A review by harius_b
ZeroZeroZero by Roberto Saviano
5.0
Last week today my Professor/Mentor (who specialises amongst others criminal law) and I had one of our infrequent but enjoyable conversations. We both love reading and happened to touch upon criminal organisations. In HK that would be the triads. Anyway, he gave me Roberto Saviano's ZeroZeroZero to check out. I suspected Prof thought I wouldn't read it, but I made sure to read it every day depsite my looming exams.
What to say about this book? It is one of those reads you don't ever imagine reading — at least for me. I'm the sort who loves history, fantasy, sci-fi, law and historical fictions. Crime and drugs are almost non-existent. I do however respect fate if it pushes a book towards my direction. And I took this to be one such book.
Saviano writes his expertise on the international cocaine business (for that's what it is; a professional multinational body of companies selling one product: cocaine) in a style devoid of emotional voidness characteristic of historical or analytical accounts of phenoma both past and present. Instead, he meshes together the prices, the products, the techniques, the routes, the people, their personalities, their tendencies to influence, negotiate, threaten, push, pursuade, and ultimately kill, or eventually be killed (barring being arrested or extradited that is) — with his personal history on the subject, his fears, nightmares, foreboding feeling that the more he shouts — louder and louder — the less noise he makes in the ears of people. I recommend those who picks up any of Saviano's books to make sure to know his own story — only then will his work be truly understood, felt and treasured.
I recommend anyone who wishes to understand the world to read this book. Indeed, it seems our world today has more in common with the cocaine market. Perhaps the world is the cocaine market. Perhaps not. No doubt however is the fact that cocaine is a huge and substantial part of the global economy, especially global finance — that to think (as I thought and many still mistakenly think) cocaine is on the periphery, one that is handled by our governments, is to be wilfully blind to the truth. The white powder is not simply the chalk we are used to as youngsters in classrooms. It is the addictive kind that is hidden in plain sight. Either hidden to be smuggled, distributed, retailed or consumed. Or already consumed; hidden within friends, family, strangers.
This book is one of those books. For anyone reading this review, I wish you're like me — so far safe from the horrors of cocaine and its business and effects. And I hope you'll do Saviano a favour and read his words, chew it, and overcome the pain in your stomach. You'll understand what I mean.
What to say about this book? It is one of those reads you don't ever imagine reading — at least for me. I'm the sort who loves history, fantasy, sci-fi, law and historical fictions. Crime and drugs are almost non-existent. I do however respect fate if it pushes a book towards my direction. And I took this to be one such book.
Saviano writes his expertise on the international cocaine business (for that's what it is; a professional multinational body of companies selling one product: cocaine) in a style devoid of emotional voidness characteristic of historical or analytical accounts of phenoma both past and present. Instead, he meshes together the prices, the products, the techniques, the routes, the people, their personalities, their tendencies to influence, negotiate, threaten, push, pursuade, and ultimately kill, or eventually be killed (barring being arrested or extradited that is) — with his personal history on the subject, his fears, nightmares, foreboding feeling that the more he shouts — louder and louder — the less noise he makes in the ears of people. I recommend those who picks up any of Saviano's books to make sure to know his own story — only then will his work be truly understood, felt and treasured.
I recommend anyone who wishes to understand the world to read this book. Indeed, it seems our world today has more in common with the cocaine market. Perhaps the world is the cocaine market. Perhaps not. No doubt however is the fact that cocaine is a huge and substantial part of the global economy, especially global finance — that to think (as I thought and many still mistakenly think) cocaine is on the periphery, one that is handled by our governments, is to be wilfully blind to the truth. The white powder is not simply the chalk we are used to as youngsters in classrooms. It is the addictive kind that is hidden in plain sight. Either hidden to be smuggled, distributed, retailed or consumed. Or already consumed; hidden within friends, family, strangers.
This book is one of those books. For anyone reading this review, I wish you're like me — so far safe from the horrors of cocaine and its business and effects. And I hope you'll do Saviano a favour and read his words, chew it, and overcome the pain in your stomach. You'll understand what I mean.