When I went back to dig through my book boxes a couple of days ago in search of Maria Sabina: Her Life and Chants, I found a bunch of other books also, as might be expected from such a lousy arrangement.

One of these happens to be Room at the Top, a book written some guy I've never heard of called John Braine. A google search, however, implies that he's a well-known author from the UK, and he's even published another book entitled, How to Write a Novel, not to mention a whole list of other stuff.

I'm not sure how I got this book, and I haven't read it, though I started it a couple of days ago and have now reached page 10. Apparently (from the blurbs), it's about a ruthless young man, and there are several superimposed ink drawings on the cover which serve to reinforce this impression, a head shot of a man sneering derisively, left eye perhaps blackened, a woman in a low-cut dress in a pose reminiscent of Rodin's The Thinker, yet showing some lower leg (first printing, 1958) and clutching instead her head, fingers tangled in her disheveled hair, obviously distraught. And then on the back, this:

ON
THE
MAKE
This is the story of Joe Lampton, a charming opportunist who schemes and elbows his way to the top. Hot-tempered and coldly calculating, he's out for all he can get--power, money...love.

Anyway, I don't know if I'll finish this book or not, but I thought I'd mention it primarily because of the first paragraph:

I came to Warley on a wet September morning with the sky the grey of Guiseley sandstone. I was alone in the compartment. I remember saying to myself: No more zombies, Joe, no more zombies.

And this caught my attention, because I had been thinking of zombies after peeping at Kasey's zombie blog, and thus too about Wade Davis' book The Serpent and the Rainbow, recounting how he discovered what zombies are and how they are "made," and which I've read twice. I guess Bob Corbett's assertion that Davis kind of presents himself as an Indiana Jones type of guy might be accurate, though Corbett admits that "the book is certainly informative, interesting, and well written..[and] should be read by any students of Haiti." Well, it'd also be highly interesting to those who are discussing zombies. It's all very fascinating, and I'd recommend Davis' book to anybody who is not only interested in zombies, but poetry as well, since voodoo and poetry spring, I suspect, from a similar acuitive font, subject in any case to infinite variation.

I'm really traveling here. If this were a basketball game, the whistle would have blown, but it's not a basketball game, so I'll just push on toward the highlands of southern Mexico...

and Maria Sabina, but for now I've got to push the pause button.