nestroynaya

"How much we have yet to learn." Jane Goodall now joins Dostoyevsky, Wharton, and Wouk as authors whose books I have attempted, abandoned, returned to, completed, and treasured. Through a Window is the history of a family. It spans 30 years in a chimpanzee community inhabiting the Gombe wilderness of Tanzania. With Jane Goodall as our guide, we are introduced to a group of individuals with personalities and life stories as distinctive as those of any human. There's Gilka, an outgoing and playful youngster who grows up into an unlucky, crippled outcast. There's Jomeo, physically imposing but uninterested in using that strength to climb the social ladder. There's Flo, the skillful matriarch whose influence can be seen in her descendants long after she leaves the world. Through the interactions of these and many other members of the Gombe tribe, we can observe inklings of practices that are sometimes regarded as human inventions, including war, monogamy, and adoption. On the subject of humans, the beginning and end of the book address the rocky relationship between our species and the chimpanzees, from the scientific community's early pushback against the idea of chimps having emotions, to ongoing abuse of these animals for the sake of research and entertainment. As devastating as these issues are, Goodall also gives voice to the many people working to preserve habitats for chimps in the wild, as well as those making existence more bearable for chimps in captivity. Goodall's writing is sharp and descriptive, and I admire her ability to integrate and transition between the different topics covered in this book. She immerses us in the beauty, the horror, and the mystery of the lives of our closest living relatives.

2022-09-09 16:23