Customer Reviews

The Book of the Damned: The Collected Works of Charles Fort

5 star:		(7)
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3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I feel obliged to disagree with the previous reviewer. Fort is not hard to read, in fact quite the opposite, but he is a product of a different era. Therefore, his work should be read for what it is - a massive collection of tabloid-esque miscellanea, liberally salted with Fort's trademark cynicism, humor and wit. You could just as easily flip through it and get sucked into the more interesting parts as you could read the whole bloody things through word for word, and you'd still come out at the same place. There really isn't a lot of linear plot or anything going on here. In fact, for those of the younger generations, you might be tempted to think of it as something of a blog, and in a sense, thats really what Fort did.

For those not in the know, the late Charles Fort was a compiler of oddities - teleportation, spontaneous human combustion, poltergeists, UFOs, out-of-place animals and of course, frogs falling from the sky during storms (a phenomena which he attributed to floating "Sargasso Seas" in the sky which sucked in, and occasionally dropped off, all manner of lost objects - not just frogs, in fact). Fort essentially criticized the presumption that humans can ever truly know or define the universe, and his work could be described as pseudo-scientific, but then you also should take it with a grain of salt. After all, he is credited with saying something along the lines that he never believed anything, especially not what he had written himself. Typical Fortean humor at it's best, and a good word of advice in general. All in all, theres over a thousand pages chock full of enough general weirdness to keep even the wackiest cranks happy... at least for a while.

So what's in this monumental work? The complete works of Charles Fort, four books in all - The Book of the Damned, Lo!, New Lands and Wild Talents. It's all more or less the same so it doesn't much matter what order you read them in (if any). I spent many an hour fondly flipping through my old Dover edition of his collected works, so I was very happy when my girlfriend presented me with this new copy (with a fancy new cover and everything!). If you are interested in UFOs, paranormal phenomena, psychic powers and other weird stuff in general, you almost certainly need to read Fort. He is at the cornerstone of all modern paranormal and pseudo-scientific "research." Indeed, his name has even been adopted by the popular (and bizarre) Fortean Times magazine. So Fort is a great example of bizarre pop culture Americana and should definately be read by anyone interested in the bizarre, strange or otherworldly. I mean, this is the guy who coined the term "teleportation!" Need I say much more?

Furthermore, the one thing I WILL agree with our previous reviewer on is that you can find much more background on Fort and his life in Knight's recent biography, "Charles Fort: Prophet of the Unexplained," as well as the aforementioned Jim Steinmeyer book. However, nothing compares to the biting wit of Fort himself, no matter how fun of a read it may be.

Long before I had ever read this book I had heard the title and was familiar with the name of the author. For some reason every so often this book is referred to in many different contexts so I was curious about what it contained.

I'll take the mystery of the book away immediately. Mr. Fort maintains that there is a whole body of "facts" that exist out in the world that are excluded from serious scientific consideration simply because they do not fit with the paradigms of contemporary scientific knowledge. He calls these bits of information "damned". So there, that is the premise of the entire book.

As one reads the book it becomes obvious that Mr. Fort was not writing in the context of modern science of the 21st century. His own personal scientific method is deeply flawed and relies on legends, folk stories, myth, hearsay and gossip. Much of what he discusses is downright silly by modern standards and many of the mysteries that he refers to have been solved a long time ago at this point.

The writing style is that of an amateur. The book is difficult to read because it is probably four times longer then it would be if the author didn't wildly inflate every description he provides. He could have made all of his major points in a brief pamphet and the reader of that pamphlet would acquire all of useful arguments of the book. But apparently his goal was to produce a sizeworthy tome in order to impress readers.

I too must disagree with the reviewer who finds Fort a difficult read. Fort wrote to a different literary standard. Enjoying Fort is a matter of adjustment. Otherwise, Fort's often convoluted and occasionally obfuscated style hides a wicked sense of humor and a visionary sense of wonder. When one puts Fort's underlying message, that the universe is a single construct and that everything is related, into the context that Fort wrote half a century before such ideas became widespread, Fort's genius begins to shine.

The sheer volume of research represented by this compendium is astonishing. And it is clear that Fort not only gathered odd reports, but contemplated them extensively as well.

This is a classic must-read that should be standard high school fare.

