Friday the 13th!

Happy Friday the 13th, everybody!

Triskaidekaphobia is the fear of the number 13, and friggatriskaidekaphobia is the fear of Friday the 13th. Those are big words for paranoia based solely on superstition and rumor. A majority of people know about being superstition of the number and date, but what isn't known is why we are superstitious of them in the first place.

Friday the 13th, © Jonathan Dalar

Friday the 13th is a fairly common occurrence.  There is at least one in every calendar year, and we can't go more than 14 months in a row without one: either July to September the year before a leap year and leap year, or August to October between the following two years after leap year.  In fact, it can happen up to three times a year.  After today, it'll happen in December and again next June.  And if you're planning ahead - ahem, really far ahead - you can check out all the months when Friday the 13th occurs until the year 2100.

Some theories point to Either Norse mythology or Christian tradition for a possible origin.  Norse mythology tells a tale of a dinner party in Valhalla, where 12 gods were in attendance.  Loki, the 13th and uninvited guest, walked in and caused a day of chaos and bad luck by tricking the blind god Hoder into shooting Baldur with a mistletoe-tipped arrow.  And according to some belief, it stems from the Bible.  According to biblical writings, Jesus had 12 apostles, a perfect number.  The 13th guest at the Last Supper was Judas, the man who betrayed him to the Sanhedrin priests with a kiss for 30 pieces of silver.  Both versions share similar concepts, and a similar accounting of events.

The earliest written link between the superstition and the date was in 1869, in Henry Sutherland Edwards's biography of composer Gioachino Rossini, who died on Friday the 13th.  Edwards wrote of Rossini, "He was surrounded to the last by admiring friends; and if it be true that, like so many Italians, he regarded Fridays as an unlucky day and thirteen as an unlucky number, it is remarkable that one Friday 13th of November he died."  Ironically, however, the number 13 is considered lucky by older Italians.  There, it's the number 17 that's considered the unlucky one.  Seems there might be conflicting stories there, eh?

Much has been made of accident rates on Friday the 13th, and according to some researchers, there just might be something to that notion.  The research was admittedly "too small to allow meaningful analysis," but it did show a staggering 52% increase in accidents in the particular region of England studied between 1989 and 1992.  And the Brits are not alone in suggesting this link between accidents and Friday the 13th.  A similar German study showed a 60% increase in accidents on that particular date.  While it appears a further, in-depth study should probably be done on the subject to say for sure, I wouldn't go all Mario Andretti on the Interstate today.  Any day, really, but especially today.  And if you are adventurous enough, and looking for somewhere exotic to go, you could board Flight 666 to HEL.  I hear it's popular on a day like today.

So what should you do?  Well, you do what you have to.  And you settle in this evening for a marathon viewing of Friday the 13th, the classic movie series that scared the bejeebus out of my generation when we were growing up.  I remember the first time I watched the film.  I was in high school, and I sneaked into the school library after hours with a girl to watch the movie.  It really wasn't all that scary until she grabbed my arm and screamed.  After that, I was a little jumpy.  Don't laugh; you would be too.

Whatever happens today, don't worry.  It's just a date, just a number, with no real supernatural power attached to it.  Its power derives simply from the superstition we allow it.  It's not like today is any different than any other day, where something terrifying will come up behind you suddenly, when you least expect it, and snatch you fr

Doomsday!

Doomsday scenarios are bread and butter for the speculative fiction aficionado, and one of the more common of these is the meteor strike.  Instant chaos, instant destruction, and the world is transformed into a completely different place.  In light of this morning's Russian meteor strike, I think it fitting to compile thoughts on this subject and share them here.

First, let's put this into perspective.  This Russian meteor was a bolide, or in layman's terms an air-burst, meaning most of it broke up on impact with Earth's atmosphere.  It was reportedly about 10 tons, or roughly the size of a dump truck, and according to NASA, is totally unrelated to the asteroid 2012 DA14 passing through Earth's atmosphere today. It was traveling in the opposite direction, and thus was not a part of any debris traveling in the asteroid's wake.  It was also traveling at 10-20 miles a second.

