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Amazonaws.com's Price: $14.95
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
Fabric Type: 9781887178259
Legal Disclaimer: 1887178252
Maximum Color Depth: Counterpoint
Metal Type: Counterpoint
Publisher: 1
Region Code: 192
Total External Bays Free: June 01, 1998
Total Firewire Ports: Counterpoint
Counterpoint
Features:
Editorial Review:
Amazon.com Review:
Pulitzer Prize-winning poet W.S. Merwin found this slim 1955 novel on a shelf in the house of friends, and, struck with the "plain, succinct evocation and beauty" of Fred Bodsworth's writing, suggested its reissue to a publisher. This is a quick, elegant, devastating read. The Eskimo curlew was a species of shorebird that migrated (and perhaps, in extremely small numbers, still migrates) south from arctic Canada every fall, in a flight that took it eastward across Canada, and then, after feeding, south over the Atlantic to South America--this latter journey nearly 2,500 miles of nonstop flight. The curlew was almost unique among shorebirds for its ability to make this grueling passage.
Bodsworth, a respected ornithologist, makes us care about his fictional bird protagonist--a lone curlew in search of a mate--while still cautiously riding the line between description and anthropomorphism. Of his curlew preparing for a mate, he writes: "He waited within the borders of his territory, flying in tightening circles and calling excitedly as the other bird came nearer. The female was coming. The three empty summers that the male had waited vainly and alone on his breeding territory were a vague, tormenting memory, now almost lost in a brain so keenly keyed to instinctive responses that there was little capacity for conscious thought or memory."
The demise of this species at the hands of hunters and hungry consumers was so rapid and thorough that the "millions that darkened the sky" in Newfoundland in the 1870s during their annual migration were reduced to only a few lone fliers by the 1890s. An afterword by Nobel Prize-winning physicist Murray Gell-Mann and line drawings by Abigail Rorer add context to this remarkable book. --Maria Dolan
Product Description:
The Eskimo curlew, which once made its migration from Patagonia to the Arctic in flocks so dense that they darkened the sky, was brought to the verge of extinction by the wanton slaughter of game-hunters.
Following the doomed search of a solitary curlew for a female of its kind, Fred Bodsworth’s novel is a haunting indictment of man’s destruction of the natural world.
Average Rating: 
Rating: -
This book was first published in 1955 and I remember reading it in the early 1970's. And I remember getting choked up with tears in my eyes as I read the story of the last curlew. Well, it is 2010 and I reread the book and still got choked up with tears in my eyes!
Fred Bodsworth has written an enduring story of the Eskimo Curlew, once plentiful like the passenger pigeon and now due to man's careless regard for nature, extinct. There have been some unconfirmed sightings in Nova Scotia ... Read More
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This book written about the incredible migration flight of the now extinct Eskimo Curlew, told by the Curlew himself, is one of the most memorable books I have read, and I have read a lot of books. It is at once an interesting biological insight into one of natures many remarkable creatures, an entertaining story told by the curlew himself, and a truly heart wrenching expose about ecological conservation without ever being prostelyting. It is impossible not to fall in love with this anthropormophism ... Read More
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This is a beautiful, moving, and, at times, emotionally wrenching short book. It can be read in an evening or two, but will resonate much longer. The simplicity of style renders this as highly appropriate for younger readers; the complexity of meaning renders it as highly appropriate for all readers. I can think of few, indeed, to whom I would not recommend it.
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This is one of the finest books I have ever read, informative but moving, which is quite a feat for a slim volume of about 125 pages. It follows an Eskimo Curlew over the course of a year while interspersing this fictional story with factual info on the history and almost total demise of this beautiful seabird. It's hard not to be emotionally affected by this book. It was written in 1955 but truly is as important now as it was then--perhaps more.
Rating: -
This book received excellent reviews from the New York Times and other leading book reviewers because of its moving story. This is an intense little book, very easily read in an evening, about a year in the life of one of the last Eskimo Curlews in existence.
This book takes you on the migration journey of the Curlew and vividly illustrates its struggle for survival. It also showcases historical notes about the slaughter of the curlews in the late 1800's and the notes of alarm raised by scientists ... Read More
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