Elephants: Birth, Life, and Death in the World of the Giants
By: Hannah Mumby / Narrated By: Gemma Lawrence
Length: 7 hrs and 50 mins
Unwieldy wordsmithing, a LOT of time hopping, odd segues, leave this a very near miss
Truly, this could’ve been an AWEsome book, and in many ways it danged neeeeear was indeed. But boy was I left scratching my head, like, OFTEN!
Now, please consider that outside of cats and dogs (And birds, and toads, and uh, lots of critters…), elephants are my favorite creatures on the planet. I’ve been given or have purchased myself ooooodles of little elephant figurines, stuffed animals, appliqués, you name it, over the years, and I shall continue to do so. Dunno, I think it started when I was just a kid and saw a matriarch elephant stroking the bleached skull of a long-dead elephant; so somberly, so mournfully, it was painful to watch, and it touched me deeply.
So I was particularly excited to start Elephants, esPECially as the new science is more humane and doesn’t knee-jerk shout ANTHROPOMORPHISM about EVERYthing, ya know? I was thinking that I’d get a blending of anecdotes with new research, rounded out by elegant writing from someone who’s a Science Fellow, a Research Fellow, an Assistant Professor, a blah blah Notable blah.
But what we have here is kinda sorta a jumbled hodgepodge that’s somewhat difficult to follow. It opens with Hannah Mumby as a young woman, indeed, barely a girl, witnessing her very first elephant in the wild, and she’s danged near overwhelmed by the experience. Her time amongst the elephants and with fellow researchers is joyous and fraught with science and hastily snapped pics.
So it begins, and then we start bouncing back and forth in time and place, and I started getting lost even though I SWEAR to you that I was in no way dozing off and not paying attention. It’s laudable and AWEsome that the woman has been pretty much everywhere on the face of the earth, observing, tracking, recording elephants; but she’s ALSO been chasing her dream to research, and this all includes jockeying and applying for funding and for spots in colleges at prestigious universities (Cambridge, anyone? She’s soooo proud she went there). Then there are the weeeeird segues such as an ultrasound of an elephant leads into her telling us aaaaaallll about an ultrasound of a polyp leading to the discovery of her kidney disease. I mean, whazzaaa?!? Which then bounces off into how it pretty much ruined a party for her when, imMEDiately after diagnosis, she wanders in late to her own party and bursts into tears.
It’s sweet that we get to know Mumby as a person, but it’s sooo oddly structured as far as writing goes. Hard to follow, hard to swallow. Don’t get me wrong, right at the end she pivots to how she was able to reframe her disease: She knows it will ultimately kill her, but that just means she’s doing all she can with her life right now, while she’s still breathing and moving and acting and, undeniably, rocking. But what’s it gotta do with elephants?
She tries to lyrically write how exposure to the wonderful creatures has made her morph into one as time has progressed, to where she tries to think like an elephant rather than coming at hypotheses as a researcher hellbent on viewing situations from a single outsider’s standpoint. This led her to some tremendous breakthroughs when it came to learning about how male elephants are actually more social than previously thought. And she really tries to Listen To and to Hear elephants, and that sends her into the research and recording of their vocalizations. She delightfully posits that the microphone they rigged looks like a fuzzy cat sticking out into space… but such an aside tries too hard to be warm and amiable writing.
So for me, the writing just tried too hard, and it was SUCH an ambitious attempt to blend hardcore science and research with kind and compassionate tones. It’s ostensibly for both scientists and the layperson who just looooves elephants… and as I looooove elephants, I s’pose I was part of the targeted audience. And I should add that one of its plusses is the really wonderful narration by Gemma Lawrence. If warmth was intended in the writing, warmth was conveyed in the performance. When there were humorous anecdotes, Lawrence chuckled in her reading, and I had to check a few times to make sure that this wasn’t all performed by the author cuz it TRULY seemed like this was coming from the person relaying her experiences. Brava for Ms. Lawrence!
No, at no point did ANY of the audiobook make me wanna doze off; rather, I felt I was kept on my toes as Mumby tells us of what happened when she was 23 then 29 then 25, here in Myanmar then in Colorado then in South Africa then then then. Good heavens, my teeth were rattling as we jumped around so much. So many, many experiences she’s had, so many hats she’s worn whether as a student, a researcher, a friend, a patient. It aaaaalmost worked that she could twin herself into feeling like an elephant as it showed her to be a verrrrry empathetic human being; but ultimately, she went off in too many directions for me to feel like here was a person who knows “just what it’s like” for an elephant.
And by the way? Some of the best parts are the horror show parts, so if you’re twitchy about cruelty to animals, stay away from ANYthing about elephants. Mumby relays her first encounter with the slaughter of an elephant in stark and graphic tones (And it’s one of the MANY times she pukes throughout the book), but it’s most certainly not the last death she encounters. During her time as a researcher, maybe the grand culling was over, but there was still a LOT of poaching and slaughtering going on. Which she does not fault humans for; she asks that, when we think of poachers and poaching, we also think of the humanity involved—the poverty, the helplessness, the greed of nations, etc. So nobody can fault her for elevating elephants over the plight of humans. Okay okay okay. I won’t, and she caught me even as I was having a knee-jerk Dang Those Humans moment.
Elephants taught me lots and lots, and it was almost great. I applaud (Most loudly!) Mumby for her dedication, devotion, and her continued efforts. I TOTALLY give her a shoutout and am touched by her desire to live her life to the fullest and to do what she can for all animals, for a planet in crisis.
It’s just that I didn’t need to hear about her polyps… So sue me…
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