I watched the movie some time in the 90s. I loved it. I was unaware that the author of the book has nearly cult status in Canada. An amazon friend (or more than 1?) told me that I ought to read Farley Mowat ... so here I am, choosing his one book that means something to me immediately. I find that the book must have been among the front-running myth busters on wolves. Myth busting is always entertaining. I don't know enough about the subject matter to judge the full extent of truth in the matter, but as I like Mowat's attitude and writing, I give him the benefit of doubt (though I was a little disconcerted by the following line in his foreword of 1993: Never allow facts to interfere with the truth! That is of course a nicely absurd sentence and therefore fun, but is also a little precarious.)
What is this? It is several things: first of all a non-fiction account of a research expedition into the wild and cold. (Or is it an inaccurate account of a biased partisan trip to damage the natural interests of the hunting industry?) It is also a shrill satire about hunters, their lobby, bureaucrats, and `scientists'. All this is funny and it is nice to see how Mowat stretches his humor to himself. (Example: he was sunbathing naked in the wilderness, when a small group of wolves passes nearby; he has no time to collect his clothes and runs after them naked, for his scientific observations; he meets a group of local people (then still called Eskimos) and after the encounter a man says to him that the woman in the group might have liked him better with his trousers on.)
The book was published in the 60s but based on events in the 40s. A young zoologist is sent to the wilderness to prove that wolves are bad and require eradication. They are competing with the large game industry, who does not like competition. The ruling theory about wolves is that they are voraciously bloodthirsty and kill for the fun. Our hero is expected to measure the problem and propose solutions.
He writes in his 1993 foreword that he sees himself as one of the fathers of the theory that the wolf has been demonized unfairly, that he is not remotely the danger to Homo sapiens and other species that mythology claimed him to be. The demonization of the wolf, says Mowat, was started when man became sedentary. Wolf became the embodiment of evil to civilized man.
Mowat's idyllic stories about good family life and neighborhood, plus his descriptions of wolves hunting deer reads as if it makes sense. His main theory is that wolves don't diminish deer herds, but keep them healthy. Convincing.
This is all old history and probably the real world has moved on to doing irreparable damage by now. Or not?
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Reviewed in the United States on May 13, 2010
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Siurana
Debería ser fondo de librería para todo el mundo
Reviewed in Spain on March 28, 2021Brunella Pernigotti
A classic of environmental, wildlife and adventure literature.
Reviewed in Italy on October 9, 2018
