Last Chance to See...random thoughts

Last Chance To See by Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine.

Let me just say this to start with: There is no way on Earth that I am going to be able to put into words how amazing this book is.

I'm not even sure how to describe this book. Non-fiction--well yes, that's easy. Natural science--yep. Travelogue--yeah, sort of. Humorous--most definitely. Serious--again, most definitely.

 Briefly, Douglas Adams (yes, the Douglas Adams) and Mark Carwardine, a zoologist, head out on a mission to find and document some of the world's rarest animal species. They travel to Indonesia to see Komodo dragons...China to see blind river dolphins...Zaire (now Democratic Republic of the Congo) to see mountain gorillas and white rhinos...New Zealand to see kakapos...the islands of Mauritius to see Rodrigues fruit bats (though they learn of the even worse outlook of the some of the islands rare birds, thus changing the focus of that visit). They encounter spectacular environments and meet some very interesting folks who have dedicated their lives to trying to save these species.

(Note: This book was published in 1990, so the status of some of these incredible animals has changed. In fact, here is a website with updates. However, the fact that this book is twenty years old, in my opinion, does not for a second take away from its awesomeness. It is still a powerful, important look at the subject of biodiversity loss.)

I have to admit something--I was just a tad wary of reading this book. Because I knew that the book was supposedly quite humorous. My brain just screamed out at this idea..."Why the hell would anyone want to write a humorous book about such an incredibly sad subject?!!!" Well, you know what, I'm not sure anyone else could have written this book, and managed to convey with such respect and honesty and reverence, the seriousness of the potential loss of these beautiful species. And yes, he did it in the most hilarious way imaginable. My brain told me this approach could not possibly work...but reading is believing.

It's sort of strange. I know many people go positively ga-ga over dolphins. But I'm not one of them. Don't get me wrong--I have nothing at all against them. I have a deep love and respect for all animals. (Okay, it's a bit harder to love mosquitoes than it is most other animals, but I'm sure you know what I mean.) But dolphins don't capture my imagine the way some other animals do. Anyway, that is why it surprised me somewhat that it was the story of the Baiji, the Yangtze river dolphin, that hit me the hardest, that twisted my insides, that made the tears flow most freely. These beautiful creatures, which now are functionally extinct, were nearly blind...they had no need of sight because the Yangtze is such a muddy river that sight was of no benefit. They relied on their other senses, especially their sonar for navigation and feeding. And this served them just fine until too many people with too many "advanced" vessels began crowding the river. The fact that they have essentially disappeared is heart-breaking. But so is the picture of how these last generations had to live their lives:

As I watched the wind ruffling over the bilious surface of the Yangtze, I realised with the vividness of shock that somewhere beneath or around me there were intelligent animals whose perceptive universe we could scarcely begin to imagine, living in a seething, poisoned, deafening world, and that their lives were probably passed in continual bewilderment, hunger, pain, and fear.

 It's hard to believe that this book contains humor after reading that, huh? But it does. In massive doses. For me, some of this humor hit close to home, being married to a biologist. For example:

One of the characteristics that laymen find most odd about zoologists is their insatiable enthusiasm for animal droppings. I can understand, of course, that the droppings yield a great deal of information about the habits and diets of the animals concerned, but nothing quite explains the sheer glee that the actual objects seem to inspire.

 You might think he's exaggerating there. He ain't. Proof:

Yep, that's what you think it is. Biologist husband actually collects poop (though he, of course, uses the term "scat" to keep it all on the scientific up-and-up), shellacs it, and then stores it in jars. (And don't worry, I promise you, most of Adams's humor is directed at subjects a little less unseemly. :P)

Well, as predicted, I didn't even come close to doing this book justice. And that's a darn shame.

*****
Many thanks to Ana--it was her incredible review that made me pick up this book to start with, and for that I am quite grateful.

a little work, a little play

First up, I finished the last eleven pages of chapter 7 in The Century. I won't say much more, as I already gushed yesterday...but yes, it is very much enjoyable reading.

Next, it was eight pages in our environmental science textbook (Environment: The Science Behind the Stories by Jay Withgott and Scott Brennan). Covering efforts being made to mitigate global climate change.

Indulgent plans to give myself a couple of hours to read for fun before bed. But they sort of fell through. I couldn't help myself--I couldn't quit watching Rich play with his new iPhone. ;)  Anyway, I ended up only reading 26 pages in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. (This is the book Rich picked for me for this round of our family book club...and I'm absolutely, positively loving it! Yes, I know, I'm like one of three people who hasn't already read it. Better late than never, right?)

