Book review
Jan. 3rd, 2007 12:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
If as a child you enjoyed Gerald Durrell's excellent books (as I did, and in fact still do), pick up Douglas Adams's and Mark Carwardine's "Last Chance to See". The book covers a year-long trip around the world to visit some of the world's most endangered species in their native habitats that Adams and some other people undertook on behalf of BBC in 1988. And then Adams wrote a book about it with all the humor that one would expect and some of the zoological details and environmental insights that come as a nice surprise. Even if you couldn't care less about the fate of kakapos, Komodo dragons, aye-ayes, all of which while still endangered are alive and have a chance, or baiji dolphins, which were declared "functionally extinct" on December 13, 2006, give this book a try. If nothing else, Adams's description of attempts to buy condoms in China (successful) or some snacks in the Tanzanian international transit lounge (unsuccessful) will have you in stitches.
Some quotes:
Mark <...> was tall, dark and laconic and had a slight nervous tic. He explained that he used to be just tall, dark and laconic, but that the events of the last few days had rather got to him.
Antananarivo is pronounced Tananarive, and for much of this century has been spelt that way as well. When the French took over Madagascar at the end of the last century (colonised is probably too kind a word for moving in on a country that was doing perfectly well for itself but which the French simply took a fancy to), they were impatient with the curious Malagasy habit of not bothering to pronounce the first and last syllables of place names. They decided, in their rational Gallic way, that if that was how the names were pronounced then they could damn well be spelt that way too. It would be rather as if someone had taken over England and told us that from now on we would be spelling Leicester 'Lester' and liking it. We might be forced to spell it that way, but we wouldn't like it, and neither did the Malagasy. As soon as they managed to divest themselves of French rule, in 1960, they promptly reinstated all the old spellings and just kept the cooking and the bureaucracy.
Our equipment was a vast array of cameras, tape recorders, tents, sleeping bags, medical supplies, mosquito coils, unidentifiable things made of canvas and nylon with metal eyelets and plastic hooks, cagoules, boots, penknives, torches and a cricket bat.
None of us would admit to having brought the cricket bat. <...> We phoned room service to bring us up some beers and also to take the cricket bat away but they didn't want it. The guy from room service said that if we were really going to look for man-eating lizards maybe the cricket bat would be a handy thing to have.
Most animals survive because the adults have acquired an instinct not to eat their babies. The dragons survive because the baby dragons have acquired an instinct to climb trees.
What makes you wonder about the nature of this god character is that he creates something that is so perfectly designed to be of benefit to human beings and then hangs it twenty feet above their heads on a tree with no branches.
Some fish were jumping up the beach and into the tree, which struck me as an odd thing for a fish to do, but I tried not to be judgmental about it. I was feeling pretty raw about my own species, and not much inclined to raise a quizzical eyebrow at others.
We went into the town of Bukavu in a sort of taxi-like thing. The town turned out to be an enormous distance from the airport, probably at the insistence of the taxi-drivers.
'Something funny, eh?' says Bill, and takes a long thoughtful drag on his cigarette as he surveys the valley. `Well, I once set my hands on fire in the helicopter, because I lit a match without realising my gloves were soaked in petrol. That the sort of thing you had in mind?'
I think all cats are wild cats. They just act tame if they think they'll get a saucer of milk out of it.
Some quotes:
Mark <...> was tall, dark and laconic and had a slight nervous tic. He explained that he used to be just tall, dark and laconic, but that the events of the last few days had rather got to him.
Antananarivo is pronounced Tananarive, and for much of this century has been spelt that way as well. When the French took over Madagascar at the end of the last century (colonised is probably too kind a word for moving in on a country that was doing perfectly well for itself but which the French simply took a fancy to), they were impatient with the curious Malagasy habit of not bothering to pronounce the first and last syllables of place names. They decided, in their rational Gallic way, that if that was how the names were pronounced then they could damn well be spelt that way too. It would be rather as if someone had taken over England and told us that from now on we would be spelling Leicester 'Lester' and liking it. We might be forced to spell it that way, but we wouldn't like it, and neither did the Malagasy. As soon as they managed to divest themselves of French rule, in 1960, they promptly reinstated all the old spellings and just kept the cooking and the bureaucracy.
Our equipment was a vast array of cameras, tape recorders, tents, sleeping bags, medical supplies, mosquito coils, unidentifiable things made of canvas and nylon with metal eyelets and plastic hooks, cagoules, boots, penknives, torches and a cricket bat.
None of us would admit to having brought the cricket bat. <...> We phoned room service to bring us up some beers and also to take the cricket bat away but they didn't want it. The guy from room service said that if we were really going to look for man-eating lizards maybe the cricket bat would be a handy thing to have.
Most animals survive because the adults have acquired an instinct not to eat their babies. The dragons survive because the baby dragons have acquired an instinct to climb trees.
What makes you wonder about the nature of this god character is that he creates something that is so perfectly designed to be of benefit to human beings and then hangs it twenty feet above their heads on a tree with no branches.
Some fish were jumping up the beach and into the tree, which struck me as an odd thing for a fish to do, but I tried not to be judgmental about it. I was feeling pretty raw about my own species, and not much inclined to raise a quizzical eyebrow at others.
We went into the town of Bukavu in a sort of taxi-like thing. The town turned out to be an enormous distance from the airport, probably at the insistence of the taxi-drivers.
'Something funny, eh?' says Bill, and takes a long thoughtful drag on his cigarette as he surveys the valley. `Well, I once set my hands on fire in the helicopter, because I lit a match without realising my gloves were soaked in petrol. That the sort of thing you had in mind?'
I think all cats are wild cats. They just act tame if they think they'll get a saucer of milk out of it.
no subject
Date: 2007-01-03 05:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-03 05:17 pm (UTC)Yes!
Date: 2007-01-09 02:36 am (UTC)I was actually able to find a multimedia CD (in our very own Toronto Public Library!) where the entire book is being read - by none other than Douglas Adams himself. It also contains some photos not included in the book.
And of course, being a huge Adams fan, I can't pass up the opportunity to also recommend his famous "trilogy in five parts" - the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. :))