Island accent, so I thought why not? What I got was an incredibly ambitious work that takes the reader back, literally, to the non-time before the universe was born, then barrels forward faster than the speed of light to the non-time post-omega of the universe, and then drops the reader on the edge of the pit left behind after the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center after lengthy disquisitions on Pompeii, Herculaneum–the incredible forces unleashed there–and how they were repeated at various intervals of volcanism through the eons. Not content with this, Pellegrino dove-tails these dynamics with the collapse of the Twin Towers and shows how various fire fighters and rescue workers met or survived their fates through the phenomenon of “shock cocoons”–the uncanny interventions that appear in the midst of disasters and which allowed paper documents to survive the searing heat in Herculaneum as well as one fire-fighter to glide on his back for hundreds of feet through the closest equivalent to hell on earth this side of the atomic bomb. A less capacious mind would be content to call it quits after these feats of mental gymnastics, but Pellegrino plows on, Diderot-fashion, to consider, simultaneously, rustcicles, the sinking of the Titanic, the Book of Thomas, Josephus and the early Christian church, the Stoics, the history of Rome, Roman technology and hundreds of other subjects. This man Pellegrino, if he ran a pizza parlor, would most probably offer the Pellegrino Special, which would be the very embodiment of abundanza!–all conceivable toppings, plus a sprinkling of star dust–and all for a reasonable $15.95, U.S.D.! (And, by the way, it appears that the folks of Herculaneum and Pompeii actually had a pizza-like dish, as well as their own hamburgers, hotdogs and a great-tasting fish topping–facts I learned from the author in question.) In addition Pellegrino succeeds in putting a human face on these tragedies–both natural and man-made. We are taken through the last nano-seconds of the life of a beautiful Asian-European slave girl of 14–16 years of age, who was lying on her side with her mistress’ baby in her arms trying to comfort it when the searing gasses from Vesuvius caused her brains to boil and explode. We stand on the deck of the Titanic watching an officer with a pistol in his hand holding off the surging crowds of desperate passengers as women and children find seats on the final life boats, the freezing water lapping around their ankles. We are taken into the private hell of a man buried with his dog under tons of volcanic dust, who managed to live for weeks after Pompeii’s extinction, yet still died far from the picks and shovels of potential rescuers.

With any such massive undertaking there will be of course some problems. Even War and Peace has arid passages that one would like to tear out and feed to the swine–especially when Tolstoy the philosopher begins to lecture us about history. With the Ghosts of Vesuvius the problems involve structure and editing. Towards the end of the book Pellegrino seems to be writing under the old rule of so many cents a page. We’ve seen the results in Mark Twain’s Life on the Mississippi when what begins as an excellent book is buried, in part two, under so much filler. I believe that the author simply had a space requirement that was assigned to him by his agent and by hook or crook, he managed to fill it. In addition, Mr. Pellegrino sometimes needs a fact-checker. However, having said these things, I recommend both the author and his book. Obviously the man is brilliant in the best possible sense of the word, and the book is the near-barbaric yawp of an American original.