Customer Reviews

Swamp!

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

 

 

Readers of SWAMP! will find that the archaeologists they see digging by the side of the road live not in a world reminiscent of 'National Geographic'...far from it! Highly recommended for anyone who is even thinking of becoming an archaeologist, or those of us who find ourselves stuck in the field of cultural resource management. My co-workers and I constantly entertain ourselves by reading passages aloud on our drive to projects. Five stars!

This is one of the funniest books that I have ever read in my life! I just happened to get this book and really enjoyed it. The author has a fabulous sense of humor. There are many funny episodes that are woven into the story and those episodes never got me bored. One day, when I was on the way home by bus, one of the episodes popped into my mind and I couldn�ft stop laughing, acting like an idiot. However, it is not just a funny book. I have never been to the south of the United States but his well-written story is vivid enough to let me feel it. This book takes the readers to the South! The book is light reading but he also describes how the environment had been ruined in the name of civilization. It casts a question whether human�fs effort to pursue the convenience really ends up to evolution or human happiness. It is worth reading!

Joe Pachinko captures all that is life on the underbelly of the contract archaeologist. A dark and dismall tale that does not make life pretty just so it can be consumed my the masses. Joe Pachinko proves that he knows first hand the horrors of which he tells. From the raping of the land with toxic waste, to bowing down before the altar of the dollar while disreguarding human life ,to the squaller that Sam and Billie Jo live in, this story never lets the reader catch his breath. Image after image is thrust upon you, almost breaking yor will, but dragging you forward at the same time. Delving into the twisted, but somehow truthful mind of Sam, life is definatly not seen through rose tinted glasses. This book is stark reality at its core and does not yield for the faint hearted. A wonderful piece of literature that should be quickly digested, but only if you can keep it down!

Joe Pachinko's book, "Swamp", is a stark and semi-realistic look at the business known as contract archaeology. In humorous tones, he shows the reader what some contract archaeology businesses are doing or should we say not doing in the United States today. It shows that like most businesses, the almighty dollar is the most important driving force. The good in the novel are that the two heros are into archaeology not for the money but for something more. Everybody in archaeology working as a professional or is interested in archaeology should read this book.

I love this book! If you like adventure, environmental awareness, romance, scatology, and most of all HUMOR, you won't be disappointed here. In fact, SWAMP is very hard to put down once you start reading. Ostensibly a story of impoverished contract archaeologists, this book actually has a much bigger scope, the toxification of the world by the clueless. Some of these clueless characters are so funny, I couldn't breathe from laughing so hard. Of course, the environment is a sad subject, too, but I think Pachinko's leavening the subject with such brilliant and insightful humor makes the 'message' go down a lot easier. Be aware, Be entertained, Buy the book!

Pachinko has acheived with Swamp what no one else has had the liver to attempt. The era of archaeology (CRM) being garbled with glory and gold has begun the overdue process of being expunged. A true reading of field work has finally come into view. Anyone need a munsell? Let's have a toast to Joe. Where is the sequel? Where are you?? Surely there is more to tell.

Packinko has acheived with Swamp what no one else has had the liver to attempt. The era of archaeology (CRM) being garbled with glory and gold has begun the overdue process of being expunged. A true reading of field work has finally come into view. Anyone need a munsell? Let's have a toast to Joe. Where is the sequel? Where are you?? Surely there is more to tell.

Joe Pachinko's SWAMP! takes you by the scruff of the neck and shoves your face into the festering, pus-dripping hole that is the world of contract archaeology. Based on his life experiences, where "only the names have been changed to protect the guilty," SWAMP! follows the lives of two contract archaeologists, Sam Statinko and his girlfriend Billie Jo Nevel.

"Contract archaeologists are paid (very little) not to find anything," according to a quote from chapter 17 and this really sums up the life that Sam and Billie Jo lead. The contract archaeologist is hired by a corporation that wants to develop land but has to make sure it is clear of any historic debris before starting in ernest. The corporation does not want the contract archaeologist to find anything of any historic nature as that would mean a slowdown in the timetable for developing the land.

Sam and Billie Jo work for a company called ARKEX-5. Their job sites are located in Louisiana along the Mississippi and the work they do, miserable by any standard, is utterly useless from an archaeological standpoint. In one example, a native American burial site is discovered and, although it is slightly excavated, their contract says they are supposed to ignore it and move to another site to do their tests. Whether they are searching for the remains of slaves quarters on an old plantation or doing soil samples in the hot and "flagrantly fragrant" swampland, the locals don't understand their jobs and the companies that hire them don't want them around.

While following these characters though the drudgery of their lives, where a cool beer is one of the few solaces, we can feel the heat of the sun cooking our brains and smell the foul odors boiling up from the swamp. Sam sees a world where the act of washing a tomato from the grocery store is useless when there are more chemicals in the tap water than were ever sprayed on the tomato in the first place. He doesn't blink in his piercing look at what big business does t! o the environment, their workers and the people in the surrounding countryside in its drive to make more money. The Mississippi isn't called the "Colon of America" for nothing.

SWAMP! condemns the human race at the same time that it screams "WAKE UP! YOU'RE S******G WHERE YOU EAT!" Sam's character, however, doesn't offer any solutions through his damning look at the world and southern America. This is not a condemnation of the book as I think Pachinko successfully captures the feeling that many people have about big business and destruction of the environment. The human race is speeding along on a roller coaster ride of our own making that gobbles up resources and wastes them all in the name of more money. SWAMP! never pretends that there is anything more to the equation than that.

After reading SWAMP! I found myself fascinated and appalled by the world of contract archaeology, a world that did not exist 40 years ago but today is going strong. The book is not for the faint of heart. The job Pachinko describes is dirty, the sex is dirty, the food is dirty and keeps you running for the Port-O-Let. Even so, I finished the book and wanted to get it out to anyone and everyone I could. This book should be required reading for every archaeology student now in school.

When I recommend SWAMP!, I give each person I talk to a disclaimer; "Let the first 50 pages wash over you and don't think to hard about them." I say this because Pachinko's writing style sets up the narrative in such a way that you spend the first 50 pages trying to get a handle on what's happening as he jumps to different times and places in each chapter. Right around page 50 or so you're probably hitting cruising altitude and ready to absorb the experiences that are flying past you. And what a story he tells.

This book may be one of the worst books I've ever read. The writing style is pretentious and vulgar, the main character is a thinly-veiled and extremely arrogant authorial avatar, and the author has only the vaguest grasp of how punctuation works. He also occasionally slips into first-person narrative for a sentence or two. There is no detectable plot. I'm guessing it was self-published by a press which did not own a red pencil.

Every metaphor in this book seemed to involve filth, whether scatological or otherwise. I felt like I needed a shower at the end of every chapter. The book felt contaminated.

The only reason I bought it was because it is by someone who used to work for the same company I did, and is very obviously about that company. And the only reason I award it two stars is that it does actually achieves one of its goals: It paints an accurate picture of the lives of archaeologists in America. If that interests you, you might give it a try; otherwise, give it a miss.