It exploded over the city of Chelyabinsk, east of the Ural Mountains, and just over a thousand miles due east of Moscow.  It's a city of about 1.1 million people, and almost a thousand of them so far have sought medical attention as a result of the meteor, mostly those injured by shattered glass and building debris from the sonic boom.

For a better understanding of the effects of a bolide explosion, watch this next video.  I recommend cranking your speakers to full volume to get the full effect.  (No, don't do that - it's friggin' loud!  Understandably, it also contains a lot of swearing in Russian.)

This pales in comparison to the meteor that struck the Tunguska area of Siberia in 1908.  That one was the largest recorded impact event in history, and struck with the force of a 5.0 earthquake as measured on the Richter scale.  The Tunguska meteor is also largely considered to be a bolide, meaning most of it didn't even hit the ground.  Even so, it flattened everything within an area 830 square miles wide, with a blast estimated at between 10-15 megatons of TNT, or about 1,000 times the size of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

So how did we not see this most recent one coming?  How did it escape attention until it impacted our atmosphere, far too late for any warnings or advisories?  Well, scientists say size has a lot to do with it.  Space is a pretty big place to look for something the size of a dump truck.  That, and if it's coming at us from the direction of the sun, rather than from dark space, it could be very difficult to see even if we were looking for it.

These events of course fuel our imagination, and propelled by the media's infatuation with hyperbole, can lend themselves to some pretty interesting speculation.  It's not hard to imagine the chaos and destruction involved with a meteor or series of meteors that actually impact the earth.

The more of these events that happen, and are inevitably filmed and recorded from every possible angle, the more we understand them.  We see firsthand accounts of their destruction, and hear how they affected common people.

Just imagine for a moment that the 2012 DA14 asteroid that passes by Earth today was actually on a trajectory to impact Earth.  The Russian meteor earlier was a dump truck-sized rock of about 10 tons; Astroid 2012 DA14 is about 190,000 tons, and 160 feet long.  That seems gigantic, but the size and speed of it would put it lower than the lowest estimates of the one that struck over Tunguska in 1908, with the kinetic energy of only about 3.5 megatons of TNT.

So we're safe.  For now.  But there's still hope, doomsdayers.  Asteroids of this size are expected to hit Earth about every 1,200 years.  Better get your affairs in order.  The year 3108 is just around the corner!

Banned Books

This week, September 30 - October 6, 2012, is Banned Books Week, so what better time to take a look at books that have been banned over the years in various countries?  I'll select a few examples, and discuss a bit about why they were banned.  Should be not only fun, but hopefully insightful.

Several classic science fiction novels have been banned in various countries, including some of the most iconic examples of the genre: Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm, both by George Orwell; Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley; and Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley.  Those are some pretty heavy hitters, and books that are now on many educational reading lists.  But why were they banned?

Brave New World was supposedly banned in Ireland for "references of sexual promiscuity," and in fact many books in many different countries were banned for similar reasons, including Frankenstein.  Obscenity seems to be a common theme for those pushing to ban certain books, and one does not have to look very far to find examples of books banned for obscenity as recently as this year.

I get the obscenity angle, the push to keep society (and children, of course) as Puritan as possible.  Many countries, the United Kingdom and America especially, have been quite prudish regarding this sort of thing.  But while it's understandable to shield those not mature enough to handle certain situations from them, it's another altogether to push an agenda of morality on a country's citizenry.  Banning something on moral grounds indicates not only mistrust in people to make rational decisions based on the content for themselves, but also behavior that stifles the ability to learn rational decision-making.  After all, if one is shielded from anything deemed inappropriate, how can they learn the process of identifying it as such for themselves?  "Because I said so" works well with toddlers.  They have limited experience with making sound decisions.  But once a person matures to the point where they are supposed to make decisions on their own, that is no longer a viable reason.

George Orwell's works have been banned for much more obvious reasons: they are outright political satire, and were banned because of their criticism of communism and corruption in government.  Stalin knew Nineteen Eighty-Four was a clear jab at him and his leadership, and enacted a ban on the book throughout the U.S.S.R that continued through 1990, when it was edited and re-released.