This book contains all four of Charles Fort's books: `The Book of the Damned'; `New Lands'; `Lo!'; and `Wild Talents'. `By the damned', wrote Charles Fort, `I mean the excluded. We shall have a procession of data that Science excluded.' And in these four books (or processions) we have a feat of recorded events of bizarre, strange and inexplicable anomalies for which science could not fully account. And what are these recorded events? They include frogs falling from the sky during storms, monsters, teleportation, poltergeists, and floating islands. They include people who disappear; people who reappear; and people who spontaneously combust.

This is an engrossing compilation of miscellaneous attention-grabbing events, approached with both belief and scepticism, and blended with scholarship and humour.
How to read this massive book? I'm pleased that I took Jim Steinmeyer's advice to read `Lo!' (the third book) first. By the time I got (back) to `Book of the Damned', I was totally engrossed. Fort's writing is humorous, cynical and witty. In Fort's view, it is not possible for humans to fully know or define the universe. I especially like his statement that: `There is something wrong with everything that is popular.' Whether or not this is always true, popularity certainly does not guarantee `truth'.

The collection of oddities compiled by Charles Fort is fascinating and it is possible to simply enjoy the descriptions without wondering about how and why these events took place. Fort's floating `Sargasso Seas' in the sky as a means of sucking in and dropping of frogs (and other objects) is as good as any other explanation for frogs falling from skies during storms. The fact that we can't explain all events doesn't mean that we shouldn't look for explanations to examine, accept or reject. Now that I have read Fort's writings, I am keen to read more about Fort himself.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

Charles Fort wrote the book on reporting strange happenings (pun intended).
He has a dry wit and often seems to be ridiculing what he is reporting.
His style is not that of a catalog of events but, rather, a series of tales told with wit and elegant language.
The Book of the Damned is an anthology of three of Fort's books... each equally facinating.
When you get tired of reading the mundane... reach for this book and change your outlook of history's secretes.

This book is probably the definitive book on Fortean phenomenon. Charles Fort, as you may know, is considered the father of the unusual, covering what would now be considered cryptozoology, UFOlogy, and several other genre covering the wierd and unexplainable. If you only bought one Charles Fort book, this would be it.

I have long been wanting to read the book but couldn't find a copy and I never thought of it while on line till now. Amazon made it available at a very good price and it is in a very readable format.

The book itself is exactly what I expected, a listing of unusual and uncanny events over several periods of time and some thoughts on HOW or IF they are connected. It points out that explanations of known events in the past have ranged from " It couldn't have happened, it is impossible and There is no theory for that to happen, so it couldn't have" for events like meteors and other quote impossible unquote events.
Charles Fort points out sources for his information.

I can't help feeling; he wrote some of the book with his tongue in his cheek, for some of the explanations, his and the official ones. The events however are traceable and did occur.

These are the Damned by the official explanations as these CAN'T HAPPEN even though they did, but not officially. Just in Reality, in history, they are ignored, denied, forgotten. Rocks and other objects can't fall from the sky and We Will Deny It to our last breath!!! Jupiter has no moons, WE deny it, Rocks don't fall from the sky, We deny it. The events in this book didn't happen We deny it! Charles reports the events and "coincidences" of events, how is arguable, what isn't, why is open for debate, where is documented. So are many "official explanations" that don't explain or fit the facts. Don't read this for serius explanations but for the events and their descriptions and you will leave and astonished both as to what happened and the idiots who denied it and their descriptions of why it couldn't have happened.

If Charles Fort had lived later, he would have had a ball dealing with Flying SAucers and UFOs but this preceded them or their fame.

A book filled with journalistic scourings of Charles Fort. Fort spent most of his life in the libraries of London and New York City. Interested by topics that mainstream science had ignored. All his information represented here has been printed by newspapers around the world. Unusual events and characters that will titillate and tease your imagination with Mr. Fort clever writing and his humorous theories.
I was inspired to purchase this volume after buying a DVD of the classic TV series "One Step Beyond" which based many of it's unique programs on Mr. Fort's works.
This book "The Book of the Damned" contains all four of Charles Fort's published books: "The Book of the Damned," "Lo!," "New Lands," and "Wild Talents." A wonderful romp into a world of strange encounters with UFOs,odd showers of fish, crabs, periwinkles, and more. A vast array of events that sciences refuses to discuss or even begin to rationally explain.
Mr. Fort has a charming journalistic style of the late 1900s that some might not find appealing but his collection of the odd and unusual makes the foray into this 1126 volume worth the read. At times humorous and at times harrowing a read that will have you looking differently at the world around you and wondering at everything out there.
I recommend this to hungry minds and souls that enjoy the Fortean facts about the world.

