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A review by atelierofbooks
Adventures of a Young Naturalist: The Zoo Quest Expeditions by David Attenborough
4.0
4.5
This is truly an account of a world that no longer exists. These are David Attenborough's memoirs of the three Zoo Quest expeditions to Guyana, Indonesia, and Paraguay that he filmed for the BBC back when nature documentaries were a brand new genre. His second purpose was to capture animals for the London Zoo (with the permission of the countries in question), something that just isn't done now but used to be a legitimate job.
This is the 1950s, a time when Bali wasn't a tourist resort and some Europeans doubted the existence of armadillos. Also a time where, apparently, you could do things like waltz around any country via unrestricted air and water travel, unknowingly commission arms dealers to sail you to unheard of islands, and not get murdered or kidnapped while relying on the hospitality of strangers.
Sure, David, lets just follow this barefoot Paraguayan drifter with five wild dogs around the desert for a week because he too shares your interest in tracking giant armadillos. Of course, we should fly to an unknown town in southern Indonesia because this random shop keeper's cousin knows a guy with a boat who might know how to get to Komodo Island.
In all seriousness, this is a gently funny and compelling account of some wild adventures. I most admire how Attenborough is able to convey grief and moral wrongness without outrage or defaulting to a sense of cultural superiority. That makes stories like the Balinese cockfights even more poignant in a way. His quiet anger and compassion for these animals being brutally exploited by humans is like a slow, furious heartbeat underneath his restrained prose.
This is a balance so rarely achieved in the precarious genre of travelogue and memoir, where our cultural judgements can so easily seep through. He is honest without being judgmental, conscious of his foreignness but not obsequiously so, and never forgets his purpose. He is not in these rarely traveled places for people, but for nature. Animals are given personality and identity similar to the people he meets. They are never treated like dumb creatures one rung lower than humans, but instead like fellow occupants and right holders to our natural world. They can communicate and feel, no matter if they are a tree porcupine or a komodo dragon. It's definitely an attitude that has carried through Attenborough's life and work.
On a personal note, I felt jealous as a woman reading about what men could do so fearlessly in the 1950s. Because it's over 60 years later and I still can't do many of the things they did. I.e. just me and a female friend with our super expensive camera equipment trekking through patriarchal communities in parts unknown, dining and sleeping alongside strange men without a worry.
This is truly an account of a world that no longer exists. These are David Attenborough's memoirs of the three Zoo Quest expeditions to Guyana, Indonesia, and Paraguay that he filmed for the BBC back when nature documentaries were a brand new genre. His second purpose was to capture animals for the London Zoo (with the permission of the countries in question), something that just isn't done now but used to be a legitimate job.
This is the 1950s, a time when Bali wasn't a tourist resort and some Europeans doubted the existence of armadillos. Also a time where, apparently, you could do things like waltz around any country via unrestricted air and water travel, unknowingly commission arms dealers to sail you to unheard of islands, and not get murdered or kidnapped while relying on the hospitality of strangers.
Sure, David, lets just follow this barefoot Paraguayan drifter with five wild dogs around the desert for a week because he too shares your interest in tracking giant armadillos. Of course, we should fly to an unknown town in southern Indonesia because this random shop keeper's cousin knows a guy with a boat who might know how to get to Komodo Island.
In all seriousness, this is a gently funny and compelling account of some wild adventures. I most admire how Attenborough is able to convey grief and moral wrongness without outrage or defaulting to a sense of cultural superiority. That makes stories like the Balinese cockfights even more poignant in a way. His quiet anger and compassion for these animals being brutally exploited by humans is like a slow, furious heartbeat underneath his restrained prose.
This is a balance so rarely achieved in the precarious genre of travelogue and memoir, where our cultural judgements can so easily seep through. He is honest without being judgmental, conscious of his foreignness but not obsequiously so, and never forgets his purpose. He is not in these rarely traveled places for people, but for nature. Animals are given personality and identity similar to the people he meets. They are never treated like dumb creatures one rung lower than humans, but instead like fellow occupants and right holders to our natural world. They can communicate and feel, no matter if they are a tree porcupine or a komodo dragon. It's definitely an attitude that has carried through Attenborough's life and work.
On a personal note, I felt jealous as a woman reading about what men could do so fearlessly in the 1950s. Because it's over 60 years later and I still can't do many of the things they did. I.e. just me and a female friend with our super expensive camera equipment trekking through patriarchal communities in parts unknown, dining and sleeping alongside strange men without a worry.