If you've seen Fitzcarraldo, if you've seen Burden of Dreams, if you don't just yearn but need more about the tumultuous creation of one of the greatest films of all time, then this is the book for you. Herzog kept diaries during the making of Fitzcarraldo, not of the day to day drudgery of making the film, but of the poetry that rests between the frames. Encounters with assorted gov't officials, border conflicts, Kinski's madness as well as Herzog's own, the violence of the jungle, disease, dirt, bewildered studios, kamikaze sensibility, spoiled tuna... all of it is here, in these pages. This isn't a diary; it's a fever dream, one that transcends fiction and nonfiction (much like Herzog's best documentaries) and touches upon a deeper truth, his "ecstatic truth." Conquest of the Useless is one of the great pieces of literature in a decade that is starved for them.
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