The rotting underside of a lovely, fragile leaf. Disturbing. (16 b&w photographs; 14 maps, not seen)
A journalist repudiates the usual Discovery Channel views of the remarkable islands and examines the lives of the many who call the Galápagos home.
When he began this project, D’Orso (Like Judgment Day: The Ruin and Redemption of a Town Called Rosewood, not reviewed, etc.) held the common belief that the Galápagos is largely an unpopulated natural laboratory where unique animal and plant species exist undisturbed, seen only by the curious eyes of scientists and eco-tourists. Not so, discovered D’Orso, who made four trips to the islands in the course of writing this stunning and depressing account of human beings once again despoiling a paradise. In was not until 1959 that the islands were declared an Ecuadorian national park, and the terms of that legislation allowed current residents to remain. That handful of people has grown into thousands, many of them impoverished, making their livings by illegal fishing, hunting, and harvesting—by the thousands—sea cucumbers, whose putative aphrodisiac qualities make them valuable in Asia but whose absence from the food chain threatens other species. D’Orso employs several characters throughout, most notably Jack Nelson, who, in Puerto Ayora, operates a no-frills hotel that serves as a membrane through which information passes to D’Orso. But he doesn’t just sit in island bars listening to stories. He visits settlements, interviews hookers, eco-warriors, government officials, artists, and professional goat-hunters (hundreds of thousands of feral goats, donkeys, and pigs threaten the native wildlife and vegetation). Add to this already rather nasty stew a flavoring of government corruption, incompetence, and venality. Perpetually unstable, the government of Ecuador (600 miles away) was enduring a variety of economic and political shocks during D’Orso’s research, and he constantly reminds us not just of the vulnerability of the islands but also of the human institutions that ought to be protecting them.
The rotting underside of a lovely, fragile leaf. Disturbing. (16 b&w photographs; 14 maps, not seen)Pub Date: Dec. 3, 2002
ISBN: 0-06-019390-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2002
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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