Detailed item info | Size | | Length: | 269 pages | | Height: | 9.5 in. | | Width: | 6.5 in. | | Thickness: | 1.2 in. | | Weight: | 21.6 oz. |
| | Publisher's Note | Follow writer Linda Spalding to Borneo's threatened jungles on the trail of orangutan researcher Birute Galdikas and discover the unholy mix of foreign scientists, government workers, tourists, loggers, descendants of Dayak headhunters, Javanese gold miners, and half-tame orangutans vying for control of the jungle. Galdikas, along with Dian Fossey and Jane Goodall, formed the famed trio of "angels" Louis Leakey encouraged to study great apes in the wild. In 1971 she went into the jungle to study orangutans and decades later emerged with a run-down empire crumbling around her. Along the way, as poachers and timber barons slaughtered orangutans by the thousands, Galdikas evolved into Ibu, the crusading mother of orphan orangutans, blurring the line between ape and human, tourist and scientist, Eden and everything else. To the orangutans, this was perhaps the cruelest blow of all. Spalding's quest to know this woman takes her from the offices of Galdikas's foundation in Los Angeles to the Sekonyer River in Borneo, where she confronts the sad failure of a woman trying desperately to mother a species to survival; the dangers and temptations of eco-tourism; and the arrogance of our inclination to alter the things we set out to save.
| | Industry reviews | In 1995, novelist Spalding (The Paper Wife) traveled to Indonesia with her two daughters to work on a book about orangutan researcher Birut? Galdikas, who, along with Dian Fossey and Jane Goodall, was a prot?g?e of anthropologist Louis Leakey. That book turns out to be a sophisticated mixture of memoir, science writing and travel essay; a disturbing expos? of complex, sometimes counterproductive, attempts to protect an endangered species; and a knowing self-portrait of a perceptive, sympathetic woman trying to make sense of the ambitions and disappointments around her. Spalding left Toronto with her daughters hoping to gain insight into Galdikas's work by visiting her "research" station, Camp Leakey, in Borneo. Once there, she writes, she encountered unexpected hostility, because she hadn't come under the auspices of the expensive Orangutan Federation International tour whose profits, according to Spalding, benefit Galdikas's family more than the orangutans and because her questions were too probing. Unfazed, the author deciphered her subject from a distance. Her picture of Galdikas as a young woman who came to study orangutans in 1971 and is now holding them illegally in her house, of altruistic scientific inquiry derailed by the temptations of power and money, provokes both repugnance and some measure of understanding. Spalding's lush descriptions of the rainforest are complemented by observations of the guides, forest rangers, villagers and scientists she met, as well as by her extensive reading on ecotourism and evolution. She distinguishes herself by her respect for the local population and by her attempts to comprehend the disparate opinions about Galdikas and the proper treatment of orangutans. Her candid recounting of her fluctuating emotions combines with meditations on motherhood and on the course of her own life to broaden her book's scope even beyond its potent portraiture. Author tour. (May)
Dirda
In 1995, novelist Spalding (The Paper Wife) traveled to Indonesia with her two daughters to work on a book about orangutan researcher Birut‚ Galdikas, who, along with Dian Fossey and Jane Goodall, was a prot‚g‚e of anthropologist Louis Leakey. That book turns out to be a sophisticated mixture of memoir, science writing and travel essay; a disturbing expos‚ of complex, sometimes counterproductive, attempts to protect an endangered species; and a knowing self-portrait of a perceptive, sympathetic woman trying to make sense of the ambitions and disappointments around her. Spalding left Toronto with her daughters hoping to gain insight into Galdikas's work by visiting her "research" station, Camp Leakey, in Borneo. Once there, she writes, she encountered unexpected hostility, because she hadn't come under the auspices of the expensive Orangutan Federation International tour whose profits, according to Spalding, benefit Galdikas's family more than the orangutans and because her questions were too probing. Unfazed, the author deciphered her subject from a distance. Her picture of Galdikas as a young woman who came to study orangutans in 1971 and is now holding them illegally in her house, of altruistic scientific inquiry derailed by the temptations of power and money, provokes both repugnance and some measure of understanding. Spalding's lush descriptions of the rainforest are complemented by observations of the guides, forest rangers, villagers and scientists she met, as well as by her extensive reading on ecotourism and evolution. She distinguishes herself by her respect for the local population and by her attempts to comprehend the disparate opinions about Galdikas and the proper treatment of orangutans. Her candid recounting of her fluctuating emotions combines with meditations on motherhood and on the course of her own life to broaden her book's scope even beyond its potent portraiture. Author tour. (May)
Publishers Weekly (03/15/1999)
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