see monkeys
Sep. 24th, 2009 12:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jazzfishRobert M. Sapolsky, A Primate's Memoir
This is nominally a tale about Sapolsky's time studying a baboon troop in Kenya. In practice, it's a bunch of stories, some of which are about the baboons, some of which are about the tribes (Bantu farmers and Masai raiders) that live near the baboons, and some of which are about traveling elsewhere in Africa and what a horrible idea that was due to the endemic political instability.
He knows how to tell a really, really good story. I spent much of the book laughing in amazement, or shaking my head in sympathy. He is, in fact, so good at evoking a response that this introvert found the book kind of exhausting, in exactly the same way that being at a party is exhausting. It's great fun and you're enjoying yourself, and at the same time you need to go home and calm down for awhile, turn off the social overload.
My only other complaint is that the stories seem so fragmented. They follow a loose chronology, but often seem disconnected from each other. There's no real link between the stories of the baboons, the tribes, or the larger African situation, except for occasionally the characters.
At least, there's no link until the heartwrenching last chapter, which talks about the fate of the baboons. It ties together the lives of the baboons, the cheerfully self-absorbed culture of corruption in the tribes, and the much greater scale of endemic corruption in the government, with inevitable and horrifying results.
Early on in the book, Sapolsky notes that baboons live a pretty easy life: they have few natural predators, and they can forage for enough food in just a few hours a day. This gives them "about a half dozen solid hours of sunlight a day to devote to being rotten to each other. Just like our society." After reading this book, I can't fault the comparison.
This is nominally a tale about Sapolsky's time studying a baboon troop in Kenya. In practice, it's a bunch of stories, some of which are about the baboons, some of which are about the tribes (Bantu farmers and Masai raiders) that live near the baboons, and some of which are about traveling elsewhere in Africa and what a horrible idea that was due to the endemic political instability.
He knows how to tell a really, really good story. I spent much of the book laughing in amazement, or shaking my head in sympathy. He is, in fact, so good at evoking a response that this introvert found the book kind of exhausting, in exactly the same way that being at a party is exhausting. It's great fun and you're enjoying yourself, and at the same time you need to go home and calm down for awhile, turn off the social overload.
My only other complaint is that the stories seem so fragmented. They follow a loose chronology, but often seem disconnected from each other. There's no real link between the stories of the baboons, the tribes, or the larger African situation, except for occasionally the characters.
At least, there's no link until the heartwrenching last chapter, which talks about the fate of the baboons. It ties together the lives of the baboons, the cheerfully self-absorbed culture of corruption in the tribes, and the much greater scale of endemic corruption in the government, with inevitable and horrifying results.
Early on in the book, Sapolsky notes that baboons live a pretty easy life: they have few natural predators, and they can forage for enough food in just a few hours a day. This gives them "about a half dozen solid hours of sunlight a day to devote to being rotten to each other. Just like our society." After reading this book, I can't fault the comparison.