These are clear cases of the suppression of free speech, and key indicators of those governments' stances toward that basic human right.  Interestingly, communist-led countries were not the only ones to ban Orwell's books.  Allied forces banned Animal Farm during parts of World War II because of its critical look at the U.S.S.R., and was deemed too "controversial" to print during wartime.

Many other books have been banned for any number of reasons, with "subversive material," "hate literature," "insulting material," and "unflattering portrayal" of individuals, religions, governments, or populations cited as reasons.  Books as old as the Bible and as innocuous as dictionaries have been banned.  Generally, it appears that if a book contains anything someone somewhere would find objectionable, it's going to get banned.

And that's a shame.  A book may not be tasteful or politically correct.  It may be lewd, inappropriate, or offensive.  It may even be downright vile or provocative.  And none of that matters.  It's still just a book.  Words.  Nothing in any book should exempt the actions of a human being, capable of making conscious choice to commit those actions.

We've seen this tested recently, with the terror attacks in Benghazi, supposedly linked to outrage over an amateur movie.  We've seen calls to limit offensive or provocative speech.  Will common sense prevail, or as Fahrenheit 451 alluded to, will they one day come for our books in an effort to suppress dissent, quell unrest, or create the illusion of peace and prosperity?

Movie Review: Ladyhawke

It's one of the best cheesy fantasy films ever made.  It helped propel Matthew Broderick into the spotlight.  It was one of Rutger Hauer's few really good roles.  It starred a young and very beautiful Michelle Pfeiffer.  You've probably all seen the movie, and if you haven't, for shame.  Go see it now.  I'll wait.

Now that you've seen it, I really don't have to talk about the plot.  It's a pretty basic one anyway.  Get back to the castle in time to break the curse and end all that "hawk by day, wolf by night" nonsense that's keeping the lonely couple apart.    And while there are a lot of twists and turns along the way, you probably knew how it would turn out in the end.  Highlight the hidden text below if you want to find out what happens.  Spoiler alert:

They live happily ever after.

The real beauty of the film, besides Michelle Pfeiffer of course, was the cinematography - the setting and scenes of giant castles and quaint medieval towns.  Much of it was filmed in Italy, using the castles and picturesque towns of Rocca Calascio, Castell'Arquato, and Torrechiara.

Rocca Calascio, © Aurelio Candido

Rocca Calascio is a mountaintop fortress (lit. Rock, in Italian), in L'Aquila Province, Abruzzo, Italy.  At 4,790 feet above sea level, it's the highest fortress in the Apennine Mountains, and overlooks the Plain of Campo Imperatore in the Navelli Valley below.

Rocca Calascio, © Federi

It was built as a watchtower to accommodate a military garrison sometime around the 10th century, and was expanded over a period of time, especially in the 14th and 16th centuries.  It was never challenged in siege or battle, but was badly damaged in a powerful earthquake in the year 1461.  The movie distinctly shows how impenetrable it most likely was, with its high walls and inaccessible surrounding terrain.

Castell'Arquato, © Andrea Lodi

Rocca Viscontea di Castell'Arquato is a castle by the tiny town of Castell'Arquato in the hilly Emilia Romagna region of northern Italy.

Castell'Arquato, © Sergio & Babriella Trentanni

It's one of the best preserved castles in Italy, with picturesque views overlooking the town and surrounding countryside.  Much of the town dates back to the 13th century, allowing a distinct look into the history of the region.

Torrechiara, © Hellis Reverberi

Built in the mid-15th century, Torrechiara was the main castle "Aquila" featured in the movie, and is located in the province of Parma in Northern Italy.  Sitting high above the Parma river valley, it has remained almost unchanged since it was first built, a bold and formidable castle, a truly great setting for the final showdown with the Bishop of Aquila.

Torrechiara, © Luigi Alighieri

All in all, the movie is highly entertaining.  In part because of the actors and the plot, but also because of the magnificent scenery throughout.  It feels more like a fairy tale, an old story told around the campfire of some medieval band of merry adventurers.  So next time you watch it, take in the scenery and the footage of the beautiful Italian castles and towns.  Pay attention to the architecture and grand panoramic shots.  After all, you already know how it's going to end.

