Human weakness

Human weakness

HEAVY seas sink small boats. They always have, and they always will. But there isn't a book about each one. If there was, we would long ago have run out of forests, and libraries would cover the globe.

No seaman would recognise the name of this book, The Perfect Storm. A perfect storm, to any seaman, is one which goes somewhere other than where you are at the time. But they would recognise the people and the boats in this perfect storm.

Sebastian Junger is not a seaman, but he is fascinated by the sea. Luckily for the reader, he is a journalist, and he has put together an atmospheric report of a ferocious Atlantic storm. He avoids dramatics, avoids poetry, avoids purple prose, and builds the story through the people caught out in it. It is a human story and a storm of a read.

The Perfect Storm. Junger, Sebastian. Published by Fourth Estate, 6 Salem Road, London W2 4BU, UK. JG

Travelling hopefully

IF memory serves me correctly, it was Henri Charriere, in his sequel to Papillon, who wrote about the delights of asking for directions in South America. Having been told by a local how to get where he wanted to go, he asked how long it would take him. "Two cigarettes," said the man with a shrug.

If only it were that simple. My own sense of direction is legendary, but my heart went out recently to Fra Mauro, a sixteenth-century monk who set out to create a perfect map representing the full breadth of creation. In an island monastery in Venice, he experiences the adventure of a lifetime without leaving the confines of his cell. News of his ambitious project attracts explorers, pilgrims, travellers and merchants, all eager to contribute their accounts of faraway people and places. And as Mauro listens, his map begins to grow and take shape.

It is quite a project. Imagine sitting down with a blank sheet of paper, and not even an x to mark the spot. Imagine, too, the ribbing Mauro might have had to endure. (Fra Mauro's a mapmaker. Cartographer? No, he went of his own accord). James Cowan has drawn an endearing character in the cloistered monk who never went north of Venice but who painted on a strange and cosmic canvas of strange beasts and faraway places with strange-sounding names.

Recommended but - at just 150 pages and no B roads - not for long journeys.

A Mapmaker's Dream - The Meditation of Fra Mauro, Cartographer to the Court of Venice. Cowan, James. A Sceptre Paperback published by Hodder & Stoughton, 338 Euston Road, London NW1 3BH, UK. Price £6.99.
CH