Media: New Life Stories, David Attenborough (audiobook)

Initially aired on BBC R4, this series, like its predecessor [[ASIN:1408427443 Life Stories]], is also available as a lavishly illustrated [[ASIN:0007425120 book]]. This second instalment of enthralling, beguiling and wide-ranging stories, follows the same format as before: 20 episodes, spread over 3 CDs, each approximately 9-10 minutes long. A useful little booklet succinctly outlining each episode is also included. 

I love these little nuggets, and frequently listen to several at a time, most often whilst driving. The scope is massive, ranging across time, geography, species and subject with gleeful abandon, and, as the blurb on the box says, Attenborough’s “enthusiasm is as infectious as ever”. Personal favourites from this set include his homage to Alfred Russell Wallace, in which there’s a touching account of Wallace’s early relationship with Darwin, characterised (refreshingly) by mutual respect and admiration, in a situation where jealousy and antipathy could so easily have arisen (compare this with Leibniz, Newton, and ‘the calculus’, in Marcus Du Sautoy’s [[ASIN:1408469650 A Brief History of Mathematics]]); then there’s Attenborough’s own place (or lack thereof) in the story of Charnia, one of the world’s earliest fossils, a fractal form of life which evolution seems to have abandoned, as an early experiment in design.

‘Foreign Fare’ deals with the accidents of historical nomenclature: why are some widely different plants, e.g. the two types of artichoke, ‘globe’ and ‘Jeruslaem’, known by the same name? “The fault, if fault it is, can be traced back to Columbus”, says uncle David, before regaling us with a fascinating account of how some of these situations have arisen. With the very different films ‘Project Nim’ and ‘Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes’ both out at the time of this review, the ‘Chimps’ chapter is not just inherently interesting, but topically so, particularly as a dose of reality. Episodes on hummingbirds and butterflies are in places rhapsodic, as Attenborough eloquently conveys his sense of wonder: “astounded… the clearing beyond, was filled with a blizzard of butterflies”. Even simply listing the exotic names of hummingbirds, for example, the ‘sapphire spangled emerald’ (I’d love to see/own John Gould’s work on ‘hummers’, reference to which which seems to form the basis of this chapter), conveys this, but, as he tells how many hundreds of thousands of these beauties were butchered in order to adorn Victorian ladies headgear, he explains that, appalling as this was, it was “their spectacular beauty that accounts for this mania … their particular splendour is their iridescence”.

One thread that’s apparent in several of these stories is the tendency of humans to name animals: Jane Goodall did so with her chimps, Attenborough had his own chameleon, named ‘Rommel’, and there are numerous other instances in various other episodes. Attenborough reflects on this with a good degree of equanimity, allowing the listener to judge for themselves if there’s a difference between the patient scientific methods underlying Jane Goodall’s work with primates, and what Joy and George Adamson did, as foster parents of the lioness Elsa. ‘Quetzalcoatlus’, a giant pterosaur (or ‘winged lizard’), is as exotic as the name promises, and even the people – the eccentric founder of what may possibly have been the world’s first ‘nature reserve’, Squire Waterton, or the Adamsons of ‘Born Free’ fame – are peculiar and remarkable. The series ends on the rather sobering ‘Elsa’ episode, with Attenborough meditating on the difficulties of achieving the right balance in conveying the violence of the natural world (also touched on in the chimps episode), “of which we, after all, are a part.”

I always come away from listening to these stories both better informed about a myriad of interesting things, and with a smile on my face. Appetisingly interesting, this is another trove of treasures, well worth enjoying.

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