Take time for some exceptional comfort reading to lighten life's burden. Beyond the commercial hype of too mThis book has a special place in my heart.
Take time for some exceptional comfort reading to lighten life's burden. Beyond the commercial hype of too many lackluster, frivolous book offerings, this is a true gem. Inspired by true events, this story explores what it means to be changed by the grace of animals, the kindness of strangers, the passing of time, and a story told before it’s too late.
"Woodrow Wilson Nickel, age 105, feels his life ebbing away. But when he learns giraffes are going extinct, he finds himself recalling the unforgettable experience he cannot take to his grave. 'Few true friends have I known and two were giraffes…'"
And so begins his story.
"I could spend what I feel in my bones is my life’s last clear hours to tell you of the Dust Bowl. Or the War. Or the French peonies. Or my wives, so many wives. Or the graves, so many graves. Or the goodbyes, so many goodbyes. Those memories come and go here at the end, if they come at all anymore. But not this memory. This memory is always with me, always alive, always within reach, and always in living technicolor from deadly start to bittersweet finish, no matter how old I keep getting. And—Red, Old Man, sweet Wild Boy and Girl—oh, how I miss you. All I have to do is close my worn-out eyes for the smallest of moments. And it begins."
And what an all consuming story it is. A well crafted story full of wonder and insight, abandonment and tenderness, adventure and jeopardy, betrayal and forgiveness, and much more, that had this twilight being of a reader leaking at both ends. It will likely resonate in my mind through whatever years I have left.
"I can only suppose that when you’re riding with two 'towering creatures of God’s pure Eden,' and you grasp the first rotten proof of your true self, you never quite forget it, no matter what you do later to make it right."
Through the twists and turns of life there are experiences that we relish recalling long after, and there are others we labor to forget or try to make up for. And along the way we are sure to encounter both decent beings and those with no conscience.
“ . . . it always seemed wrong to think an animal’s life isn’t worth as much as a human’s. Life is life . . . no matter who or what is living it, boy—a thing to respect,” he said. “You don’t get that, then you’re just a waste of skin.”
I hope you enjoy this story as much as I did....more
This book is one of a number of must reads if you care about our and our children's futures.
"Wolverines belong to the carnivore family known as the MuThis book is one of a number of must reads if you care about our and our children's futures.
"Wolverines belong to the carnivore family known as the Must elide, more commonly called the weasel family after its most familiar members. From a public relations standpoint, this is a bit unfortunate, considering how corporate shills, slammers, faithless lovers, and hedge fund managers keep giving weasels a bad name."
This book is at once an uplifting account of wildlife biologists and volunteer assistants studying wolverines in the wild; the beauty of wilderness and a heart-rending exposure of the harsher side of Nature's sway; and yet more maddening evincing of how prevalent ignorance and cruelty are in the human condition.
I have a deep respect for the hardy souls that labor so perseveringly to help us understand the natural world that enables our existence, and that do so for a pittance, or simply because they care deeply. To me they exemplify the rare wisdom and good in humanity.
My favorite chapter epigraph in the book is:
A man cried: O Heavenly Spirit, speak to me that I may know You exist and care for my fate. And a sparrow appeared on a nearby branch, singing its heart out.
The man didn’t understand. O Creator, he cried again, let me hear your voice.
And in front of the man’s face, a bee buzzed past bearing pollen from flower to flower. A butterfly followed, floating on rainbow wings to sip nectar.
Still the man did not understand. Instead, he called more loudly yet: O Maker of All That Is, if You won’t speak to me, let me feel Your touch just once, I pray.
The Creator touched him. As the wolverine that had just bit the man on the ass loped away, the man shook his fist toward the sky, yelling: Now I am suffering because of a beast with a terrible nature. Why, oh why won’t You ever give me a sign?
And the Creative Spirit sighed: I wish I had designed these hairless apes with more intelligence. But even I don’t always get it right the first time.
