Words

Words

Sunday, August 9, 2009

Columbine by Dave Cullen



This is the first time I've written a book review on this blog page. I read often and many times I've found these books thanks to the other blogger's sites I visit and enjoy.

This time, I have to give credit to NPR. I had the radio on some time back while driving and listening to a review of Columbine, by Dave Cullen. It intrigued me, stuck with with me, and I put it on my "to read" list for the library.

I picked this book up and it was one of those reads I could not put down. Mr. Cullen is a reporter who was one of the original reporters on the scene the day Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold wreaked havoc on Columbine High School. He was there within a half hour of the first reports hitting the air waves.

Now, while he is a part of the media, I will give him kudos for finding a way to dissect this story and piece it back together again. His writing manages to break through much of the misinformation we were fed about the incident. He does this by letting us view the story from many sides. We see it played out in the media; the theme they first bit into and exaggerated until the end. The story as it unfolds in Eric's diary, web site, daily life, and mind until he plays it out on April 20, 1999. We see it in the drama from Dylan's actions and words. Friends whom they rejected help sketch out the sign posts that show us where these boys were headed in their final act. We hear from the people they fooled, and those that unknowingly helped them carry out their Judgement Day, as they titled it. We are given a peek into the shattered lives of the families that raised them. The victims, the teachers, the principals, counselors, and employers all come together like a choir that helps unleash the boys final crescendo.

I didn't expect to like this book. I wasn't sure why I even wanted to read it, but I found it fascinating and revealing of how easily we can be fooled by people. Even those we love.

In this story, there really never is any resolution as to why this happened only that it did. Only that it has given others neon signs to follow on the path to danger and how to recognize them. It also forewarns us that even children can be full blown psychopaths.

As Eric Harris quoted Shakespeare in his journal, "Good wombs have given birth to bad men," and that really is the crux of this unveiling. That, and the fact that even as a parent you can never know your children too well.

3 comments:

Dave Cullen said...

Thanks for that wonderful review of my book. I'm honored that mine was your first on the blog. I hope to see many more. Anything that keeps interest in books alive is great by me.

I'm glad you found it hard to put down. I sure thought a lot about that as I wrote and edited it. I didn't want this to be a "good for you" book you'd hate to read.

I don't think any book should. All books should make you want to read more. I wish more people did.

Thanks.

Dave Cullen said...

Oh, and there's more info at my Columbine site, too, if anyone's interested.

Thanks.

d

gm said...

Cullen , who first reported on the story for the online magazine Salon, acknowledges in the book's source notes that thoughts he attributes to Klebold and Harris are conjecture gleaned from the record the pair left behind.

Jeff Kass takes a more straightforward approach in "Columbine: A True Crime Story," working backward from the events of the fateful day.
The Denver Post

Mr. Cullen insists that the killers enjoyed "far more friends than the average adolescent," with Harris in particular being a regular Casanova who "on the ultimate high school scorecard . . . outscored much of the football team." The author's footnotes do not reveal how he knows this; when I asked him about it while preparing this review, Mr. Cullen said he did not necessarily mean to imply that Harris was sexually active. But what else would such words mean?

"Eric and Dylan never had any girlfriends," the more sober Mr. Kass writes, and were "probably virgins upon death."
Wall Street Journal