Ape-language specialist Savage-Rumbaugh and science writer Lewin (co-author of Origins with Richard Leakey, 1977) run the superchimp Kanzi past us once again with this latest in the current deluge of books on animal brain power. Kanzi—already a phenom with Newsweek, Time, and National Geographic covers to his credit—is an ape with a mind of his own; his facility with communication (via a special keyboard) is a marvel. But Kanzi gets only limited airtime here; he's more like a sideshow barker's prop to entice the customers. The authors spend most of the book going over the history of ape-language research (and it does go back: Samuel Pepys's name is mentioned), briefly rummage in linguistic theory (long enough to unconvincingly trash Noam Chomsky), and visit with other ape subjects. When it comes to the use of language by the great apes, the jury is still out; they might have even gone home. Theorists continue to debate the importance of production versus comprehension, to dispute intentionality, to worry about an ape's reflectiveness. It is to Savage-Rumbaugh's credit that she gives as much importance to glances, gestures, and postures as communicative modes as she does to utterances and keyboard talent. It seems quite clear that the apes have no interest in joining the Yale debating squad, so why put them to that measure? When Kanzi is brought into the story, the tone lightens. He is a clever, humorous, astonishing character, and his developing relationship with Savage-Rumbaugh is where Lewin really shines. The quickly sketched vignettes are uniformly winning: For instance, Savage-Rumbaugh has her keys snatched by an obstreperous member of the ape troupe. She asks Kanzi to get them back. He shuffles over to the offending ape, murmurs in his ear, and the keys are returned forthwith. Call this effort ``Notes Toward an Understanding,'' for every theory is conjecture, but there are also many fine nuggets to be mined. (Photos, not seen) (First serial to Discover)
Pub Date: Oct. 21, 1994
ISBN: 0-471-58591-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Wiley
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1994
A quirky wonder of a book.
A Peabody Award–winning NPR science reporter chronicles the life of a turn-of-the-century scientist and how her quest led to significant revelations about the meaning of order, chaos, and her own existence.
Miller began doing research on David Starr Jordan (1851-1931) to understand how he had managed to carry on after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake destroyed his work. A taxonomist who is credited with discovering “a full fifth of fish known to man in his day,” Jordan had amassed an unparalleled collection of ichthyological specimens. Gathering up all the fish he could save, Jordan sewed the nameplates that had been on the destroyed jars directly onto the fish. His perseverance intrigued the author, who also discusses the struggles she underwent after her affair with a woman ended a heterosexual relationship. Born into an upstate New York farm family, Jordan attended Cornell and then became an itinerant scholar and field researcher until he landed at Indiana University, where his first ichthyological collection was destroyed by lightning. In between this catastrophe and others involving family members’ deaths, he reconstructed his collection. Later, he was appointed as the founding president of Stanford, where he evolved into a Machiavellian figure who trampled on colleagues and sang the praises of eugenics. Miller concludes that Jordan displayed the characteristics of someone who relied on “positive illusions” to rebound from disaster and that his stand on eugenics came from a belief in “a divine hierarchy from bacteria to humans that point[ed]…toward better.” Considering recent research that negates biological hierarchies, the author then suggests that Jordan’s beloved taxonomic category—fish—does not exist. Part biography, part science report, and part meditation on how the chaos that caused Miller’s existential misery could also bring self-acceptance and a loving wife, this unique book is an ingenious celebration of diversity and the mysterious order that underlies all existence.
A quirky wonder of a book.Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5011-6027-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 1, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
Unsentimental nature writing that sheds as much light on humans as on eels.
An account of the mysterious life of eels that also serves as a meditation on consciousness, faith, time, light and darkness, and life and death.
In addition to an intriguing natural history, Swedish journalist Svensson includes a highly personal account of his relationship with his father. The author alternates eel-focused chapters with those about his father, a man obsessed with fishing for this elusive creature. “I can’t recall us ever talking about anything other than eels and how to best catch them, down there by the stream,” he writes. “I can’t remember us speaking at all….Because we were in…a place whose nature was best enjoyed in silence.” Throughout, Svensson, whose beat is not biology but art and culture, fills his account with people: Aristotle, who thought eels emerged live from mud, “like a slithering, enigmatic miracle”; Freud, who as a teenage biologist spent months in Trieste, Italy, peering through a microscope searching vainly for eel testes; Johannes Schmidt, who for two decades tracked thousands of eels, looking for their breeding grounds. After recounting the details of the eel life cycle, the author turns to the eel in literature—e.g., in the Bible, Rachel Carson’s Under the Sea Wind, and Günter Grass’ The Tin Drum—and history. He notes that the Puritans would likely not have survived without eels, and he explores Sweden’s “eel coast” (what it once was and how it has changed), how eel fishing became embroiled in the Northern Irish conflict, and the importance of eel fishing to the Basque separatist movement. The apparent return to life of a dead eel leads Svensson to a consideration of faith and the inherent message of miracles. He warns that if we are to save this fascinating creature from extinction, we must continue to study it. His book is a highly readable place to begin learning.
Unsentimental nature writing that sheds as much light on humans as on eels.Pub Date: May 5, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-296881-4
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Ecco/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 29, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
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