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"Before you know it as the years go by, you're just like other people you have seen, with all those peculiar human ailments. Just another vehicle for temper and vanity and rashness and all the rest. Who wants it? Who needs it? These things occupy the place where a man's soul should be." -- Henderson the Rain King

Monday, August 08, 2005

This Is Burning Man

Book #36 on my quest to read 50 books this year was This Is Burning Man by Brian Doherty (a fellow Blogger).

I picked this one up in hopes of learning more about the Burning Man festival that takes place every year in Nevada's Black Rock desert. I've heard great things about the festival and always wanted to learn more about it, but I had never really had a chance to explore the topic.

Doherty's book does a good job of walking through the history of Burning Man from it's humble beginnings on a San Francisco beach to the massive art show/social experiment it is today. Along the way, Doherty interviews many of the people that make Burning Man happen, from creator Larry Harvey to its organizers and some of its most famous attendees including guys with names like Chicken John, Danger Ranger and Dr. Megavolt. Doherty's descriptions of Burning Man paints it as an amazing place unlike anything most people will ever experience. From art cars to flame-throwers to fighting robots, each story he tells provides a fascinating glimpse into life on the Playa. By the end of the book, I felt like I really had a good idea of what it would be like to attend the festival, and I didn't even have to stay a week in the blistering desert sun to find out!

Although I'm glad that I read the book, it's not without its faults. Doherty's experience as a long-time Burner makes him far from an unbiased observer. His observation that Burning Man is 'the most profound and subversive idea to surface in decades' feels like a stretch to me, and the book did little to convince me otherwise. In addition to being a bit sychophantic at times, the book also suffers from a wandering narrative structure. Doherty's approach of jumping from one aspect of the festival to another allows the reader to learn about a lot of different aspects of the event, but does little to build a cohesive argument for its greater social importance. In the end though I'm not sure that really matters, it sounds like one helluva party!

Here are links to a few more detailed reviews that you may find interesting:

The American Standard
Seattle Weekly
Las Vegas City Life

posted by Jamie at 2:06 AM