Stretching the facts

Press, 10 August 1985, Page 20

Stretching the facts

Strange Stories; Amazing Facts. Reader’s Digest, 1984. 608 pp. index. $29.95

(Reviewed by

Philip Worthington)

A rather uneven pastiche of brief items in the “Believe it or not!” mould, this book relies heavily on slick and glossy presentation for its appeal. Almost everywhere the exclamation mark is implied in the sensational overstatement of a carnival sideshow. Almost as frequently a question mark actually occurs — whether as a dubious ploy to suggest detached and scientific inquiry, or simply to titillate, or as an admission that the publishers could not be bothered sorting fact from fiction is hard to say. It is enough to warn that sub-headings of the type “Was the empress guided from beyond the grave?” and “Was the harmless old villager a witch?” abound. Not infrequently, fanciful theories or unsubstantiated folk tales are presented as fact, without even the cautionary signal of a question mark. Even when dealing with “facts,” the book’s hit and miss style reduces its worth. On page 322, debunking the “myth that octupuses are extremely dangerous,” we read: “On the rare occasions that swimmers have been bitten by an octupus’s beak-like mouth, which can inject venom, the usual result has been only a slight, temporary swelling.” Fair enough, but on page 107, under the heading “Bluewater killers,” we are told: “The

deadliest of all animals live in the sea. One of the most terrifying is the blueringed octupus of the Pacific. Its venom, injected through its horny beak, is so potent that a bite can kill a man within two hours. Although scientists have discovered the chemical make-up of the venom, it acts so quickly that antidotes are useless. Many people presumed drowned are believed to have been victims of the octupus.” Take your choice. The dangers of selective browsing aside, the number of entries in the book is so large that an inquistive reader will find some novelties and curiosities worth investigating further, though the bibliography might not be of much use in the quest. The book would have been improved by some winnowing of the wheat from the chaff; for all its bulk, the result is pretty lightweight.