I guess after reading a couple volumes of Thoreau, I was in the mood for some additional nature-themed reading. And I prepared for just that occasion seventeen years ago when I bought this book at the book sale at the Jewish Community Center in St. Louis.
So this is a late 1960s naturalist, well, novel I guess. It talks about the life of a Kodiak bear from its birth to its death on Kodiak Island in Alaska some years later after it has grown to legendary size and is sought by hunters. It talks about the biology of the island, its history, and goes into detail but narratively unlike the Thoreau catalogs. It’s got a materialist, circle-of-life vibe to it but it presents Nature as red in tooth and claw (literally) in a nonjudgmental fashion. It does tut-tut hunters who come to the island to kill the big bears (and a couple get what’s coming to them courtesy of Monarch). And although it does say not to anthopomorphize animals, it does with Nature herself.
Written in the 21st century, the book would have been unreadable likely with the Message, but it’s not a bad read as it is.
The Bass Pro Shops headquarters here in Springfield has a stuffed Kodiak bear that is a bit of a photo op for visitors. I wondered if this was, indeed, Monarch of Deadman Bay, but it turns out he was not taken by a hunter (scientists tranquilize him to test him and tag him, and a rival bear attacks while he’s incapacitated–the ultimate irony that do-gooders did him in instead of hunters). I had thought of having my picture taken with it and this book, but, c’mon, man, you’re not here to see pictures of me. You’re here to see pictures of random actresses, not me. So no fun in that.
I guess Caras was a known animal/naturalist journalist with many television appearances (including being a regular host of the Westminster dog show) and has a pile of books to his credit, and some look to be in this line. If I see them, I will pick them up. Let that be my recommendation to you then.