The Most Terrifying Night of my Life

It happened back in 1990, when I was living in Montana.  My buddies and I used to hike the trails and wilderness areas of the Bridgers, the Gallatins and the Absarokas, year around.  We were well familiar and perfectly at home there, no matter the time of day or year.

One meadow in particular, below the 8,300 foot Mount Ellis, in the Gallatin Range was a favorite.  I've climbed the peak itself hundreds of times if I've climbed it once, and I've been to that meadow many more times than that.  My high school, named after the peak, holds an annual race to the top.  I won the race four years straight, from 1985 through 1988 primarily because I knew which exact routes were the fastest to the top.  I knew that whole wilderness area as well as my own backyard.

The meadow was beautiful, nestled between the surrounding mountain tops, with pure, ice-cold water gushing out from several natural springs into a small tributary of the trout-filled Bear Creek below.  It ran northwest-southeast, at the base of the ridge between Mount Ellis and the lower Mount Wilson to the north.  It was the idyllic place to camp, relax, and enjoy the beautiful Big Sky wilderness.

Google Earth image of the meadow, looking north, with a snow-covered Mount Ellis at the lower left.

And then it changed.  I don't know when it did, but it was palpable.  Somehow it was completely different.  It happened gradually at first, so gradually that we initially ignored the nagging feelings of uneasiness we felt there.  The feeling grew stronger though, until it could not be ignored.  It was a feeling that something just wasn't right, that we weren't alone up there anymore.  We were being watched.  We were intruding, and whatever was watching us did not like us very much.  We couldn't put our fingers on it, but it was impossible to disregard.

Topographic map of the meadow, looking north, with Mount Ellis at the lower left.

I distinctly remember trying to hike up to the meadow that summer, only to find myself running back down the trail, scared to death.  There was no physical reason for it; I just couldn't do it.  There was something malevolent up there, and I knew somehow I was in danger if I stayed.

As summer turned to winter (there really isn't much of a fall in Montana), it turned more palpable, more deadly in its intent.  The boys and I talked about it several times together in the "Dwarven Bowling Alley", the low, long attic hangout that also served as my bedroom.  All of us had felt it, and in the same way.  None of us could put our finger on just exactly what it was.

Google Earth image of the meadow, looking south, with the slope to Mount Ellis at the upper right.

And we weren't the only ones.  I know a girl who tried riding her horse up the trail and was bucked off when the horse first refused to go up it and finally bolted in fear.  I know of several other people who came back down from the area and wouldn't go back up under any circumstances.  There was something up there, and everyone who ventured into its radius felt it.  Inexplicable, irrational fear was the common theme.

We had a lot of different theories about what it was, but since it wasn't anything more than a mutually shared feeling, it was hard putting any amount of accuracy to them.  We speculated it might be some sort of human ill-intent.  A recent bust in the area had shed light on the fact the mountain was being used as a drop point for drugs.  We also thought it might be a wild animal such as a mountain lion, as the big cats were quite common in the Gallatins.  It could possibly be rabid, or otherwise unsound of mind.

Cougar, © Wayne Dumbleton

Supernatural activity of some sort could not be entirely out of the question either.  Just down the road from the trail head to the mountain we knew of a field littered with arrowheads and chippings.  It was at least an old Indian encampment, if not a religious place or burial ground.  These were all theories, though, and none of them could explain what we felt.

It came to a head one cold November night in the strangest of ways.  Nothing about the incident served as concrete evidence, but when you take everything in perspective, coincidence seems like a pretty bad bet to take.  In fact, the odds of everything happening as it did would be astronomical.

We'd made plans to go up camping in the meadow on the weekend.  Mitch*, one of my buddies, was off on Friday and wanted to go up a day early.  Both I and another buddy, Rick, had to work, but we'd join Mitch the next day.  I had a job slinging sliders on the mid shift in Bozeman then, so I was able to take Mitch up to the drop off point that Friday afternoon before work.

