MONSTER OF GOD, BY DAVID QUAMMEN

My first book by Quammen, and so far it seems to be straight history, which is just fine. He writes well enough. And, of course, the cover is awesome. Judgement shall be rendered upon completion

Done, at last

Took me a long time to finish this one, mostly because other books got in the way. This always seems to happen with non-fiction. Anyway, this is a fairly well-written book that’s heavy on anecdote and sadly light on analysis or novel commentary. Quammen spends a long, long time talking about his model organisms (Asiatic lions in India, saltwater crocs in Australia, brown bears iin Romania, and Amur tigers in the Russian Far East). These passages contain plenty of interesting tidbits, amusing stories, colorful characters, etc., but they tend to drag on. If you’re looking for a treatise on humanity’s relationship with its potential predators, this might not be the book for you.

Here are some of Quammen’s notable observations:

• poor people tend to get eaten by animals more often than members of other classes
• “the extermination of alpha predators is fundamental to the colonial enterprise” (p. 253 of the hard cover ed.) What better way to dominate an entire landscape (not just its people) than by destroying the most obviously powerufl animal around? This also points toward the complex relationship between native peoples and their “resident monsters.” Quammen makes clear that most people have a diverse array of opinions regarding their local man-eaters, but are they all equally defeated when these animals are destroyed by an invading power? Is it simply a show of strength, or is it really as symbolic as Quammen implies?
• Being eaten and being killed are wholy different human experiences than being killed for food. The thought of falling off a cliff and subsequently being eaten by vultures is very different from the thought of being hunted and eaten by a cougar.
• And he had some interesting things to say about the relationship between mythological monsters and actual alpha predators, but I can’t remember what they were. What, you were expecting some kind of comprehensive review? This is a blog!

Overall, this one’s a skimmer.