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Fossils and Cowboys and Elephants, Oh My
Jun. 1st, 2012 08:22 amA couple of books I’ve been reading, about fossils and England and elephants and Rome.
The Dragon Seekers: How an Extraordinary Circle of Fossilists Discovered the Dinosaur and Paved the Way for Darwin, by Christopher McGowan
This book has the most misleading title ever. If the fossilists were ever seeking dragons, they’d certainly gotten over it by the early 19th century; but for the title page, the word dragon never appears in the book.
Tragic lack of dragons aside, this is actually a pretty good book. I mean, it’s got DINOSAURS. Which are not dragons, but still, a good consolation prize. Plus, nineteenth century scientists are a marvelously eccentric bunch. McGowan does a great job conveying their personalities, kindly but without sentimentality toward their flaws, and balancing their personal stories with the tales of their discoveries.
The Cowboy and His Elephant: The Story of a Remarkable Friendship, Malcolm MacPherson
Short version: too much cowboy, not enough elephant.
Longer version: This really ought to be called The Hagiographic Account of the Saintly but Nonetheless Awesomely Manly Cowboy Who Took in an Orphaned Baby Elephant. Bob Norris, the cowboy in question, may indeed be all that and a bag of chips, but breathlessly adoring accounts of flawless people are awfully boring.
Especially when they take up space that could otherwise be occupied by elephants. Because elephants are awesome.
A tragic and beautiful elephant story, from Marina Belozerskaya’s The Medici Giraffe, and Other Tales of Exotic Animals and Power (which I meant to review, but never got around to; it’s fascinating but unnecessarily meandering):
Hoping to restore his fading prestige, the Roman general Pompey put up a four-day-long games extravaganza at the Circus Maximus. He brought in gladiators, lions, leopards, giraffes, exotic animals of every kind, with a few dozen elephants as his piece de resistance.
But the elephants, realizing that they were doomed, refused to fight. Instead they trumpeted in such despair that the bloodthirsty crowd pitied them, and demanded that they be spared.
Pompey had the elephants slaughtered anyway. When he fell from power soon after, the people of Rome said it was the curse of the elephants on him.
The Dragon Seekers: How an Extraordinary Circle of Fossilists Discovered the Dinosaur and Paved the Way for Darwin, by Christopher McGowan
This book has the most misleading title ever. If the fossilists were ever seeking dragons, they’d certainly gotten over it by the early 19th century; but for the title page, the word dragon never appears in the book.
Tragic lack of dragons aside, this is actually a pretty good book. I mean, it’s got DINOSAURS. Which are not dragons, but still, a good consolation prize. Plus, nineteenth century scientists are a marvelously eccentric bunch. McGowan does a great job conveying their personalities, kindly but without sentimentality toward their flaws, and balancing their personal stories with the tales of their discoveries.
The Cowboy and His Elephant: The Story of a Remarkable Friendship, Malcolm MacPherson
Short version: too much cowboy, not enough elephant.
Longer version: This really ought to be called The Hagiographic Account of the Saintly but Nonetheless Awesomely Manly Cowboy Who Took in an Orphaned Baby Elephant. Bob Norris, the cowboy in question, may indeed be all that and a bag of chips, but breathlessly adoring accounts of flawless people are awfully boring.
Especially when they take up space that could otherwise be occupied by elephants. Because elephants are awesome.
A tragic and beautiful elephant story, from Marina Belozerskaya’s The Medici Giraffe, and Other Tales of Exotic Animals and Power (which I meant to review, but never got around to; it’s fascinating but unnecessarily meandering):
Hoping to restore his fading prestige, the Roman general Pompey put up a four-day-long games extravaganza at the Circus Maximus. He brought in gladiators, lions, leopards, giraffes, exotic animals of every kind, with a few dozen elephants as his piece de resistance.
But the elephants, realizing that they were doomed, refused to fight. Instead they trumpeted in such despair that the bloodthirsty crowd pitied them, and demanded that they be spared.
Pompey had the elephants slaughtered anyway. When he fell from power soon after, the people of Rome said it was the curse of the elephants on him.
