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Title: The Birds of Heaven: Travels with Cranes by Peter Matthiessen, Robert Bateman ISBN: 0-374-19944-2 Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux Pub. Date: 20 December, 2001 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $27.50 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.8 (10 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Learning Lessons from the Cranes
Comment: Peter Matthiessen includes stories of native people on all the continents that harbor cranes in _The Birds of Heaven: Travels With Cranes_ (North Point Press). He recounts some encounters with humans ("craniacs") who are trying to save the cranes, which are in trouble everywhere, but most of the extensive travels described in this book can only report trouble. If we do not, however, learn what the crane has to tell us, it will be despite Matthiessen's efforts, for in him, cranes have a lucid and compelling advocate.He has gone to exotic locales wherever cranes go. There are plenty of common denominators wherever he travels. Cranes, like so many other forms of wildlife, are hunted, trapped to sell as exotic specimens, and poisoned as agricultural pests. Cranes need wetlands in which to feed, and humans need wetlands to serve as repositories for waste and to be built over to make more space for more humans. It is clear everywhere that Matthiessen goes that humans are winning, and therefore losing.
He has produced an unforgettably bleak picture of ecological matters in China, and an optimistic account of our own country's efforts in getting whooping cranes started again. That we don't know what we are doing in dealing with the cranes is shown in a paradoxically happy outcome for them in Korea. Wars are, as the posters used to declare, harmful to children and other living things, and the Korean War was disastrous for humans and for cranes. There is now a Demilitarized Zone between the two Koreas, just a couple of miles wide but running from the Sea of Japan to the Yellow Sea. Human habitation is forbidden in the area, and farming is very limited. Matthiessen is thus able to visit the DMZ's boundary, accompanied by armed soldiers. ("One may visit a North Korean museum that reveals American atrocities, but we decline this educational opportunity, electing to go birdwatching instead.") He thus gets to watch cranes in the "most fiercely protected wildlife sanctuary on earth... an accidental paradise for cranes." Woe to the cranes if peace breaks out.
This volume includes paintings and drawings of cranes by Robert Bateman, lovely renderings that are more compelling than the usual field guide renditions. They complement Matthiessen's fine text. Cranes are long lived, and they often mate for life. Their windpipes are modified like French horns to produce eloquent and distinctive calls. Their size and their pugnacity, for they are protective birds and dangerous to handle, should make us respect them as fellow-citizens of the planet. There is no need to invoke anthropomorphism; there is a spiritual bond between humans and these animals which Matthiessen has movingly demonstrated. He knows, however, that "the time is past when large rare creatures can recover their numbers without man's strenuous intervention," and despite his romantic optimism, his stories show we are strenuously bent on something else entirely.
Rating: 4
Summary: preaching to the choir of the birds of heaven
Comment: Of Peter Matthiessen's non-fiction I have previously read only The Snow Leopard, but I have also enjoyed a collection of short stories called On the River Styx. Mr. Matthiessen's authorial voice is very prickly in Birds of Heaven, much more cranky than I remember it in The Snow Leopard, which was written in the wake of the death of his wife from cancer. The Snow Leopard was permeated with sadness and longing. Birds of Heaven is permeated with anger and impatience.
The book is arranged geographically. Beginning in Siberia, Mr. Matthiessen takes through Asia to Australia and then on to Africa and Europe and finally to North America. There are no cranes in South America (or Antarctica).
The author is at his best when he is combining his wry observations of the people and places around him with an enthusiastic and well-informed account of the natural history of a region. I felt that he was less successful when he lets his righteous indignation get the better of him and begins to make snide comments about the absence of a love of the natural world in Chinese society, the wrong-headedness of various bureaucrats and the corruption of local officials.
It is not as if I disagreed with his point of view, but I knew that I already shared it before I even picked up the book. I can't imagine anyone who had any doubts about the importance of cranes as sensitive indicators of the general health of the environment being won over to the crane's side by this hectoring, doctrinaire authorial voice. But then, perhaps this books is really just an extended love letter to the cranes and to the environment in general. As such, it succeeds wonderfully.
Rating: 4
Summary: Gorgeous illustrations; interesting text
Comment: The most striking feature of this book is the color plates, which might make the book a nice gift for a birdlover. This ornithological study works on at least 2 levels:1)it is a detailed study of the current knowledge of 15 species of cranes, most of which are endangered (The Sandhill crane of the US is an exception), efforts for preservation of the species, and ornithological details. To give the briefest example, some of the cranes are migratory,while others are not. Some migrate long distances, as does the crane that nests in Northern Asia and winters in India. The Sandhill crane, of North America, has the longest migration. Most produce only one egg per season, take more than one year to mature (unlike geese), and are subject to predation;the book enumerates the numerous efforts at preservation worldwide, which include using an airplane as an imprinted mother-figure, just like in the film "Fly Away Home." Also there are preservation societies in many countries, including Cornell U. and in Wisconsin in America. 2) It also works as an historical and geographical travel guide to many remote areas of the world, including China, Mongolia, Siberia, Southern and Southeast Asia,Japan, Korea (where cranes inhabit the demilitarized zone) , Australia, England, Africa, and America-- all continents except South America. These cultures are alien in terms of religion, culture,politics and geography at least to me so reading about them presents a formidable challenge. The book is lavishly illustrated with pictures of these beautiful and diverse birds.
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Title: The Ghost with Trembling Wings: Science, Wishful Thinking and the Search for Lost Species by Scott Weidensaul ISBN: 0374246645 Publisher: North Point Press Pub. Date: 15 June, 2002 List Price(USD): $26.00 |
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Title: Eye of the Albatross: Visions of Hope and Survival by Carl Safina ISBN: 0805062297 Publisher: Owl Books Pub. Date: 01 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: Birds by Robert Bateman ISBN: 0375421823 Publisher: Pantheon Books Pub. Date: 15 October, 2002 List Price(USD): $40.00 |
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Title: End of the Earth: Expeditions To South Georgia and Antarctica by Peter Matthiessen ISBN: 0792250591 Publisher: National Geographic Pub. Date: 01 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $26.00 |
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Title: Tigers in the Snow by Peter Matthiessen ISBN: 0865475962 Publisher: North Point Press Pub. Date: 10 October, 2001 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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