I hiked with Mitch to the meadow so Rick and I could find his shelter easily the next morning.  He decided to camp under a cluster of large trees on the lower side of the meadow, not far from the trail leading into it.  I left soon after, still with that same uneasy feeling I'd felt before, and if memory serves me correctly, I ended up running most of the way back down to the trail head.  All the way back, I had that same uneasy feeling of being watched.

Gallatin Range, near Bozeman, MT circa. 1990 © Jonathan Dalar 

Later at work that night the feeling hadn't gone away.  It usually wore off after leaving the meadow, but this time it intensified, and was to the point where I was on edge and jumpy, my skin crawling with fear.  It seemed like there was something behind me, watching, waiting, no matter what I did.  Finally I was going out of my mind in stark terror.

I worked for a while, but something was terribly wrong.  I could feel it.  It was a feeling of sheer paranoia, and I couldn't shake it, no matter how I rationalized it.  It finally got so bad I'd had enough.  Mitch was in danger and I had to go get him.  I told my boss I was quitting early for the night.  She didn't want to let me off early, but I finally informed her I was leaving no matter what she said.  I told her it was an emergency, even if I had no idea what kind of emergency it was.  I was scheduled to get off work at two that morning, but it was just past eleven thirty when I left.

As I drove home, my hands actually shook at the wheel.  At one point I was trembling so badly I could hardly function, but managed to get my winter clothing on and get my gear.  I was going up that mountain if it killed me, and the more I thought about it, the more I was certain that was exactly what would happen.

I headed out the door, armed and loaded to the teeth.  We hunted every year then, and going out into the Montana wilderness, let alone at night after some unknown danger, was unheard of without several guns, knives and assorted hardware.  I pulled out of the driveway in a cloud of dust, starting out to rescue Mitch.

I got the rest of the eerie story from Mitch and Rick that night in the attic.  Seems I wasn't the only one with such premonitions.  Mitch said he'd gone to sleep early that evening, somewhere close to four or five in the afternoon.  Darkness comes early in the mountains there during the winter, and it was dusk when he'd turned in.

He'd bedded down for the night, but hadn't made a shelter as we often did while camping.  There was no need for one that night, so he'd cleared the snow away, laid down some pine boughs and stretched his sleeping bag and bedroll out.  As he'd drifted off to sleep, he looked out from his bag over the crust of accumulated snow and noticed a red glowing light, like a candle, but still and steady.  He dismissed it at the time, thinking it was a light from one of the houses down the canyon to the north.  He said afterward that before falling asleep, he'd felt peaceful, so strangely peaceful in fact, that he'd wondered about it.  He later told me it was the most tranquil feeling he's ever experienced.  It was pure ecstasy, he said, like nothing in the world was amiss.

Darkness vs Candle, © Ankur Sharma

Later that night he awoke, all signs of his earlier peacefulness replaced by sheer terror.  He told us he'd never been that scared in his life, and has never been since.  He didn't know what was causing this terror, but he couldn't fight it no matter what he did.  It was more terrifying a feeling than anything he'd ever felt.  Whatever was there wasn't just watching anymore.  It was after him.  He could feel it breathing down his neck.  He grabbed his rifle and fired several shots into the side of the hill across from him, thinking to scare off whatever it was there.

Instead, his actions had the opposite effect from what he'd intended.  "It was like whatever it was said, 'oh, there he is,'" he told me later.  "It was like the sound of the shots drew its attention even more and let it focus directly on me."  He threw his stuff together, grabbed his rifle, and began running for the trail headed down to civilization.  He said all his gear had been packed, and he brought it all back out with him, but if he hadn't, I'm sure he wouldn't have cared.  All he could do was run for his life.

Now this is where the story gets really weird, as if it wasn't enough so before.  Rick said later he had awakened in a panic that night around ten thirty or so.  He really doesn't remember many details anymore, so all we've gotten from him is that he knew Mitch was in trouble and he had to go get him.  He's a real lunch pail kind of guy, not given to any sort of unusual flights of fancy.  He's a mechanic and a heavy construction equipment operator, with little room for any sort of such strange nonsense.  It was completely out of character for him to respond in such a way, but respond he did.  He dressed and sped across town and out to the trail head shortly after, and began hiking up toward the meadow.

