Review of 'Modoc : The True Story of the Greatest Elephant That Ever Lived' on 'Goodreads'
1 star
what a load of crap. the cover of this book has a young boy sitting on a bench beside an elephant with his arm stretched around her back in a gesture of comraderie. the elephant is sitting as well - looking very much like a weary old man, taking a load off. except this is NOT an old man; this is an elephant and there is nothing relaxing about elephants sitting down, or we'd see them doing it in the wild! in fact, i'm sure the act of sitting down (then getting up) is a circus trick that an elephant does with discomfort. it is our human interpretation of the photo that gives this false sense of ease and friendship. and that is what's wrong with this entire book. modoc and his trainer 'love' each other through thick and thin - but can we quantify specific behavior in an animal …
what a load of crap. the cover of this book has a young boy sitting on a bench beside an elephant with his arm stretched around her back in a gesture of comraderie. the elephant is sitting as well - looking very much like a weary old man, taking a load off. except this is NOT an old man; this is an elephant and there is nothing relaxing about elephants sitting down, or we'd see them doing it in the wild! in fact, i'm sure the act of sitting down (then getting up) is a circus trick that an elephant does with discomfort. it is our human interpretation of the photo that gives this false sense of ease and friendship. and that is what's wrong with this entire book. modoc and his trainer 'love' each other through thick and thin - but can we quantify specific behavior in an animal as love? can we equate a different set of behaviours as self defense and justifify an act of violence as an exception to love?
(and should a quote from betty white on the back of a book qualify as a literary recommendation? if anything, that tells me they needed to fluff out the back page and had no better material)
by the author's own reckoning, modoc murders at least 3 indians early in the book, but then he tries to paint an additional act of violence (this time in an american setting) as a one-off. how about an animal acts like an animal??
and it's not simply implying that an animal is capable of acting and loving like a human being - there's seems to be a vault over mankind, like the animal is more human, more pure, more deserving of our love and respect. this is what drives me bananas.
and then's the author's incredibly predictable writing style - no flare, no poetry, nothing but the usual, expected adjectives for his nouns. bo-ring.
and his own editor must have been bored too; he/she didn't even catch the spot where the elephants are poisoned and cured through a vaccine. a vaccine for god's sake! you'd think someone who loved animals so much would have an ounce of science in their education (but maybe not - maybe that's where the new agey/spiritual/mystical stuff comes from - in the rejection of rational, testable thought)
