Elephantoms
July 12th, 2003by Lyall Watson
ISBN: 0393324591
This book is probably as much memoir as it is nonfiction title about elephants. Often while I was reading it, I pictured a sixty-something man in a khaki shirt, settled down behind a large oak desk covered with papers and interesting-looking objects, sipping a cup of tea. He was leaning forward slightly, as I sat in a comfy overstuffed and aged leather chair, listening to him.
Some of the things he’d say would make me wonder what he was actually drinking, but the stories were fascinating.
It also means Watson occasionally repeats himself, but I didn’t really care. I find it interesting to read what someone has to say on a subject about which they are passionate, and Watson is definitely passionate about elephants.
He saw his first wild elephant as a young boy (he grew up in South Africa) and that moment was full of awe and inspiration for him. In this book Watson talks about the natural history of South Africa, the fossil record of elephants’ ancestors, the place elephants have held in different cultures and their myths, the horrible story of humans and elephants competing for the same land and resources, and he speculates about the importance of animals like elephants, their evolution, and human needs and connections with them.
This is not a hard-science book, but Watson doesn’t say that it is. He does a good job of explaining what his perspective is, and alerting the reader to the fact that this is hisperspective; he isn’t afraid to go out on a limb and he doesn’t try to hide it when that is what he is doing. He also doesn’t apologize for anthropomorphizing elephants; he thinks we really ought to give them more credit. Also, as it is not a hard science book, Watson isn’t afraid to talk about the plight of elephants in heartbreaking terms, because that is often what the terms are, heartbreaking.
I found the speculation, unlikely stories, and tangents to be the best parts of this book. They tend to be the kind of thing that at the same time you can’t really believe are true, you want to believe are true. An early story of this type is one of an autistic boy who sees an elephant where he lives — but of course there are no elephants at that location — though there were thousands of years ago. In another, you learn that J.K. Rowling probably took the name Padfoot from existing European lore.
By the end of this book, I wanted to read more about elephants. Watson makes you care about these creatures and want to know even more about them. I also wanted to check out other books by Watson; apparently he is a prolific writer but this is the first of his books I’ve come across. Since he talks about Jacobson’s organ here (which fits; elephants do have the largest one in the animal kingdom) and he did write a book about it, I will be keeping an eye out for that one. Elephantoms is full of enjoyable if somewhat rambling stories. Recommended.
