EURAMERICA A JOURNAL OF EUROPEAN AND AMERICAN STUDIES 第五十二卷第三期／中華民國一一一年九月 VOLUME 52 NUMBER 3 / September 2022 原《美國研究》 Formerly American Studies 中央研究院歐美研究所 Institute of European and American Studies Academia Sinica 歐美研究
編輯顧問／ King-Kok Cheung (張敬珏), University of California, Los Angeles, USA Marise Cremona, European University Institute, Italy Bruce Cumings, University of Chicago, USA Lawrence M. Friedman, Stanford University, USA Robert M. Hauser, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA Ronnie Po-chia Hsia (夏伯嘉), Pennsylvania State University, USA Paul Lauter, Trinity College, USA John McDowell, University of Pittsburgh, USA John Parham, University of Worcester, UK 編輯委員／何之行 (中央研究院) 吳重禮 (中央研究院) 李貴英 (東吳大學) 李秀娟 (國立臺灣師範大學) 洪德欽 (中央研究院) 張文貞 (國立臺灣大學) 陳思廷 (國立清華大學) 熊瑞梅 (國立政治大學) 趙順良 (國立政治大學) 鄧育仁 (中央研究院) 盧倩儀 (中央研究院) 謝雨生 (國立臺灣大學) 羅至美 (國立臺北大學) 主 編／ 鄧育仁 執行編輯／ 盧倩儀 助理編輯／ Jeffrey N. C. Cuvilier 出版編輯／ 吳梅東、許昕 業務助理／ 邱劭晴 《歐美研究》季刊原名《美國研究》，創刊於民國60 年，每年3 月、6 月、9 月及12 月，由中央研究院美國文化研究所出版。自第21 卷第3 期 (民國80 年9 月) 起配合 美國文化研究所更名為歐美研究所，改名為《歐美研究》，專門刊載有關歐美人文 及社會科學方面之學術研究論文。曾多次獲得行政院國家科學及技術委員會 (簡稱 國科會) 優等期刊獎，100-107 年出版之期刊獲國科會人文學及社會科學期刊評比 綜合類第一級期刊認可，並被收錄於 Academic OneFile, America: History and Life, Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI), Historical Abstracts, International Bibliography of Periodical Literature in the Humanities and Social Sciences (IBZ), International Political Science Abstracts, MLA International Bibliography, Periodicals Index Online, Political Science Complete, SocINDEX, