Kuru, like Mad Cow disease, is caused by a rare, infectious crystal protein that invades and colonizes human cells, destroying the nervous system of its victims. There is no known cure. It flourished in one of the remotest places on earth, Papua New Guinea, among the Fore, a people living in the Stone Age, who until recently practiced ritual cannibalism, consuming the brains of their forebears during funerary feasts. Robert Klitzman helped establish the links between these rituals and kuru. What he discovered has provided keys to understanding the mysterious Mad Cow Disease, which may become the world's next major epidemic. Robert Klitzman was 21 years old when he was invited by the Nobel prize-winning scientist Dr. Carleton Gajdusek, then at the National Institutes of Health, to conduct original research on kuru. Seizing the chance to travel to the other end of the world, Klitzman embarked on an adventure that would change his life.

Amazon.com Review
The key word here is personal. Physician Robert Klitzman tells us his life story and humanizes what could easily have been a tabloid-size horror story of Stone Age cannibals and rotten-brained cows. Vivid portraits of the men and women he helped and worked with lift this book above mere sensationalism, showing one people's tragedy in the hopes that others can be averted.

Kuru is a fatal disease formerly epidemic among the Fore people of New Guinea, with symptoms including involuntary laughing, dementia, and loss of motor control. Traced to their ritual cannibalism, it was found to be caused by nonliving crystal-like proteins in the brain. Klitzman traveled to New Guinea before attending medical school to work with these people and quickly learned how little Western medicine could do for the afflicted--he could only make their deaths as comfortable as possible. His despair is palpable.

Fortunately, most Fore have been convinced to give up the most dangerous of their ancestral practices, and the disease has largely abated. But mad cow disease (and others like it), caused by the same class of protein as kuru, remains a threat to Westerners--a threat Klitzman would rather we not face. His very personal story forces us as readers to examine our own lives and our own ancestral practices, perhaps to make some changes ourselves. --Rob Lightner

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 3.5 based on 6 reviews)

Foaming at the Mouth about New Guinea

This is a really awful book - embarrassingly bad writing (p.205 "How was your trip?" Roger asked with disgust, foaming at the mouth." Page 276: "Ray's blue eyes exploded in ecstasy as he spied a butterfly.") Also, there are many sentences that one must skip or pause to decipher because the sentence just doesn't make any sense. (Who the heck edited this book?)

The book contains precious little about Kuru and less about cannibalism. Also there is not much on Mad Cow Disease. There is here lots and lots and lots of Robert Klitzman. But, even as a "personal account," this book is sadly not very interesting or readable. (Maybe if the author had published this as an edited journal date by date, it would have worked a bit better. Ah, maybe not.)

We read that there amid the fleas and the smelly New Guinea people he thinks about his future. "I decided that I wanted to live an active life, engaged with the world. What I had seen and learned intellectually from Carlton [Gajdusekan - Nobel Prize winner and "sadly" convicted pedophile] was living life. Literary critics [and presumably editors] missed the point by being too analytic and petty, I thought."

This is essentially a vanity publication [and rip-off of the reading public]. Perhaps it is interesting to some relative or close friend of the author (though I doubt it). While the author can add this title to his list of publications, the author should pray that no future writing monies ever depend on the quality of this book.

I cannot imagine any reason anyone would waste his/her time or money on this dreadful book.

December 24, 2007

Fascinating

This book tells the story of a young man who travels to Papua New Guinea to try his hand at medical research. The book jackets accurately describes it as "a gripping medical mystery, an exotic travelogue, and a stirring coming-of-age story." Just one year out of college, Klitzman sets off to Papua New Guinea alone to work on a project arranged by Carleton Gajdusek to survey the incubation time for kuru. Klitzman soon finds himself living in the Highlands, where he spends his time seeking out former cannibals who are dying of kuru so that he can interview them about when they last ate human flesh.

Klitzman's cultural insights are quite compelling- -instead of finding fault with all that frustrates him, he is able to put the difficulties in context and realize that people are much the same everywhere, underneath their material trappings. One of the fascinating facets of this book is that at the time when Klitzman was doing his research in PNG, kuru was dying out- -the project that he was working on was to find the incubation period for a disease without a future, or so it seemed at the time. When Mad Cow began popping up a few years after Klitzman finished his project, the results suddenly became extremely important for trying to estimate potential deaths due to tainted beef. The book serves as a good reminder that basic research may prove its worth long after the fact.

The book's main narrative takes place in Papua New Guinea in 1983-84, 7 years after independence. It provides interesting historical documentation of living conditions in PNG in the time immediately following independence. In 1997, Klitzman returns to the area where he did his research, and observes how many aspects of life in PNG had deteriorated in the intervening time, despite the quantity of wealth coming into the country. For this reason, area specialists may find much of interest in Klitzman's detailed descriptions of living conditions in the early 1980s in PNG.
April 15, 2002

Strange Title - Amazing Adventure

I had read Dr Klitzman's earlier book "Being Positive" and wanted to read more of his work, the title sounded very strange but bought the book after the life affirming experience of reading the first. Dr Klitzman is one hell of an explorer !, brave, adventurous and a great medical investigator and researcher. The Papua New Guinea Highlands might hold the answers to the questions that medical researchers have been asking for years and Dr Klitzman is a trail blazer to these answers. This story deserves to be read by anyone who is affected directly or indirectly by any disease from cancer to HIV, it will give you a better insight and hope.
May 25, 2000

An extraordinary story by a gifted writer

Written with the intensity of a thriller, THE TREMBLING MOUNTAIN is a brilliant examination of the cultures of the mind. Read it now.
January 30, 2000

A poorly written, poorly proofread book

The subject of cannibalism should grab the attention of the reader. Instead, on page after page, you are startled by grammatical inconsistencies. Nobody has bothered to proofread this book -- not the author, the reader, the editor. The author does not transport you in any way into an exotic world, but instead has you grinding your teeth as you read through such language as "I seen..." This reads like a hasty job, not one that has been put together with love and pride.
May 31, 1999

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