~ Chadwick, Douglas. The Wolverine Way. Patagonia....more
A memory from the past. I haven't read the book, but I remember the story from Robert J. Lurtsema's reading it on WGBH (PR in Boston, Mass.) before heA memory from the past. I haven't read the book, but I remember the story from Robert J. Lurtsema's reading it on WGBH (PR in Boston, Mass.) before he passed on in 2000.
It's a beautiful story of what man can do at his best.
From time to time, I need to assuage my frustration with much of humankind by hearkening back to a semblance of my own chilBeyond 5 stars actually :-)
From time to time, I need to assuage my frustration with much of humankind by hearkening back to a semblance of my own childhood when the world was simpler. Who better to do that through than Ivan Doig, one of my favorite authors.
“When you are as young as I was then, a world of any kind begins at the outskirts of your imagination, and you populate it with those who have proven themselves to you. The unknowns are always lying in wait, though.”
As to this story, I loved it, the down-to-earth reality as I remember the 1940s and 50s, the insights, the vibrant characters with their changing colors, and the accomplished writing not distracting from the story. Oh, and what an entangling, life-changing adventure it is.
“Life can tickle you in the ribs surprisingly when it’s not digging its thumb in.”
That snippet in its breadth exemplifies why this was such an engrossing read to me....more
An exceptional book by an accomplished wordsmith, where as is his "Nature" an emotional, insightful, and enlightening story is presented in a mesmerizAn exceptional book by an accomplished wordsmith, where as is his "Nature" an emotional, insightful, and enlightening story is presented in a mesmerizing way. This story ranging from our blinkered human bubble to the possibilities in the encompassing cosmos.
I found the depicted inauspicious world setting painted frighteningly parallel to our own, with those in authority and influence pied pipering humanity to the abyss under the nose of apathy and ignorance.
". . . the world is an experiment in inventing validity, and conviction is its only proof."
"I wanted my son back. The one who knew that large bipeds were not to be trusted."
For me, this story evoked admiration, anger, tears, and joy.
I thoroughly enjoyed the author's book, The Overstory, despite a lacking ending in my eyes, but this story is completely different, and more engrossing with a strong ending. My hope is that many readers will perceive and think about the underlying current of the storyline, though I worry whether a critical mass of humanity has the wherewithal to overcome our deficient being....more
Douglas Adams said, "The answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything is 42." :-)
Of course the writing of Douglas Adams and EdDouglas Adams said, "The answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything is 42." :-)
Of course the writing of Douglas Adams and Edward O. Wilson are worlds apart in intent. I found this book interesting and informative, though it necessitates careful reading to appreciate all that E. O. Wilson says. I believe this book should be read by all that are interested in our futures. If you have read Richard Dawkins, it would behove you to also read this book to get a more balanced appreciation of the progress of evolutionary science.
In the following, I include paraphrasing of passages from the book to give you and inkling of what to expect, hopefully whetting your interest. To me, his writing is well organized, and is neither overly concise, nor rambling. Unless you have some familiarity with evolutionary biology though, you may need a dictionary or Wikipedia at hand.
As the lead in to this book states, history makes little sense without prehistory, and prehistory makes little sense without biology. Knowledge of prehistory and biology is increasing rapidly, bringing into focus how humanity originated and why a species like our own exists on this planet.
In setting the tone of the book, he explains that the ordinary usage the word "meaning" implies intention, intention implies design, and design implies a designer. There is a second, broader way the word "meaning" is used though, and a very different worldview is implied. It is that the accidents of history, not the intentions of a designer, are the source of meaning. In this broader use of the word "meaning" there is no advance design, but instead overlapping networks of physical cause and effect. During organic evolution, for example, the origin of one adaptation by natural selection makes the origin of certain other adaptations more likely. This concept of meaning, insofar as it illuminates humanity and the rest of life, is the worldview of science.
The French writer Jean Bruller (pen name Vercors) was on the right track when, in his 1952 novel You Shall Know Them, he declared, "All of man’s troubles have arisen from the fact that we do not know what we are and do not agree on what we want to be." Human nature is the ensemble of hereditary regularities in mental development that bias cultural evolution in one direction as opposed to others and thus connect genes to culture in the brain of every person.
