drlove2018 's review for:

Don't Sleep, There Are Snakes: Life and Language in the Amazonian Jungle by Daniel L. Everett

2.0

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Despite the two-star ranking, I did find parts of this book incredibly interesting regarding the formation of language and the intersection of language and culture. That said, parts of it were also very dry, academic and techno-babbly about linguistic theory. I think he forgot for the last 50 pages or so that he was writing a book for an audience that is not necessarily either versed or interested in the minutiae of the development of linguistic theory and field studies over the past three decades. When he does remember, though, it is often to provide an unfortunate and clunky metaphor for the concept he is trying to elucidate, so I generally would rather slog through the jargon-y prose than endure figurative language that your average six-year-old would wince to hear. Also, he basically glosses over his transition from his initial purpose of going to the Amazon as a Christian missionary to his eventual renunciation of all religious faiths with a couple of frustratingly vague paragraphs. Half of my interest in reading this came from the desire to hear about how he went from a missionary to a person with a 'non-theistic view of the world.' That's a pretty big leap, and while I understand wanting to keep certain things private, particularly as regards his family, I think if you are going to write a book like this, you need to be prepared to spill your guts a little bit more. Otherwise, you might as well keep it to yourself and stick to writing articles for academic journals. In case it isn't obvious, I was disappointed in this book - mostly because it had such potential to be utterly absorbing, but only achieved this for mere paragraphs at a time.