Rain

For such a wide topic as rain, Cynthia Barnett manages to tie this together. Her book “Rain” feels more like a collection of magazine articles than a book, but there are reoccurring characters, important facts and developments, and the last chapter, a sort of review, comes full circle. Much more for fans of history than those simply interested in the science, this book is brimming with factoids and stories, in clear, easy to read sentences. For example, “ombrophobia” is the fear of rain, and “pluvial” is the Latin word for rain. We read about why our fingers wrinkle up when they get wet, and where “cloud nine” as well as more technical terms like “forecast” came from.

I don’t like to complain, but here I take the opportunity: I’m tired of seeing “you’ve never heard of”s or writing to that effect. Even before reading “Headstrong,” I knew of Rosalind Franklin and Ada Lovelace. That said, a chapter celebrating Thomas Jefferson’s rain collecting efforts was not really what I wanted to see either. However, I now know to thank a Mary Anderson for inventing windshield wipers, and have a better appreciation for how we can predict the weather (if not the entire climate).

The book is about the role rain plays in history, and how it affects everyday life. Detailed in these pages is how much of the history of the U.S. was shaped by rain and weather patterns, and humans messing with the environment from the beginning. There is, too, some underlying science to all the attempts to deal with the weather, from the "rain fakers" to government efforts to citizen science. In the mid-1800s, when Southerners feared the government might gain control over rain production (by controlling fires – in the form of explosions, inspired by the war-time cannons), this is an interesting parallel in history in this country, where some people still fear the government, and don’t trust science either.

The author does her part to show that climate change is real, and is already in showing its signs, from Manchester, England to the rainiest part of India (and the world), where she closes the book in a thoughtful travelogue. In an earlier chapter, she journeyed to India to visit a perfumery that captures the scent of rain. The smells associated with rain are as earthy as they sound: ozone, petrichor, geosmin.  Mitti attar is an essential oil, made by an ancient tradition, a guarded secret process, though not in its entirety, as she describes some of it here. Why would they drink from clay cups and then throw them on the ground to break? To use later in another form – the fragments absorb the essence of rain smell, which is eventually distilled into sandalwood oil.

One thing I don’t quite get is why architects supposed to be brilliant wouldn’t even bother to rainproof some of their buildings, so that mold, mildew and water damage will be perpetual problems. What’s stranger still is why, on rare occasion, more than water falls with rain: not cats and dogs, but frogs or fishes, for example, and colored rain, in one case suggesting evidence of extraterrestrial life. There is of course acid rain, and El Niño, and yet poor planning on the part of humans is just as big a danger. California, Florida, and Seattle are examples throughout the book. Runoff over impervious surfaces ends up making the beaches unswimmable – not to mention the fishes, and every other living thing in its wake. Yet, Barnett met with different people trying to find ways to improve our relationship with the world water cycles. And, not to leave out rain’s influence on the arts, Morrisey, Kurt Cobain, and Emily Dickinson are the focus of that chapter. So many quirks of human history are shaped by rain. This book does a good job reigning in on its scope. 

Note: I received a free physical copy of this title through BloggingForBooks in exchange for an honest review.