One important point I was happy to see, is his explanation of the fauna and flora of any ecosystem being far more than collections of species (which we don't know near the whole of). Ecosystems are complex systems of interactions, where the extinction of any species under certain conditions could have a profound impact on the whole, and ultimately ourselves. Extinction rates are 100 to 1,000 times higher than before the global spread of humanity, and will increase with human induced climate change.
To my amusement, in one chapter he even delves into the inanity of our imaginative science fiction, but I doubt that will change our subjective alternate reality longings. One faulty perception is that of those who believe humanity can emigrate to another planet after using up this one. Those whose imagination ignores that two living worlds, ours and another, are in all probability radically different in origin, molecular machinery, and the endless pathways of evolution that produced the life-forms thereon. Thus the ecosystems and species of an alien world would be wholly incompatible with our own and the result would be a biological train wreck. H. G. Wells was at least on the right tract back in the 1890s with The War of the Worlds.
Another chapter dissects religion, and how it fosters much of the animosity in the world. The Founding Fathers of the United States understood the risk of tribal religious conflict very well, but we have regressed since to the point of the consequences we see today.
In yet another chapter he delves into what we think of as Free Will. Did you know that half of the twenty thousand to twenty-five thousand genes of the entire human genetic code participate in one manner or other in the prescription of the brain-mind system, and this amount of commitment has resulted from one of the most rapid evolutionary changes known in any advanced organ system of the biosphere. Philosophers have labored off and on for over two thousand years to explain consciousness (their job). Innocent of biology, however, they have for the most part understandably gotten nowhere.
One thing he focuses on at various points of this writing is recombining the humanities and science, as began in the Enlightenment (17th and 18th centuries), but faltered in the 19th century Romantic transition (feelings through creative art). For the next two centuries and to the present day, science and the humanities went their own ways. This to me, the eclipsing of objective thinking in the broader populace with subjective perspectives, yet how can we have one without the other? The greatest contribution that science can make to the humanities is to demonstrate how bizarre we are as a species, and why, but understanding that as yet takes more fortitude and forthrightness than we seem to be able to muster in too many. The meaning of human existence cannot be explained until “just is” (Romanticism) is replaced with “just is, because” (Enlightenment). Only then can we begin to understand and compensate for our self-destructive proclivities. It was only after eons of time, during which millions of species had come and gone, that one of the lineages, the direct antecedents of Homo sapiens, won the grand lottery of evolution. The payout was civilization based on symbolic language, and culture, and from these a gargantuan power to extract the nonrenewable resources of the planet—while cheerfully exterminating our fellow species.
All of the points he focuses on lead to a final section and chapter entitled "A Human Future," which I found well examined....more
A rewarding, informative book that lives up to its title. The forward by HRH The Prince of Wales, and the introduction by Edward O. Wilson, are what pA rewarding, informative book that lives up to its title. The forward by HRH The Prince of Wales, and the introduction by Edward O. Wilson, are what piqued my interest in this book. And, as can be seen in the preview, the latter half of chapter one where the author notes what he covers in the book also aroused my curiosity. That despite thinking I already knew a good part of what the book might say. I saw it as meaningful reading that we all could benefit from in broadening awareness. I'm happy I did read it as I found the writing straightforward, learned more than I expected, and because of the manner in which the information is presented it helped coalesce and reenforce my understanding.
To quote any aspect of this book that I thought stood out would be to diminish the cumulative importance of all that it conveys, so I'm refraining from noting any particular points of interest. Instead, I can only say that, to me, ignoring this book suggests fostered ignorance and disregard for our and our children's futures. Harsh maybe, but I believe the pursuit of reality based, meaningful knowledge by a critical mass of humanity is the first step in potentially mitigating the consequences of the dire environmental conditions we are creating. It isn't through real understanding and wisdom that we got ourselves into this pickle.
"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." ~ Albert Einstein...more
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