Customer Reviews

Merde: Excursions in Scientific, Cultural, and Socio-Historical Coprology

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Having long considered myself an amateur anthroscatologist of perhaps Stygian proportions, I was very intrigued by news of this book and found it a sheer delight. My first exposure to the subject occured at the age of 1 day and I've been poking and prodding and sniffing around this forbidden topic ever since, although up to now there has been very little said in the popular press about it, other than smirky one-liners on South Park and, of course, sanitized references in family comics like The Family Circus.

I especially agree with the author's contention that Nature selects those organisms that produce the neatest "packages," this has always been a pet theory of mine and I am glad someone more learned and erudite has pinched off this theory and left it unflushed and proud in the bowl for all to see.

Now, some people may be offended by the subject matter of this book, but poop is something we all do and as a matter of fact it may be the most creative thing many of us ever do. There is a vast and powerful network of machinery and social organization devoted to waste products that many of us are never exposed to or think about, but it is there nonetheless. We couldn't survive without this hidden Turdocracy and the author does a bang-up job of intimating just which creek we'd be up sans paddle without it.

The book is well-constructed and its many ancedotes and bon mots make it an easy read for the dump-and-runner, although the seriously constipated academic types and their dir-snake-honking lay counterparts will find its minutae and careful reasoning a rich minefield of knowledge. I give it three full loads in the Pampers, ratings-wise.

"For some reason, among the most fragrant coffees of Java are reputed to be those made by roasting beans that have passed through the intestinal tracts of civets."

How could anyone possibly object to a book that disseminates facts such as the above as freely as certain birds disseminate seeds in their droppings? Ralph A. Lewin, professor of marine biology at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography thoroughly investigates the science, culture, and social history of coprology even down to the motto that was supposedly stamped on the British Navy's official toilet paper, i.e. "England expects every man to do his duty."

This book is a hoot--or maybe I should say 'a toot,' most especially the chapter on "Smells and Other Chemical Components, including Gases." Lewin quotes everyone from Hildegard von Bingen (ca. 1155) to President Clinton, beginning in the chapter on "Terminology and Cultural Attitudes" in which he somewhat coyly does not translate a couple of expressions in Greek and Latin. One of the most interesting revelations in this chapter is that the Chinese don't generally make a vulgar expletive out of their term for excrement, i.e. 'da bien' which the author translates as "the 'big convenience' (as distinct from the more fluid 'small convenience')..." Most languages, including the sign language used by chimpanzees embrace this most common example of coprolalia.

Another interesting revelation (this book is full of them) is the French restatement of Murphy's Law: "La loi d'emmerdement maximum."

The final chapter "Myths, Legends, and Holy Ordures" covers some of the supposed medical uses of feces: "Hippocrates asserted that pigeon droppings were efficacious against baldness, though whether this claim was based on personal experience is not recorded." Perhaps Hippocrates was correct, since one hardly ever sees monuments to bald generals in public spaces. This might also be the reason that some people believe it is lucky to be decorated by a bird dropping.

Barring the first and last chapters, most of the text is devoted to the physical manifestations of feces, and the various ways that animals and humans deal with this common organic by-product. This includes discussions of territorial markers, chamber pots, sewage, abstergents such as toilet paper and corn cobs, nutritional values, and uses for construction and decoration.

"Merde" is short enough to read in a single evening, but you may spend the rest of your life quoting bits of it to your friends.

This crappy little book is a brief, extremely entertaining survey of excretaia. The author, in revealing the history of toilet paper and the phenomenon of virginally-fragrant "Holy Odures," displays an erudite, Rabelasian delight in minutiae related to the task: His compact, one hundred-fifty-page work generates a further seven-page bibliography, as well as a twenty-eight page index.

Lewin's research has an amazing breadth, and his organization is amazingly bad. You'll be exposed to more random bits of information about feces than you ever expected.

The sorting of information into chapters is not bad, but the structure of those chapters is stunningly awful. Facts and two sentence anecdotes are thrown together willy-nilly with no thought as to how to connect them. Lewin jumps from Hippos to Amtrack trains between sentences. I have no idea how he decided where to begin new paragraphs.

Other than that, this is a fascinating book. It is ideal for when you are on the toilet, doing your business, and have a few minutes to read -- open it anywhere and read for while: you don't have to worry about not finishing a section, or forgetting where you were because there is no logical structure.

This book is in the bathroom where I work, and the entire office loves it, often discussing it at lunch. Put it in your bathroom, and amaze your guests.

Perhaps Lewin wanted to write a book about bowel movements for when you are having one... if so, this was genius.

Overall, this book was a mildly interesting, quick read, probably suitable for a weekend around the house. I found myself, however, mildly fatigued due to the awkwardly strung together facts, as if they were simply plucked from their sources and placed on paper with a minimum of effort. Unfortunately, except for a few points, any information in this book isn't "new" and could probably be found, with some effort, in encyclopedia's, National Geographic, etc. In my opinion, I would be willing to pay as much as seven dollars for this book, however, not the publisher's price, demanded by such obvious esoteric subject matter.

"Nobody seems to pay any attention to the south ends of animals!" Scientic literature is full of mouth anatomy and gut physiology, but what about the net result, the single most ubiquitous material in the living world? Is it impolitic to claim that Dr Lewin has treated the subject with relish? (It's been teated with almost everything else, from disdain to quicklime...) This is an amusing, wide-ranging book,written in the form of a personal essay rather than as a "scientific" tome, scientifically sound and educational, and an utter blast to read. I, as a matter of fact, read it in one sitting, part of which was on the .... oh well, never mind. Now, I have to admit to a bit of bias here: Ralph and I have spent some time together at sea, doing research, and invoking his first name repeatedly over the port fantail rail: I knew the book was in the works. I've waited several years for it: the wait was worth it. If you are curious at all, or if you just appreciate fine British tongue-in-cheek humor, buy it. Buy several: you will NOT be able to hang onto your own copy, and surely there's someone on your list who, for whatever reason, rates it! (I bought ten as gifts and will likely do several more.) A bravo to Ralph. Now if we could just locate his first volume of erotic poetry in Esperanto....

My favorite books include Tristram Shandy and The Adventures of Pergrine Pickle; thus I could not pass up this source material as explication of much of the substance of 19th century English literary humor. As the last reviewer noted, one copy is simply not enough. I am ordering an additional 4 as I speak. We create an enormous amount of waste during on sentient sojurn herein. Ignoring it serves no purpose; the attention paid by Mr. Lewin may serve none as well, but it certainly assuages years of curiosity and provides lots of entertainment.

For those who have no fear of the subject, Merde is a wondrous look deep into the world of faeces. Often humorous and always infromative, Lewin surveys the human and animal world of excretions. Great book to read aloud to your friends, should you find you have too many.

This is a disappointing book. There's nothing here but a loosely related collection of trivia. It reads like a long essay which became a short book because the author didn't know when to stop.