Pickup Truck, CB Radio and Gun Rack
Ever wonder how people in other countries really view Americans? The opening page of this book delivers an answer that many Americans may not like, but few could question. The story opens, strangely enough, with the tale of a photo retoucher employed with a British tabloid getting a new job working for the National Enquirer in Florida. In order to fit in as a brand new America, the first thing he does is buy what he views as the ultimate iconic symbol of an American: a pickup truck with complete with CB radio and gun rack over the rear window. That is a portrait of American in symbolic microcosm that offers a difficult hill to climb in debate class.
The Demon
The title itself is the main symbol of the book. The “demon” which is kept in freezers is the smallpox virus.
The Human Hand
The author himself situates the symbolic significance of the human. He invests it with the potential for creating sublime greatness beyond the capacity for most to imagine while reminding the reader that of the equally unimaginable capacity for the simple human contact of one human hand reaching out to another living creature to commence the long process of species devastation:
“The hand is a symbol of humanity, part of what makes us human - the hand that carved the Parthenon, painted the hands of God and Adam on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, and wrote King Lear was the only hand that had known smallpox. That same hand had now given the disease to a monkey.”
SECURITY
Viruses are identified symbolically as the guys at the planet’s rock concert wearing the shirts with SECURITY printed in in large black block letters across the back. The virus is charged with the job of controlling crowds to make sure they don’t get out of hand or become a threat due to largesse. Although it verges uncomfortably into the realm of Malthusian economics, it cannot be argued that were it not for viruses, the population of the planet would have long since outgrown its ability to feed even most of it.
“Viruses are nature’s crowd control, and a pox virus can thin a crowd in a hurry.”
Nature’s Mass Murderer
Smallpox is identified as being the symbolic equivalent of the most prodigious mass murderers in history. In fact, the most prodigious human killers—from Genghis Khan to Hitler—pale in comparison to smallpox. No other disease in the known history of human beings even begins to come close to approaching smallpox at the top of the list as the most ruthless killing machine during its heyday:
“Epidemiologists think that smallpox killed roughly one billion people during its last hundred years of activity on earth.”
