Book of the week

ADVENTURES OF A YOUNG NATURALIST DAVID ATTENBOROUGH (TWO ROADS) $38

The world’s favourite naturalist, David Attenborough, spins a fine yarn. Or rather, spins several yarns in this combined re-issue of three of his earliest travel and adventure tales.

With customary wit and precision, Attenborough here tells of his first expeditions in the mid 1950s for the new marvel of television, the BBC, and London Zoo. Essentially trips to film and collect animals, they took him to the jungles and swamps of equatorial Guyana and Indonesia, and tropical Paraguay. These three quests are the subject of Attenborough’s first three books, all published in the late 1950s. This volume introduces them to a new audience.

Naturally, the animals – all exotic, rare or elusive – are the heroes of his tales. His stories of the hunt for a manatee, an enraged sloth in its “slow-motion frenzy”, a violent caiman, the primitive Komodo dragon and, the ultimate prize, the giant armadillo, are both fascinating and amusing.

The depth and breadth of Attenborough’s zoological knowledge are impressive. Before Wikipedia and without access to specialists, he seems to know intuitively what to feed a sick armadillo to cure its diarrhoea (earth!), how to contain a viscacha’s wanderlust (keep it in the bathroom), and how to capture a giant python without being squeezed to death (jump on its head).

But the animals are not the only heroes of this book. Attenborough describes vivid encounters with a range of humans. The healing shaman in Guyana is nothing but a hypocritical conman. Their assistant in Indonesia is a marvel of ingenuity. The immensely strong fisherman in Guyana is impressive in his sheer physical enormity. The sulphur workers in Bali are given sympathetic understanding, unlike the incompetent boat captain and ex-gun-runner in Indonesia.

Attenborough gives wittily wry treatment to Indonesian bureaucrats, who have surely mastered shuffling paper and passing the buck – in both senses! His descriptions of the early BBC and its unbelievable expectations of new staff will raise eyebrows. Attenborough seemingly innocently sallies forth into the darkest and furthest reaches of the world without preparation, gear or prior knowledge. He does it all with no sense of a media ego. Attenborough’s trademark is self-effacing humility, delivered with dry wit and linguistic precision. His enthusiasm is as infectious here as it is, even today, on the screen.

The book, though, is not just a collection of colourful travel tales. It does raise important questions of why animals are wrenched from their habitats and transported half way across the world. Is this serious zoological study or mere television entertainment? Does footage of animals in the wild raise our consciousness of their endangered plight? Do rare animals, kept in zoos, preserve gene stock, stored to replenish species in the wild?

This re-issue is a welcome treat, a rare insight into the world of another endangered species – the intelligent, modest and articulate TV presenter.