An incredible adventure and a most enjoyable read
|
One of the amazing things about the voyage of the Beagle is that Darwin survived it! On the voyage south along the eastern coast of South America and then later on the western coast he would frequently take to the land and meet the Beagle at its next port of call further south or north. He would travel the land hiring gauchos or other guides and horses and mules so that he could study the geology and the flora and fauna. The hardships and dangers he encountered and survived would in some ways put Indiana Jones to shame. In Patagonia amidst the constant gaucho and Indian wars, rife with wanton bloodshed and a kind of genocidal determinism, Darwin rode on horseback and slept on the ground and ate mostly animal flesh of all kinds, including mare's flesh. In Tierra del Fuego the cold and barren lands were enormously forbidding, the inhabitants savage and the dangers very real. One senses in the young Charles Darwin a determination to be the kind of naturalist who leaves no stone unturned, no ridge unclimbed and no species uncollected.
What most surprised me was how well and vibrantly he described the many people he met. Here he speaks of the governor of St. Fe: his "favourite occupation is hunting Indians: a short time since he slaughtered forty-eight, and sold the children at the rate of three or four pounds apiece" (from the entry of Oct 3 and 4, 1832). And here is his description of Queen Pomarre of Tahiti: "The queen is a large awkward woman, without any beauty, grace or dignity. She has only one royal attribute: a perfect immovability of expression under all circumstances" (entry of November 25, 1835). Darwin was quite taken with the Tahitians lauding their sobriety (thanks to the temperance movement of the missionaries) while at the same time bringing a flask of spirits on his travels there. He seemed unaware of any inconsistency.
I was also surprised by Darwin's vigor. I had thought that he was prone to being sickly, and indeed at times, he reports that he was confined to his quarters and that he suffered from seasickness and even homesickness; but when one considers all the miles he travelled on foot, on horseback, and all the mountain peaks he obtained, and the deserts he crossed, the many insects bites he endured, and the hard, cold and wet ground on which he often slept, one has to applaud his strength of body and character. Another surprise was the amount of time he devoted to geology and speculations about the how the land came to be the way he found it. When he spoke of how the land had risen and the mountains formed I had the sense of how thrilled he would have been to have had the modern understanding of plate tectonics.
At a couple of points in the narrative, Darwin speaks of how the most luxurious vegetation does not support the greatest number of animals, or the largest. He compares the plains of Africa and Patagonia with the Brazilian rainforest and speculates on why this should be. At no point does he use the term "grasslands," and so I think we can conclude that he didn't have the knowledge we have today about how fertile grasslands can be, nor did he realize that most of the nutrients in the rain forest are contained within the living plants and organisms above ground leaving the soil relatively poor compared to grassland soil. In the entry for September 15, 1832, he writes: "In grassy plains unoccupied by the larger ruminating quadrupeds, it seems necessary to remove the superfluous vegetation by fire, so as to render the new year's growth serviceable."
Another bit of modern knowledge that would have pleased him to know is that the marine iguanas of the Galapagos Islands cannot just jump into the very cold water that exists there but must warm themselves first, and even then can only stand the water for a limited period of time (an hour or two, I believe). Darwin kept tossing one of the lizards into the water only to watch it return inexplicably again and again to the land.
I was looking for hints that Darwin was already thinking about natural selection, but the text contains nothing that I could find that is directly specific although at one point he refers to the origin of species as that "mystery of mysteries."
The book was written (and obviously rewritten and polished many times over) after Darwin returned to England after comparing notes with other naturalists. The advantage of this approach is the scientific rigor with which he is able to describe and evaluate his experiences. As a professional scientist, Darwin wanted to get all the scientific names right and avoid errors. One would expect through this approach that some immediacy would be lost, but if anything I suspect his journal gained in vividness and was made all the more intriguing for the precision of expression. It is, after all these years, still a most engaging and readable account of a most remarkable adventure--one of the best I've ever read, and I am surprised that it took me so many years to get to it!
The Voyage of the Beagle is also a book that will stay in print for many decades if not centuries to come, partly because it is so well written, and partly because Darwin is Darwin, but also because he was so precise in his descriptions of the animals and the people and the lands that he visited. By reading this we and future generations can learn of the changes that have taken place.
In short I was thoroughly dazzled at Darwin's enormously wide range of knowledge. But I shouldn't have been. In just reading this journal, one can easily see that young Mr. Darwin was already a superb naturalist and a brilliant thinker and observer.
|
|
Poor audio reading of a great book!
|
|
Let me stress that my criticism is about the audio version (Unabridged Classics) of the book, not about the book itself (I wish Amazon would stop lumping reviews of audio books with the paper versions!). The voice in this recording is not only soporific; it is effete and effeminate to a degree. It would probably sound right in an Oscar Wilde or P.G. Wodehouse play, but it is fully out of character both with Darwin and his subject, ie exploration and scientific field work. In the future I will only buy abridged audio versions. Because they require some investment in reworking the original, abridged versions stand a better chance of turning out good than cover-to-cover readings, which can be produced just by "outsourcing" the book to anyone willing to read it aloud in front of a microphone.
|
|
Darwin and the Beagle Journey!
|
Charles Darwin's travels around the world as a 'gentleman' naturalist on HMS Beagle between 1831 and 1836 impressed upon him a sense of the natural world's beauty which he captures in a superlative descriptive narrative. He takes you on a journey along the coasts and interiors of South America and through the Pacific to the South Sea Islands. It displays Darwin's highly intuitive mind at work as he conceptualises the complex relations between our earth's life forms and its environment that leads him to his hypothesis of natural selection.
Whilst I enjoyed Darwin's descriptive narrative immensely I feel quite disappointed overall. I did not particularly like the journal layout of the book and the lack of detail about the actual sailing journey...though this was to be expected. In addition I read this as a layman naturalist and wish my entry level knowledge could have done the book better justice. Overall though a satisfying read.
|
|
|
a book of a trip, a journal of people and places (and anumals and plants)
|
a book of a trip, a journal of people and places (and animals and plants)
This book is great.
I bought this book because I remembered the old TV series of the eighties. I expected a book with the aventures of the journey, but it is much more. It is more than the obervations of zoology and geology, it is mainly about the people, about the cultures that Darwin finds in South America and how he, as a modern European perceived the new independent South-American and native indians, their culture, their customs. With great objectivity, more than what would have today an ordinary tourist, Darwin depicts the way people live, the political and social issues, their superstitions, their food, their missery. And little by little Darwin gives his personal thoughts on everything from social to science issues.
Darwin's writing is clear and modern, full of wisdom and very personal. This edition of the ModernLibrary is very nice, the text has a decent size, the paper is fine and the cover too. Enjoy.
|
|
|
You can't tell me he wasn't having fun
|
|
Remember this says "Journal" and that is what it is. It is his first parson adventures on and off the Beagle. He even includes stories about the people on the ship, the ship's life, and maintenance. He is always going ashore and venturing beyond the ship charter to go where no Englishman has gone before. He makes friends with tyrants and the down trodden. Once, to get an animal to come to him, he lay on his back and waved his arms and legs in the air. Whatever you do, do not turn your back on him. He is always knocking something on the head and taking it back for study. It is fun trying to match the old names for places with the new.
|
|
|
United States | 
United Kingdom | 
Canada