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Feb. 23rd, 2019 11:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsMy roommate has a copy of Stephen Puleo's Dark Tide, the one full-length history book about the Boston Molassacre, which I'd been meaning to read ever since last month's centenary and therefore decided to use as my Space Opera detox.
It's a solid and well-researched account of the disaster, covering the period of time from the initial construction of the giant molasses tank through the end of the court case to determine who was responsible for the tank's destruction and subsequent massive amounts of death, with detours into the munitions market during WWI, the Boston anarchist movement, the Harding presidency, and the big business boom of the early 1920s.
It also has an unfortunate tendency to do the thing, you know that history book thing, where it's like "March 15, 1916: heart-rending scene in which several people who three years later will be devastated by the molasses flood think uneasily about the new tank in their neighborhood, and also about Boston's changing socioeconomic demographics, and then have a conversation about molasses." Don't give me that, Stephen Puleo! If you want me to believe someone had a specific thought or a specific conversation on a specific date, I want a footnote and a source I can trace back; otherwise, talk in broader generalities and leave novelistic internal monologues for the novelists.
On the other hand, all the novelistic internal monologues does provide a LOT of opportunities for beautifully creepy horror-movie descriptions of molasses, which I DO approve of very much:
As Isaac straddled the pipe and gripped the flange to examine the bolts, he could almost hear the molasses shifting and wriggling in the pipe, could feel it wriggling inside, like a long thick worm inching towards its home. Behind him he heard something else, an unnatural wail that sent a chill through him that had nothing to do with the weather. He tried to shut his ears to the groan and the long roll of rumbling that came from inside the molasses tank. But it was no use...
OK, well played, Steven King, I TOO feel the unearthly horror of two million tons of molasses poised to unleash destruction on an unsuspecting city.
Puleo also gets a bit hagiographic about judge Hugh W. Ogden, who eventually decided the case in favor of the claimants and against the USIA corporation that built the bank, which: a good decision! I approve of it! I don't think we needed several approving chapters about how Ogden's experience in the war and opinions about how the country needed a good dose of military discipline etc. and how all that probably maybe influenced his decision-making, but of course YMMV.
My sympathies were however very effectively engaged with Isaac Gonzalez, general man-on-call at the tank, who historical record shows not only attempted many, many times to warn the company about issues with the tank but also stressed about it so much that he went on daily 1 AM cross-town runs just to make sure everything was OK and the tank hadn't exploded in the middle of the night.
(The incident that both I and everyone involved in the court case considered most infuriating:
ISAAC GONZALEZ: the tank is leaking! everyone can see it leak! children come steal molasses from the leaks! WE ALL KNOW IT'S BAD!
CORPORATE USIA: .... ok! ok. we have heard and listened to your concerns.
CORPORATE USIA: We will therefore paint the tank brown so it's harder for people to see it leaking.)
Anyway then I rewatched the Drunk History episode about the Molassacre and got mad about how they attributed all of Isaac Gonzalez's attempts to warn the company to a random firefighter played by Jason Ritter and didn't name Gonzalez ONCE, so I clearly learned something from this book! Despite my frustrations with the writing style, an overall solid read and resource.
It's a solid and well-researched account of the disaster, covering the period of time from the initial construction of the giant molasses tank through the end of the court case to determine who was responsible for the tank's destruction and subsequent massive amounts of death, with detours into the munitions market during WWI, the Boston anarchist movement, the Harding presidency, and the big business boom of the early 1920s.
It also has an unfortunate tendency to do the thing, you know that history book thing, where it's like "March 15, 1916: heart-rending scene in which several people who three years later will be devastated by the molasses flood think uneasily about the new tank in their neighborhood, and also about Boston's changing socioeconomic demographics, and then have a conversation about molasses." Don't give me that, Stephen Puleo! If you want me to believe someone had a specific thought or a specific conversation on a specific date, I want a footnote and a source I can trace back; otherwise, talk in broader generalities and leave novelistic internal monologues for the novelists.
On the other hand, all the novelistic internal monologues does provide a LOT of opportunities for beautifully creepy horror-movie descriptions of molasses, which I DO approve of very much:
As Isaac straddled the pipe and gripped the flange to examine the bolts, he could almost hear the molasses shifting and wriggling in the pipe, could feel it wriggling inside, like a long thick worm inching towards its home. Behind him he heard something else, an unnatural wail that sent a chill through him that had nothing to do with the weather. He tried to shut his ears to the groan and the long roll of rumbling that came from inside the molasses tank. But it was no use...
OK, well played, Steven King, I TOO feel the unearthly horror of two million tons of molasses poised to unleash destruction on an unsuspecting city.
Puleo also gets a bit hagiographic about judge Hugh W. Ogden, who eventually decided the case in favor of the claimants and against the USIA corporation that built the bank, which: a good decision! I approve of it! I don't think we needed several approving chapters about how Ogden's experience in the war and opinions about how the country needed a good dose of military discipline etc. and how all that probably maybe influenced his decision-making, but of course YMMV.
My sympathies were however very effectively engaged with Isaac Gonzalez, general man-on-call at the tank, who historical record shows not only attempted many, many times to warn the company about issues with the tank but also stressed about it so much that he went on daily 1 AM cross-town runs just to make sure everything was OK and the tank hadn't exploded in the middle of the night.
