In the Shadow of Man

When it comes to reading, I prefer to keep an open mind as to what kinds of books I read. I enjoy classics like Catch-22 and Watership Down alongside the mainstream fiction of Michael Crichton and Dan Brown. I can read Flan O'Brian's The Third Policeman one week, and Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot the next. By doing this, I feel I have allowed myself to break free of favoritism. I'm very glad I did, too, because over the last few months I've had some really great reads.

The book I want to highlight is one that took me by surprise. I found it while walking through Barnes and Noble one afternoon, in the Nature section. It's called In the Shadow of Man, by Jane Goodall. I had always known of Jane Goodall and her work, but never the details. In the Shadow of Man encapsulates the early years of her work with the chimpanzees of the Gombe nature preserve in Africa. Her experiences are brought to life in a vivid, undeniably moving narrative that is not normally found in a non-fiction book. I would rank her up with Carl Sagan as one of the most talented science writers of the 20th century.

What makes In the Shadow of Man such a great read is the honest, heartfelt manner in which Goodall describes her time with the chimps. She steers clear of anthropomorphism as well as she can, yet we cannot help but see a bit of ourselves in the chimpanzees she interacts with. They are individuals with personalities and flaws, who together build a complex, highly social society with eerie similarities to our own. I was taken aback by how moving an account of the death of a chimpanzee could be when chronicled in Goodall's lucid prose. I felt genuine sadness for them, and for Jane, who had watched them grow over the years of her studies into what we could call heroes, cowards, parents, and friends. The passages depicting friendship amongst the chimps are by far the most enthralling parts of the book. You realize the depths that relationships between chimpanzees can reach, nearly matching our own. It raises a multitude of questions as to what defines human, where is the line drawn?

The approach Goodall takes to answer these questions is one of the highlights of her work. She presents a powerful argument for the continuation of research and preservation of chimp culture on the basis that we can learn much about ourselves in the process. If you aren't much of a chimp person, or you just don't know much about them, I strongly encourage you to give this book a try. By chance I discovered it, and it opened my eyes to a topic I knew very little about. Also, take a stroll through Barnes and Noble sometime, you never know what you'll find.