All over the world people woke to the gratifyingly happy news that at long last the Chilean miners, trapped half a mile underground for the last 69 days, were now being pulled one by one to the surface through a 28” diameter hole in a capsule just slightly smaller than that. Waiting for these miners above ground are their families, government leaders, medical care, and of course the media broadcasting footage of their rescue to a planet eager to hear the happy ending to this dramatic saga. It’s as if we’ve all been reading the same suspenseful novel and now are communally experiencing the denouement.
…which got me thinking -- who would I want to write this epic tale. It must, of course, BE written. It begs for it! But I don’t think I want a fictional rendering, though a first person memoir would be fascinating. No, what I really want is Bill Bryson to write this story. He’s not primarily a novelist, though his The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid reads much like a novel. What I’m thinking of though, is more along the lines of what he did in A Short History of Nearly Everything. Bryson would take this story and run with it. He’d find out all the fascinating bits about the history of the mining industry, the history of Chile, the geologic landscape of the mine, the physics of the rescue, along with the most interesting details about the personal experiences of these miners and their families and the rescue workers who saved them. Most importantly, he’d make every last bit of minutiae entertaining to read about. He's long been one of my favorite writers and I know his version of this story would be excellent. I must find a way to suggest it to him. Hmmm.... do you think he'd "friend" me on facebook?
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