The Hitchhiker's Guide to Endangered Species

Last Chance to See, Douglas Adams

Douglas Adams was a brilliant writer and satirist. In Last Chance to See, he recounts several expeditions he and zoologist Mark Cowardine undertook in the mid-80s as part of a BBC Radio documentary on animal species that were threatened with or nearing extinction.

They went to Madagascar, to search for the aye-aye (an endangered species of lemur); to the island of Komodo in Indonesia to look at Komodo dragons (considered a vulnerable species); to Zaire to see gorillas (threatened by poaching, habitat loss and disease) and white rhinoceroses (the Northern White Rhinocerous is critically endangered, with only 13 known living members of the sub-species as of 2007); to New Zealand to learn about Kakapo birds (critically endangered, with fewer than 100 known survivors); to China to find Yangtze River Dolphins (a species now classified as critically endandered and possibly extinct); to the island if Rodrigues in the Indian Ocean to see Rodrigues fruit bats (threatened by habitat loss).

Along the way, Adams recounts all the details of getting to the place where the animals are, dealing with local travel and bureaucratic conditions, learning about the species from local zoologists and consevationists who are tring to save these species, and his encounters with the animals themselves, with all the satire, wit and sense of the absurd that he was deservedly famous for. You laugh, until suddenly you realise that you should be crying, or raging at the threatened loss of all of these marvelous, strange, funny, beautiful creatures.

I urge you to read it, to laugh, to weep, to think.

Bingeing at King Arthur's Court

Yes, I've been galloping through a few more Arthurian novels in recent months.

Percival and the Presence of God, Jim Hunter

In this short novel, Hunter works with the essense of the story of Percival, his dual quest for King Arthur and the Holy Grail, as told by Chretien de Troyes and later writers. Percival begins his quest with the naïvité and enthusiasm of youth, believing that he can have it all - love, glory and God - that he can complete his quests and return to his belived Whiteflower/Blanchefleur. But instead, he discovers that life is fraught with mischance and danger, and that not all quests can be fulfilled, not all desires can be attained. Through it all runs the theme of Percival's desire to witness the Grail, as a symbol of his spiritual call; but not even that is give to him fully. As Hunter said in an interview with Arthurian scholar Raymond Thompson:

"The Grail ceremony that is not understood or recognized, and is bewildering; then the need to go back and find it again, and possibly never succeed. That to me was the core. It provides the whole sense of the hero's destiny. He is trapped by his destiny in a way that I imagine people like Lancelot and Galahad aren't. He's a bit like a Flying Dutchman or an Ancient Mariner. He's got to go on searching and looking, and he may or may not find the lord of the Grail."

Legends of the Pendragon, ed. James Lowder

James Lowder has collected an anthology of fascinating variations on the theme of the days before the coming of Arthur the High King - tales of Vortigern and the coming of the Saxons, of the young Merlin, of Uther Pendragon, and of the adventurs of the knights of legend, before there was a Round Table. A well-edited collection with some real gems; my favourites include Nancy Varian BerBerick's "Hel's Daughter," Beth anderson's "The Time in Between," Keith Taylor's "A Spear in the Night," and Aaron rosenberg's "six for the Sword."

The Life of Sir Aglovale de Galis

Clemence Houseman's book, originally written in 1905, is an interesting (although not always easy to engage with) study of the psychology of tempatation, moral failure, despair and the struggle for redemption, told through an examination of the life of one of the minor knights of the Arthurian cast of characters, Sir Aglovale de Galis.

There are few extensive references to Sir Aglovale in the body of Arthurian literature; for this novel, Houseman collected each refernce from Malory, created a logical timeline (not always easy when dealing with Malory) and fleshed out the interior life of her protagonist. Sir Aglovale is a man with grave character flaws, who at times gives in to his impusles toward envy, greed, violence, anger, lust and all the other sins of the material world, sometimes wallows despairingly in his capacity for doing wrong and his sense of damnation, and sometimes fights heroically to find redemption - but never deceives himself or others about his nature. In this he is shown to be in some ways more worthy of redeption than many others at Arthur's court, who commit sins of equal measure, but conceal them or disguise them beneath a veneer of noble contention to be the best knight of the realm.

Houseman copies Malory's style with great art and precision, with the consequence that this is not exactly the most accessible text - but it is worth the while for the serious Arthurian enthusiast.

Subversive History

A People’s History of the United States: 1492 - Present, Howard Zinn

I will admit, I'm not all that knowledgeable about American history - not so shocking, considering that I'm not an American - but since the U.S. has had and continues to have such an enormous influence on its neighbours and on the world as a whole, I am occasionally drawn to reading Americna history on the grounds that it is always helpful to know as much as you can, especially about things that can be perceived as threats.

Zinn's book is just what I needed. He tells the history of the U.S., not in terms of dates and political, military or industrial leaders, but in terms of the perspectives of the people. Not the elites, but the average person: settlers, Aboriginal North Americans, farmers, trade unionists, workers, blacks, immigrants, women.

This is a book I will go back to, for insights into what was happening to the real people of America at various times when the otehr history books are talking about legislators and elections and wars.