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mamanrees's review against another edition
Maybe it's just not the right timing, but I just couldn't get into it. I was hoping for something like [b:Prodigal Summer|14249|Prodigal Summer|Barbara Kingsolver|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1426308771s/14249.jpg|718772] but this one just didn't draw me in.
wubledoo's review against another edition
3.0
Well, I liked this book more in concept than in its execution. The section of the book written about the ants was interesting but I couldn't help but be irritated with the anthropomorphizing...
runnersue73's review against another edition
3.0
This is a hard book to review; it was kind of unusual. It is the story of a man's quest to protect a tract of southern forest that he loves. The story, though, goes ALL the way back to his childhood to explain his experiences there and how he came to love it and what all his experiences were there, then follows him to Harvard so we could follow as he became a lawyer in order to save the land (and also details his first romantic experiences, which are kind of tangential to the plot), then back home again, where religious fundamentalist thugs try to kill him for no apparent reason except that they think environmentalists are working against God's ultimate plan. There was a digression into the main character's senior paper on ants, which was informative and interesting but something I've never seen inserted into a novel. Also, if it really was supposed to be a biological research paper it was probably lacking in scientific observation and data; it was more an artistic description of the ant colony, but his professors were all describing the paper as brilliant, which seems a bit unlikely to me. But I suppose inserting a realistic scientific paper would lose a lot of readers!
greenreader's review against another edition
5.0
First fiction novel from the Pulitzer Prize winning author. E.O. Wilson is a Harvard (I think) professor of entomology (sp?)-he studies bugs. He has written numerous non-fiction on bugs, and ants are his favorite. The book is described as a modern day Tom Sawyer/Huckleberry Finn novel.
I loved this book. I don't know about the whole Mark Twain angle, but it was very original. It may just spawn a new genre of fiction...Environmental. It's 3 stries in 1. first, a young man who loves exploring the southern wilderness of Alabama and keeping up family honor in an old southern family. 2nd, the epic struggle for survival and battles between rival ant colonies. 3rd, the young man as he enters the world of real estate developers and environmentalists. who's side is he on?
I loved this book. I don't know about the whole Mark Twain angle, but it was very original. It may just spawn a new genre of fiction...Environmental. It's 3 stries in 1. first, a young man who loves exploring the southern wilderness of Alabama and keeping up family honor in an old southern family. 2nd, the epic struggle for survival and battles between rival ant colonies. 3rd, the young man as he enters the world of real estate developers and environmentalists. who's side is he on?
barrysweezey's review against another edition
Such an eminent scientist has no business being such an evocative novelist. In part of the book, he tells the story of some ant colonies from the ants' point of view.
simplymeg's review against another edition
2.0
Interesting detail of ant community life. The story took a rather weird turn toward the end. Worth reading, but it could have ended sooner and been just as effective.
aneides's review against another edition
2.0
This is the first full-length work of E.O. Wilson's that I have been able to finish; although the science is right up my alley, something about his style of nonfiction writing irritates me. Even though Anthill is a much easier read than Wilson's denser nonfiction, he is clearly not a novelist.
Anthill can be roughly divided into three sections. In the first, we meet Raff, a boy growing up in the Deep South who becomes fascinated with the natural history of the animals at a local lake. We learn about these animals and their habitat with Raff, as well as learning some particulars of the history and culture in and around Mobile, AL, which is moderately interesting. Under the tutelage of a professor who has befriended him (and is also the narrator), Raff studies the local fauna and eventually makes his way to study biology at a that prof's university. The second section, more of a brief interlude, is ostensibly Raff's senior thesis research and it tells the story of ant colonies over several seasons at his beloved lake. This section is highly interesting and completely engaging but it is, alas, very brief. The third section sees Raff going to law school and coming into his own as a defender of wildlands, eventually to save his own little corner of nature from a confederation of evil developers.
Wilson tries to draw parallels between an anthill, the human family and society at large, but this attempt mostly falls flat. He also expresses the thought processes of humans- especially Raff's mother and uncle- in terms that evoke ideas of natural selection and the economics of ecology. This is a clever idea- and is clearly intentional- but it just doesn't work for me. Raff's thoughts, on the other hand, seem very facile and it is difficult to believe that he is indeed a brilliant student... or that the "narrator" is smart enough to have a PhD himself. Other characters' thoughts and locutions seem alien and sinister (possibly intentional, but again, it doesn't work) and Raff's perceptions of his fellow students seem to come from a man of a much older generation. Finally, the last section of the novel- the only section that has a real (human) plot- feels slapped together and tacked on.
Hopefully Wilson had fun writing this novel- he certainly deserves a change of pace in his literary endeavors and might have become a respectable novelist if he'd started writing fiction at a younger age.
Anthill can be roughly divided into three sections. In the first, we meet Raff, a boy growing up in the Deep South who becomes fascinated with the natural history of the animals at a local lake. We learn about these animals and their habitat with Raff, as well as learning some particulars of the history and culture in and around Mobile, AL, which is moderately interesting. Under the tutelage of a professor who has befriended him (and is also the narrator), Raff studies the local fauna and eventually makes his way to study biology at a that prof's university. The second section, more of a brief interlude, is ostensibly Raff's senior thesis research and it tells the story of ant colonies over several seasons at his beloved lake. This section is highly interesting and completely engaging but it is, alas, very brief. The third section sees Raff going to law school and coming into his own as a defender of wildlands, eventually to save his own little corner of nature from a confederation of evil developers.
Wilson tries to draw parallels between an anthill, the human family and society at large, but this attempt mostly falls flat. He also expresses the thought processes of humans- especially Raff's mother and uncle- in terms that evoke ideas of natural selection and the economics of ecology. This is a clever idea- and is clearly intentional- but it just doesn't work for me. Raff's thoughts, on the other hand, seem very facile and it is difficult to believe that he is indeed a brilliant student... or that the "narrator" is smart enough to have a PhD himself. Other characters' thoughts and locutions seem alien and sinister (possibly intentional, but again, it doesn't work) and Raff's perceptions of his fellow students seem to come from a man of a much older generation. Finally, the last section of the novel- the only section that has a real (human) plot- feels slapped together and tacked on.
Hopefully Wilson had fun writing this novel- he certainly deserves a change of pace in his literary endeavors and might have become a respectable novelist if he'd started writing fiction at a younger age.
abetterjulie's review against another edition
1.0
Couldn't get through it. Wanted to like it, tried really hard, but without success.
qofdnz's review against another edition
3.0
I'm not sure what it was I just read and I never thought I would be mesmerized by ants. Just found the rather rushed ending a bit random.
sohnesorge's review against another edition
I had to give up on this one half-way through. It's not that it's a BAD book, it's just that I don't care enough about ants.