FREE ESSAY ON STYLE CRITIQUE ON THE HOT ZONE

STYLE CRITIQUE ON THE HOT ZONE

Style Critique on The Hot Zone
Lassa is a Level 4 virus from West Africa, and it was one of Peter Jahrling's favorite
life forms-he thought it was fascinating and beautiful, in certain ways. He had held in
his gloved hands virtually every hot agent known, except for Ebola and Marburg. When
people asked him why he didn't work with them, he replied, I don't particularly feel like
dying.
Richard Preston traces the known paths of Ebola and Marburg in The Hot Zone. He tells of
their discovery, effects, and the outbreaks. Level 4 scientists for the Army, the CDC,
and several civilian scientists track down the viruses in order to conduct tests and find
the secret hiding place of the viruses. The height of the story occurs when Ebola Zaire
is discovered in a monkey house near Washington, D.C. and the Army has to decontaminate
the entire facility. Luckily, the airborne strain only affected monkeys and didn't infect
humans. Preston concludes with his own trip to Africa to look at a possible reservoir of
the viruses. 
Preston's style is sensational journalism. He uses graphic detail when describing the
effects of the viruses to make it sensational. Doctors would be brief and scientific in
their reports on the symptoms. Preston description's are not brief and are graphic.  His
face lost all appearance of life and set itself into and expressionless make...the
eyeballs themselves seemed almost frozen in their sockets, and they turned bright red. He
began to look like a zombie...and then you see that his lips are smeared with something
slippery and red, mixed with black specks, as if he has been chewing coffee grounds. ....
He is going into shock. He leans over, head on his knees, and brings up an incredible
quantity of blood from his stomach and spills it onto the floor with a gasping groan. The
only sound is a choking in his throat as he continues to vomit while unconscious. Then
comes a sound like a bedsheet being torn in half, which is the sound of his bowels
opening and venting blood. The blood is mixed with intestinal lining. No doctor would
ever describe the effects like Preston did. He is graphic to make it more interesting and
exciting. He spices it up to attract and draw the attention of the reader, to get his
point across. 
Preston occasionally adds the character's thoughts as they recalled them during their
interviews with him. Preston states that  if you ask a person, What were you thinking?
you may get an answer that is richer and more revealing of the human condition that any
stream of thoughts a novelist could invent. He's right; fact is stranger than fiction. 
Aw, crap! They'll put me into the Slammer. And Tony will be filling out accident reports
while I'm breaking with Ebola. And a week later, I'll be in the Submarine. Shit! Jerry's
in Texas. And I didn't go to the bank today. There's no money in the house. The kids are
home with Mrs. Trapane, and she needs to be paid. I didn't go the market today. There's
no food in the house. How are the kids going to eat if I'm in the Slammer? Preston used
their thoughts to make it more realistic and to give the human perspective. Their
thoughts showed that some were *censored* scared and didn't want to touch it while others
were fascinated with the virus and wanted to work in Level 4. 
Preston tries to develop the characters, make them more reals. He gives background
information, physical description, and occasionally talks about some personal habits or
what others thought of them. Some of the officers at Fort Detrick had noticed a certain
abrupt quality in her hand motions and had accused her of having hands that were too
quick to handle delicate work in dangerous situations. Nancy had begun martial-arts
training partly because she hoped to make her gestures cool and smooth and powerful, and
also because she had felt the frustrations of a woman officer trying to advance her
career in the Army. Preston's outline of the characters makes it easier to understand
their actions and why they were involved with the viruses. It makes them more of a human,
not just a character in some story.
The story narrated by Preston. He is the omniscient narrator; he comments and acts like
he knows their thoughts. First Nancy inspected the monkey, looking through the bars. It
was a large male, and he looked as if her was really dead. She saw that he still had his
canine fangs, and that made her nervous. Periodically he tells about his interviews in
the 1st person, Are you worried about a species-threatening event? He stared at me. What
the hell do you mean by that? I mean a virus that wipes us out. The final chapter, when
he visits Kitum Cave in Africa, is also told in the 1st person. Preston uses the 1st
person to make it more personal. He also uses it at the end in order to portray his
feelings toward the subject.
 Ebola had risen in these rooms, flashed its colors, fed, and subsided into the forest.
It will be back.