(The incident that both I and everyone involved in the court case considered most infuriating:
ISAAC GONZALEZ: the tank is leaking! everyone can see it leak! children come steal molasses from the leaks! WE ALL KNOW IT'S BAD!
CORPORATE USIA: .... ok! ok. we have heard and listened to your concerns.
CORPORATE USIA: We will therefore paint the tank brown so it's harder for people to see it leaking.)
Anyway then I rewatched the Drunk History episode about the Molassacre and got mad about how they attributed all of Isaac Gonzalez's attempts to warn the company to a random firefighter played by Jason Ritter and didn't name Gonzalez ONCE, so I clearly learned something from this book! Despite my frustrations with the writing style, an overall solid read and resource.
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Date: 2019-02-23 05:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-02-23 06:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-02-24 06:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-02-23 06:06 pm (UTC)Irc, one of the things they mentioned in the podcast was that part of the problem was... something to do with the Prohibition? Like since molasses can be made into rum they were trying to store as much of it as possible so it could be grandfathered in the ban on alcohol and they could still make a profit?
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Date: 2019-02-23 06:40 pm (UTC)The corporation painting the tank makes such a good metaphor for the venial sins and overall structural flaws of capitalism that I predict I will be using it OFTEN.
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Date: 2019-02-23 06:38 pm (UTC)It is my understanding that the tank really did make eldritch noises from the strain, which is the kind of detail you have to be a historian with novelistic tendencies as opposed to an actual novelist to get away with.
(I have not actually read Dark Tide.
who historical record shows not only attempted many, many times to warn the company about issues with the tank but also stressed about it so much that he went on daily 1 AM cross-town runs just to make sure everything was OK and the tank hadn't exploded in the middle of the night.
I managed to pick up a definite affection for Isaac Gonzales, though.
No points, Drunk History!
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Date: 2019-02-23 06:42 pm (UTC)(I probably wouldn't have even checked the footnotes, is the thing, it just comforts me to know that they're there.)
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Date: 2019-02-24 01:50 am (UTC)(That makes perfect sense to me. Good icon, though.)
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Date: 2019-02-23 06:41 pm (UTC)ROAR WITH ME
I AM STILL ANGRY AND IT'S BEEN YEARS SINCE I READ THIS BOOK
Also, collateral damage includes people like the mentally disabled man who wasn't killed but who suffered from PTSD after the explosion, to the point that his family could no longer safely take care of him and he went to a mental hospital, where he sickened and died. I am furious on his behalf. His life was destroyed and he can't have been the only one who was invisibly victimized, and yet it's easy for everyone in the chain of responsibility that killed him to go, "Whadda ya want of me? It wasn't MY fault!" He should have haunted the sleep of every USIA executive who never met him personally.
I found "Dark Tide" annoying in similar "this is what so-and-so thought to herself in the privacy of her own mind" ways. Pop history writing doesn't have to use dishonest tricks like that to be vivid. On the other hand, I appreciate what a comprehensive overview of the disaster and its knock-on effects you get in "Dark Tide."
Looking for heroes, to cheer myself up: how about that guy who climbed onto the elevated train tracks and blocked an oncoming train with his body, betting that the driver would stop before either running him down or taking the train into the collapsed tracks and blast site?
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Date: 2019-02-23 06:46 pm (UTC)Yeah, there are so many ways to get a bit novelistic in pop history that don't annoy me; you can do descriptive scene-setting and general 'this is what this person was like' just fine, as long as you don't try to get unbelievably specific.
I did love the heroic train engineer, though! HEARTWARMING DRAMA.
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Date: 2019-02-23 06:56 pm (UTC)JFC, I hope they had nightmares the rest of their damn lives.
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Date: 2019-02-23 07:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-02-23 07:00 pm (UTC)I remember hearing about this, though I don't know too many details besides the name and the fact that it happened. The whole idea of a molasses flood is kind of misleading, too--even knowing how awful it really was, the name always reminds me of something out of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. But this sounds horrifying. I'll need to see if my library has the book.
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Date: 2019-02-23 07:14 pm (UTC)Yeah -- at this point it's been a hundred years so I feel okay about respecting that great damage was suffered and many lives were lost while ALSO appreciating being able to talk about the Boston Molassacre, much like the Defenestration of Prague. But it very much was a tragedy! Just also a deeply bizarre one.
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Date: 2019-02-23 07:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-02-24 01:38 am (UTC)I'm not convinced that's not a children's book.
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Date: 2019-02-24 03:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-02-23 07:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-02-24 12:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-02-24 03:20 am (UTC)https://slate.com/technology/2010/02/the-little-told-story-of-how-the-u-s-government-poisoned-alcohol-during-prohibition.html
I can't remember now if I read about the molasses flood in that book or another one, though. /o\ It was definitely one of those pop hist of sci "the invention of X" type books.
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Date: 2019-02-24 05:24 am (UTC)I have no idea where or how I first heard of the molasses flood. I was just talking about it with
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Date: 2019-02-24 06:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-02-23 07:33 pm (UTC)You know, I'd never thought about this shtick before, but I used to read a lot of nonfiction, and that one bugs me too.
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Date: 2019-02-24 12:32 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2019-02-23 11:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-02-24 12:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-02-24 12:39 am (UTC)It was in fact an ebook hold! I almost exclusively read ebooks these days (most recent exception was rereading Saiyuki, the scans for the early volumes of which are just not good enough).
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Date: 2019-02-24 12:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-02-24 12:37 am (UTC)