I'm giving a lower rating not for Fort's ideas, his research, or the presentation of these collected works. I'm giving it a low rating because, even as a reasonably educated and well-rounded individual, I find Fort's written work almost impossible to read. I shouldn't say impossible; I should say "more mental effort than I'm willing to exert on something I was only willing to read for amusement". I've never really been exposed to the man's actual writings before, although I had heard the term "Fortean", but suffice it to say that Fort's writing style is atrocious and his ability to communicate intelligibly and coherently is almost nonexistant. I am interested in the things he was trying to write about, but trying to wade through his sins against language to extract the accounts of interesting and unexplained phenomena is such a tedious chore that you won't want to bother. For a man who apparently made his living as a writer, the way he actually writes is most absurd and ridiculous. Grammatical and sentence structure conventions of any kind are largely ignored. The idea that Fort was a writer is like some kind of century old joke. Never has reading a book ostensibly written in English been so torturous and unpleasant for me, and I naively expected it to be lite reading at that.

Although I don't know this for a certainty, I suspect the new Fort biography by Jim Steinmeyer compiles and makes intelligible the interesting bits of information from Fort's works and makes him reasonably accessible to us mere mortals. Excuse my ignorance, but how anybody ever trudged through these atrocious writings in the first place to discover what in the world Fort was rambling on about and give him any acclaim or credence is a miracle I'll never understand. I would suggest anyone else new to Fort try Steinmeyer's book first and only come back to this one if the grueling and unpleasant reading experience is really worth it to you just to glean some century-old Ripley/P.T. Barnum type curiosities.

Whatever may seem apparent, isn't. In reading most books, one would logically start from the first page. Yet, in this book, the reader is admonished to start with the 3rd book, LO!, and go from there, then end up in the first book of the four volume published work. Like everyone that has already posted a review, this volume's subject matter appeals to one, or it doesn't.

Historically, Charles Fort, the son of a major grocer who didn't follow in the family business (nor graces for that matter), by choosing another view of the world, ended up writing himself out of shares of the family fortune. The errant son who could do no good in the eyes of his father. The son who had an immense curiosity about well, strange events. One who tried to explain someting for which there was/is no logical or scholarly explanation.

The book would have been all the more interesting had there been pictures or illustrations, but we are fortunate to have what we have; Charles Fort having burned 2 consecutive prior notes compendiums- each having taken Fort 10 years or so to compile. Read Fort's notes that talks about living frogs inside of hail, rocks, and who knows what else.

Fort was his own worst enemy, buring random notes after years of compilation, then starting all over again, gathering new notes about the same old same old. Though quacky and quirky, Charles Fort revealed what ever intellectual nowadays knows: Scientists do not know enough about the base subject, so they make up something that sounds logically plausible until a new theory arrives on the scene that debases the old conjecture.

Fort, not a scientist, does not attempt to explain anything; he just gathers the notes. And in the roughly 700 pages, notes either get redundant or just more confusing. Sure, it does help people to ponder and meditate the seemingly implausible aspects of nature, and planet workings, but a person could get the same experience in planning out the complete electrical wiring schematic from the upstairs apt, all the way to the power plant; as seemingly complex as engineering and desired results could get. Add more than one person on the planning and drawing board, and exponentially simple comprehension of the subject matter goes awry.

Fort only brings the matters to public awareness, but who could ever explain the phenomena? AND, where are the note takers in today's era? It's certainly not likely, in my opinion, that such qirky action stopped occuring.

This is an edit of the original. If you read this book enough, maybe you'd want to burn all of your notes like Charles Fort did, give the book away, and move onto some other work or topic. Just like giving an old car that constantly needs work away to someone as payback- (they'll be so busy working on the breakdowns they won't have the time or energy to bother you); this book will have their heads spinning about things for which there is no real explanation (provided they are avid readers). They'll purposely stay out of your way from then on, to avoid another time wasting exercise in seemingly interesting, but for the most part, useless narrative, should you ever elect to bestow them with some other similar 'gift'.
Want something with pictures and illustrations? Move on to the Rough Guide of the Paranormal.