*****
And in the dangerous world of blog-reading, this has been added to my wish list:

*Junk Beautiful by Sue Whitney and Ki Nassauer (thanks to Carl's review)

health, and science, and history...oh my

Is it terrible to admit how much I sometimes resent how much reading I have to do for homeschooling? Terrible or not, I do. And you know, it's usually not even the subject matter that bothers me--it's more that "I must read it" feeling.

Anyway, I read 24 pages in Encyclopedia of the Human Body by Richard Walker. It's one of those big DK books. I don't even have it on one of my reading lists at the side there because I've never had any intention of reading the entire thing. It's more of a "read the relevent sections" sort of thing. Up today--the digestive system, nutrition, and metabolism. Woohoo. Okay, Debi--shape up here! You're making it sound like you hate this book. And really I don't hate it at all. It's extremely informative and it has great photos and illustrations and diagrams. I'm just so ready to be done with school, so ready to read something JUST FOR FUN, that it sort of puts a damper on talk of pyloric sphincters and pancreatic enzymes and energy balance.

Next, I read an essay in The Biodiversity Crisis: Losing What Counts. I've been working my way through this book for the past couple months. And I've really been enjoying it. You know, in that way you "enjoy" something that breaks your heart. Truthfully, I've found some essays more interesting than others, but that's to be expected. And I'm sure others would list them differently in order of "interest level" than I did. Again to be expected. But there's not one that doesn't have something important to say. The one I read today, "Thompson's Ice Corps" by Mark Bowen...not one of my favorites, but short at only five pages. But in that cool manner of coincidences that I love, it turned out to be an extremely relevant one--it's about the evidence of global climate change being gathered through ice cores. And global climate change is precisely the topic that Annie and I have ourselves immersed in for environmental science right now so we've been doing other reading and watching of videos that have talked about ice cores as well. So why didn't I enjoy this article more? Well, it has to do with my aversion to chemistry. ;)  Lots of talk of oxygen isotopes that glazed my eyes over--I found myself having to read a couple of really long paragraphs over several times as my attention wandered.

Finally, I read the first 29 pages of chapter 7, "An Uneasy Peace: 1946-1952," from The Century. I'm actually reading this for school, too, but I don't have those feelings of resentment when it comes to this book. It's just so darn good! I really do enjoy reading this book so much. As we go through the years of U.S. history, through nonfiction texts and through literature from and about the times and through documentaries and dramatic movies and even through a few audio sources (like listening to a few of FDR's Fireside Chats), I think we get a pretty broad perspective of the events of this nation. And we usually finish up each little chunk of time by reading the corresponding chapter in this book. Yes, it covers information we've already covered from all these other sources, but it brings something special to the overall picture as well. One of the most wonderful things about this book is the personal accounts. Not of the "big players" in history, but of the everyday people who lived through it, written in their own words. Such a wonderful broad variety of people, with a wonderful broad variety of experiences. I got tears in my eyes a few times during these 29 pages.

"I think that my return home was one of the most traumatic experiences of my life." This was from the story of seaman who had been captured and spent three years in a Japanese labor camp. Of course, he was glad that the war had ended and that he'd been freed. But he was given no help afterward, nothing to help him make sense of what he'd been through or how to deal with the outside world again. He was simply shipped home, given a cursory physical exam, a new uniform, his back pay, and sent him on his way.

And there was the story of the man who fought for this country in Europe, won two purple hearts, and then came home to a nation that told him he couldn't sit in the front of a bus or downstairs at a movie theater. Not only enough to make you cry, but enough to make you sick to your stomach as well. But he went on to tell how he helped form a black veterans' organization, and talked about some of things they were able to do to help these abandoned veterans.

So yes, they're stories of ordinary people living their lives. But are any of us "ordinary"? I think that's what I love most about this book--without even trying, it shows that we all have stories worth telling.

I had hoped to get some Harry Potter read last night when I went to bed, but instead I just stuck with The Century. Overall, I guess I didn't get in an overwhelming amount of pages for a day. Oh well. And I'm sure it's evident that my favorite reading of the day was definitely The Century.

*****
And in the dangerous world of blog-reading, this has been added to my wish list:

*Animythical Tales by Sarah Totton (thanks to Chris's review)