About this title: A classic, moving quest of elephants, memory and the will to survive. Mud is an infant elephant, orphaned at birth and blessed with visionary powers. She and her adoptive family roam the plains of east Africa in search of water and food. At a crowded watering hole in a bad drought, ivory poachers find them and kill, or drive off, almost all of the elephant cows and their young. Mud, now an adolescent and pregnant with her first calf, sets out with the wounded and traumatized survivors in search of the injured. Guided by visions, memories and hallucinations as much as their incredible sense ...
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Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Edition: American ed.
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Metropolitan Books
Date Published: 05/1999
ISBN-13:9780805060362ISBN:0805060367
Description: Good in good dust jacket. Good, In good dust jacket. Glued binding. Paper over boards. With dust jacket. 330 p. Contains: Illustrations. Ex-Library expected imperfections. read more
Edition: American ed.
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Metropolitan Books
Date Published: 05/1999
ISBN-13:9780805060362ISBN:0805060367
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. Very Good, In very good dust jacket. Glued binding. Paper over boards. With dust jacket. 330 p. Contains: Illustrations. read more
Description: Good. Light shelf wear and minimal interior marks. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Very good. Book has appearance of light use with no easily noticeable wear. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Very good. Book has appearance of light use with no easily noticeable wear. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Very good. Book has appearance of light use with no easily noticeable wear. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Good. Light shelf wear and minimal interior marks. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Metropolitan Books
Date Published: 1999
ISBN-13:9780805060362ISBN:0805060367
Description: Good in Good jacket. First Edition. Ex-library. 230-Z-Add. Books rated "Good" may have some notes, underlining, or highlighting. These books also may contain the previous owner's name, stamp, sticker, or gift inscription, or may be library discards. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Picador
Date Published: 2000-06-03
ISBN-13:9780312264123ISBN:0312264127
Description: Very Good. Light wear to cover edges, price sticker on cover, clean & tight pgsFirst Class shipping if available for faster service. read more
"I loved the fact that B. Gowdy gave the elephants anthropomorphized personalities. But it didn't have the same charm and wit as Watership Down. Maybe it's unfair of me to compare...I don't know. It just didn't work for me.
It did keep me interested to the end. It wasn't a bad novel but it wasn't a great one either."
"I shouldn't have been surprised at how much I liked this. I've enjoyed everything else I've read by Gowdy. But I'm not one to pick up an "animal story", and the numerous pullquotes from reviews put me off somewhat. You know: poignant, important, powerful story of animal suffering. Please.
Barbara Gowdy's skill as a novelist is probably the main reason for my appreciation of this work, but her approach, while not unique, also contributes. Rather than using extensive anthropomorphism for maximal empathic pull, or uncompromising biological fidelity, she imagines a social and intellectual perspective for her animal characters based on an invented independent culture, particular to each species. By crafting this elaborate elephant culture -- including kinship structures; naming rites; birth, death and mating rituals; social hierarchy; division of labour; and a complex mythology rich with symbolism -- Gowdy bypasses the need for the elephants to crudely approximate human experience, and instead gives them a space of their own to grieve, resent, trust or desire. This extends to the interactions between the elephants and other species, in a way that's curious, delightful and, yes, surprising."
"I'm already very sympathetic to elephant causes. I'm aware of their relative intelligence and charmed by their advanced social and familial structures in the wild. That's why I really wanted to love this book. Sadly, that just didn't happen. Now bear with me as I explain why.
I can certainly see that Barbara Gowdy is a gifted and inventive writer. This was the first book of hers that I read and I don't believe it will be the last. She gets bonus points for the sheer bravery required to even attempt a book such as this. However. How do I say this without coming off as prudish? I simply never wanted to know so much about elephant sex. There. I've said it. Judge if you will. But once you read about the condition of Torrent's elephant stuff during mating season, you'll know what I mean. A little description goes a long when when discussing these things, and I just got tired of it. Still other parts were too cutesy. Inventing an elephant's world view isn't easy, and I doubt anyone could do it better, but again it was too much."
"Anthropomorphizing is never a very far stretch for me, but this was done so masterfully, and unexpectedly, it left me with a life-long elephant fixation. There are parts that will rip your heart out. You can't read it and not be moved."
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