A feast of ‘weird science’
GRUNT Mary Roach Loot.co.za (R347) Oneworld
REVIEWER: SUE TOWNSEND
FOR THE uninformed, a grunt is a low-ranking American soldier. The sub-title of Mary Roach’s latest offering is The Curious Science of Humans at War. In this, her sixth book, Roach researches, very thoroughly, the many and various ways in which scientists explore improving the methods and equipment that can be developed to protect soldiers in war situations. As one commentator noted: “Nobody does weird science quite like her.” Not only does she “do weird science”, but she is also relentless in her determination to research everything she comes across to the Nth degree, she also does it with great verve and humour. The acknowledgements and bibliography run to over 12 pages. This is, however, anything but a dry, academic book.
Mary Roach is an American author, specialising in popular science and humour. Previous books are: Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers (2003), Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife (2005), Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex (2008), Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void (2010), My Planet: Finding Humour in the Oddest Places, Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal (2013), and now Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War (2016).
It’s not the science of killing that Roach looks for; she wants to take us through “the quiet, esoteric battles with less considered adversaries: exhaustion, shock, bacteria, panic, ducks” that our average combatant is faced with. As that description perhaps suggests, there’s something of a contradiction at the heart of Grunt.
While never exactly practising as an investigative journalist, Roach has specialised in tackling the uncomfortable, and at the heart of her every book is her desire to explore the places from which we recoil. In Grunt, though, Roach isn’t leaning into our uneasiness with, say, the conduct of American wars.
She keeps to the subjects she’s interested in – heat-dispelling fabric, the sudden demands of diarrhoea, the plague of flies – away from the murkier questions raised by endless wars. Also not for the squeamish is her chapter on reconstructive genital surgery for those who “sat on bombs”. A typical quote from one Marine: “I’ve had thirty six surgeries on my penis… and not one damn person has told me how I’m going to go home and use the thing on my wife.”
I was both engaged by the depth of research, the manner in which Roach has persuaded scientists to share their work with her (she even talked her way into a US naval expeditionary base in Djibouti) and enthralled by her quirky sense of humour that shines through her brilliant writing.