Summer World: A Season of Bounty
By: Bernd Heinrich / Narrated By: Mel Foster
Length: 8 hrs and 11 mins
Oy, the narration—And where the heck are the animals?!?
I’ve got a LOT of Bernd Heinrich in my Library. Like, crazy amounts. And I love what an enthusiastic naturalist he is. Indeed, that’s not my problem here with Summer World. It’s just that I’ve also (And now I’m thinking this is unfortunate) a LOT of narrations by Mel Foster, and his narration here just bored me to tears.
Heinrich here in Summer World is looking at the world outside his New England home (Tho’ he sometimes gives us plenty of rambling info and history of other areas) with childlike wonder and interest. Indeed, the info he gives us starts with a line then evolves into a huuuuuge discourse cuz that first line served only to pique his interest and he HAS to learn more, then more, then more yet again.
What’s not to love, right?
Well, first Mel Foster has flat tones, little enthusiasm, there’s little wonder in his voice, and I think that totally kills the very spirit of the book. I zoned out sooooo MANY times, it took me two full days to finish it, and considering it’s only 8 hours, that’s saying quite a bit: Tragic, I tell you. Tragic. There’s a really interesting bit where Heinrich confronts a red colony of ants with a black colony of ants, was wondering about why a black ant would carry a black ant here, a red ant there. It’s completely and unutterably intriguing (Also a little brutal, dead bodies and body parts abound…), but Foster just drones on, maybe speeding his rate up juuuuust a tad to show that maybe, just maybe, something exciting is happening (Wouldn’t know from the droning).
Speaking of drones, Heinrich also TOTally gets into wasps. And his enthusiasm and unmitigated interest has him telling us of different kinds of wasps, braving getting into it all to net a wasp here, a wasp there to study. This, his unbridled enthusiasm, his foray into the minutiae of wasps, could be hiLARious, but Foster keeps things at such a low key that it was, like, >yawn<
Most unfortunate.
Now enough of Foster’s lack and on to Heinrich’s: I’m not sure exACTly what I was expecting from the book, but I’m pretty sure it involved more Animal Animals and fewer insects. I guess I was thinking Summer World would have all those animals who survived Winter and how they lived now that they were around an access and competition for food, now that they were within warmer/even hot temperatures. Heinrich does indeed tell us what happens to plants during the heat, and maybe a bit here and there, but I got nary a warm and fuzzy cuddle-bucket of an animal to bond with. There is a mention of grackles, for a bit, but by the same token, there’s a section on moss and lichen lives also (I know, I know: Life is life and should be appealing to me, but there’s just something about a living entity having a face and eyes that gets my Awwwwww-thing going).
Add to that treatises on chemicals, digressions into where mankind came from, a call for humans to slow our population growth on the planet, and you’ve got another round of points where a book can drag.
I’m soooo sorry as I soooo wanted to absolutely love this. And saying I didn’t makes me feel like I’m kicking a totally absorbed-with-wonder Heinrich in the shins. I don’t fault his enthusiasm; I just question the decision to put every. single. bit of what piqued his interest to be added to and compiled into this as a single book.
That said, I must admit that his joy has me totally up for diving into Winter World (When the time comes… if it ever gets cool again… is not so BLASTed hot… ever again…) cuz I think there’s more to work with such as hibernation and all. Heinrich is just that happy with what he studies, so yessss, I’ll give it a go. The problem?
… It’s narrated by Mel Foster….
:(
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