Mitch and Rick met on the trail just above the split, where the trail to the right sheered off and headed up New World Gulch.  Mitch says he saw something coming up the trail at him, and in his terror did not even recognize it as a person.  He saw it as a threat.  He felt the dangerous presence closing in from behind and steeled himself for a last stand, sure he would not make it out alive.

As soon as he saw Mitch, Rick began yelling at him at the top of his lungs, screaming that he was in danger, and needed to get out of there immediately.  Finally Rick's voice cut through and Mitch realized who it was.  Even then he could hardly lower his gun out of the terror that still surrounded him.

Gallatin Range, near Bozeman, MT circa. 1990 © Jonathan Dalar

Mitch finally lowered his gun as realization sunk in.  "You've got to get out of here now!  Throw me your pack and run on ahead of me," Rick told him.  He grabbed Mitch's pack and shoved him down the trail, following as fast as he could.  They ran down the path, still feeling that ominous presence, following, closing in.  Hunting them.

They made it back down to the car, tore down the gravel road towards home.  They rounded the corner to my driveway a short while later, just as I was backing out.  We almost collided.  Any longer and I would have already been gone, driving up there to get Mitch myself.  Rick and Mitch tumbled out of the pickup, scared out of their minds.

That night in the attic, we put the jumbled pieces of the story together.  As far as we could figure out the timeline, all three of us felt the same panicky feeling that Mitch was in danger at almost the exact same time.  All three of us felt so strongly we were obliged to instantly do something about it.  I begged off work over two hours early, Rick got up out of bed and drove there from clear on the other side of Bozeman, and Mitch knew he had to get out of there as fast as he could.  The coincidence of all three of us simultaneously feeling the exact same terror was certainly unusual.  And the timing was impeccable.  While I had a slight delay responding, that delay was due to an obligation to work.  If I'd have left when I first felt it, I'm convinced we'd have all met at exactly the same time and place on that mountain trail.

We stayed up into the early hours of the morning, talking about what had happened.  What had happened was so staggeringly impossible it couldn't nearly be coincidence.  There seemed no way in the world all three of us had felt such strong feeling of peril for Mitch at the exact same time that we'd done what we had.  Some force more powerful than we knew was at work here.  The only problem was we had no clue what it was.

Even talking about the experience was terrifying.  It seemed the more we talked about whatever it was out there in the mountains, the closer it came.  It felt like it was still on the prowl, hunting for us.  And we felt even talking about it allowed it to focus and narrow its search.  Finally we agreed not to talk further about it for a day or so, even though we wanted to figure out what it was.  Enough was enough, and we weren't taking the chance that talking about it allowed it to find us more quickly.

Afterward, the old timers in the area started coming forth with their stories.  Seems we weren't the first to experience something like that around the Gallatins.  There was even a tale of someone who hadn't had the luck we had.  Rumor had it, a few years prior, a man had been pulled off the mountain just to the north of the meadow a couple of days after he'd gone missing.  He was stark raving mad, and was taken to the asylum in Warm Springs where he spent the remainder of his days.  And he hasn't spoken a word since.

Now I don't know if that last story is true or not.  It's what several older residents of the area have told us.  I do know our story as I've told it is completely true.  Every single word of it is true, or at least accurate to the best of our recollection.  None of us knew what caused our terror, but there was clearly something at work there beyond our understanding.  I don't believe any of us have gone up that mountain or into the meadow since.

We still don't know what it was that night that so terrified us.  Nothing can completely explain it.  Mitch is convinced it was spirits from an Indian burial ground, that something was done to disturb them and cause them to haunt the meadow.  He swears he's seen the place bookmarked as such a burial ground on Google Maps, but when we looked recently, the bookmark wasn't there anymore.  It wouldn't be a stretch to think that though, as we know there are remains of an encampment just down the road a few miles, and the whole area was once their home.

"The Frog", Northeast of Mount Ellis, looking Southwest into the Gallatin Range, near Bozeman, MT circa. 1990 © Jonathan Dalar

I've used the experience as inspiration for stories before, but until now, I've never recorded it with words.  I have a hell of a horror novel outlined, based on what we felt that night and the months leading up to it, but I haven't written it yet.  Mitch begged me not to write it until I was good enough a writer to do the story justice.  I think I'm there now, and as soon as I can work up the courage to address it head on, I'll write it.  Until then, I'll do what I've done for over twenty years, and that is push it to the back of my mind so the nightmares go away and I don't risk it finding me again.

*The names have been changed to protect what little innocence may be left.

Book Review: The Black Obelisk

The Black Obelisk is certainly not Erich Maria Remarque's most famous work, nor is it his most widely read.  And while All Quiet On The Western Front continues to remain in print as a classic, I think The Black Obelisk is his best work.

I found my copy buried between the hundreds of old bodice rippers and second hand thrillers sent to service members in war zones as a part of the morale, welfare and recreation efforts back home.  As you can see by the photo, it's a rather beat up copy, so old in fact (Copyright 1957) that it's proclaimed to be "by the author of The Night in Lisbon".

I recognized the author and picked the book up, waiting my turn at the computers in the MWR hooch of our camp in Afghanistan.  I sat down to read and was immediately hooked.  In fact, I'm not sure I even found my way to a computer that evening.  I think I went straight back to my own hooch, curled up in my bed and read the book cover to cover.

And as soon as I finished reading it, I read it again.  It was that good.  Finished the last page and started from the first again.  I read it a couple more times on the plane ride home a couple of months later.  All in all, I've probably read it about a half a dozen times, putting it right up there as one of the books I've read the most.

But what's so special about it?  What made it that good that I've read it that many times, especially back to back?  Certainly being in a war zone with limited reading material contributed to that, but the book stands on its own merits nicely.  It's a fantastic read.

What did it for me was both the setting, and the characters' interaction with each other, which also largely derives from the setting.  It's set in 1920's Germany.  Inflation is a daily, even hourly sometimes, changing part of life.  It's chaotic, fabulous, tragic, and politically and emotionally charged.

The story is written in first person, and follows Ludwig Bodmer, a former German Army corporal and employee of Heinrich Kroll and Sons, a funeral monument maker.  Yes, that's right.  He makes tombstones for a living in impoverished 1920's Germany.

The characters are all colorful and interesting, as they finagle and con their way through their meager lives, but one of the more interesting parts of the story is the role inflation has on everything.  The way Remarque weaves the daily expanding inflation and its effects into their lives is simply amazing.  As a reader, you watch in awe as money that yesterday was enough to buy a tombstone, today is not enough to buy bread.  You see the way they use not only the barter system but also advance payments to make the money stretch further.

They're so embroiled in the sordid soap opera follies of their lives, that each day provides another twist to the complications they've largely brought on themselves.  Coupled with the fact that they are basically forced to take advantage of grieving loved ones after a death to simply make enough money to survive, it's almost too much.

Fortunately, they've got coupons.  Back when money was worth something, one of the local restaurants, in an attempt at advertising for more business, offered coupons for a free meal.  Ludwig and his friend and employer Georg Kroll have bought as many of these as they can, and now have a sizable stash.  Since inflation has basically turned money into worthless pieces of paper, the cost to buy one of these coupons, or a good meal would be enormous.  Needless to say, it's a horribly sore point with the restaurant owner, but they have the coupons and he must make good on them, essentially guaranteeing them a free meal any time they wish.

The book is such a compelling and fascinating look at the world of yesterday that I view it as a book everyone should read at least once in their lifetime.  It should be one of the books read in high school or college literature courses.  It should be in every bookstore in every English-speaking country in the world.

I was going to say that it should be in print.  I was going to lament the fact it wasn't available anywhere but possibly some out-of-the-way bookstore.  I was going to do that, but after checking Amazon one last time, what do you know, it is available!  This is a relatively new thing, too.  I checked not a few months ago and couldn't find it anywhere online.  At any rate, I'm very, very stoked to be able to point you to it in the hopes it will get a little more of the attention it deserves as one of the best pieces of classic literature ever written.  There, I've said it.  And I stand by it.  It is.  I highly recommend it.  And I might just have to order a brand new copy myself to replace the yellowed, dog-eared copy I found in the strangest of places.