Reviews for Kingdom Under Glass: A Tale of Obsession, Adventure, and One Man's Quest to Preserve the World's Great Animals

The average rating for Kingdom Under Glass: A Tale of Obsession, Adventure, and One Man's Quest to Preserve the World's Great Animals based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2010-12-28 00:00:00 Mathew Sabin A promising subject rendered curiously inert I wish I had liked this book more. Really, I do. I was certainly prepared to like it. Golly - big game hunting in Africa, Teddy Roosevelt, lingering tropical illnesses, high caliber weapons, faithful retainers, murder, danger, and intrigue - it certainly sounded like my cup of tea. This is the tale of a man who kills a leopard with his bare hands, for crying out loud, not to mention this wonderful opening passage, which drops the reader right into one of the most thrilling narrow-escape moments of renowned taxidermist Carl Akeley's life: "He felt heartsick when he saw the gorilla start its death tumble. It was coming right for him. Three or four hundred pounds of silver-backed ape slumping down the bright green jumble of vegetation in joyless somersaults. Rolling like a rain barrel, long arms flopping, ass over applecart, a furry black hogshead headed straight for the chasm below." Alas, it's all downhill from there. Carl Akeley was simply never real for me. I never understood what motivated him. This was despite - or perhaps because of? - the author's painstaking attempts to recreate what Akeley thought and felt at any given moment. Key to the author's approach is the explanation (or disclaimer) that precedes the notes in the back of the book: "While some of the techniques I used to construct my narrative may appear unconventional for a work of nonfiction, such as collage and a near-allergic avoidance of the subjunctive, I believe my commitment to narrative flow forced me to be rigorous when it came to the factual basis for my material. Even though I employed some techniques that are traditionally novelistic, such as describing an individual's thoughts of feelings or re-creating a conversation as I think it may have occurred, in reading the notes below the reader will find that any such narrative liberties are based on actual documentation." Okay, I have no problem with this. I'm not fastidious or conventional about how an author employs his sources. In fact, I like a generous hand with the narrative seasoning. But there's something forced about Kirk's approach. Regardless of how vivid the details, there's something lacking. It struck me that in a sense Kirk was attempting with words to do what Akeley did with cured hides and plaster-of-paris: trying to recreate something almost alive, which seemed to be leaping out at the viewer (or reader). Here's a representative passage: "If elephants see their lives pass before their eyes at the moment of death, is it possible Jumbo might have wondered whether his own had been real or just some conjured dream of a merchandising wizard. Had he been flesh and blood or merely the brooches and ice cream cones and stickpins and extra-large hot dogs sold on the midway? The hats, cigars, pies, even walking canes - the inanity of it all - to which his name had been plastered? Or had he been even less than that? A hollow, elephant-shaped balloon batted back and forth across the ocean in an imperial game of badminton?" Huh? Come again? It's just too much, reflecting on what the elephant thought about at the time of his death, not to mention the clutter of verbiage that follows that conjecture. It's pointless and smacks of a writer who needs to just step back … and edit. Granted, that's one of the more egregious passages. Still, if any facet of an episode can be dramatized or elaborated on, trust me, he'll go for it: "It seemed only a matter of who would hold out longer, and since it as he, not the leopard, who was doing most of the bleeding, he resigned himself again to the likelihood of dying. It was growing dark. As he wrestled with the leopard, the stars above seemed to dart and squiggle dizzily. He listened to the crunching of his own flesh, of the fibers of his muscles being shredded, and he suddenly recalled the bronze sculpture at the Palace of Fine Arts he'd seen a few years before at the Chicago World's Fair, of the bear with the Indian's arm in its jaws. He almost laughed, thinking how he'd be able to tell Wheeler exactly what it felt like now. Unfortunately, he probably wouldn't survive the experience, and therefore Wheeler would have to remain in the dark. Carl, are you thinking, or do you just think you're thinking? There was not really any pain at all. Only the sound of the crunching of his flesh. And in the midst of the struggle he felt a strange sensation -- he thought the word was joy. At least the joy of a good fight. The fear and adrenaline had given way to an almost dreamy feeling. He looked deep into the cat's face. Close enough to feel its rumbling purr in his sternum. The cat's kohl-lined eyes held his gaze with an eerie patience. Though beneath its terrifying surface the leopard was clearly suffering too. They were suffering together." Actually, the Akeley vs. the leopard death struggle was one of my favorite episodes in the book. But caught up in the narrative flow as I was, I couldn't help but wish the author had taken out the bit about the World's Fair and the sculpture. It didn't add anything. It was a detail that detracted rather than added. And this superfluous detail is the sort of thing that exasperated me and made me believe less, not more. At various points I wondered if I were the one at fault. Did I simply not get it? After setting the book aside a few times and coming back to it, each time I was driven more by a sort of morbid curiosity: would this book ever repay the effort of reading it? Naw. It ends with something of a whimper, I'm afraid. Ultimately, I was disappointed. Carl Akeley was a fascinating man, no doubt, but he remained something of an enigma to me. I couldn't help but think that a more conventional treatment of his very unconventional life would have made a more rewarding book.

Review # 2 was written on 2019-08-25 00:00:00 Jeremy Matches Whoa this is massive and highly detailed. I can't imagine the years spent in research. The central subjects are one-of- a-kind people at a time in history when EVERYTHING was on the cusp of something (roughly 1880s to 1930s). The main focus is on Africa during this period. What a story - many stories. I take my hat off to the author for finding this beyond-juicy subject and researching the bejesus out of it. THAT SAID - oh dear lord if it had only been pruned. Considerably. way less detailed, way less researched. I thought I'd go mad reading one section about a shopping trip to Marshall Field's for safari needs. It went on longer than seemed possible. I felt like I was floating up the Nile, malaria-addled, never closer to my destination. But ' like many ambitious books ' there is an abundance of wheat among the chaff and I feel richer for having read it.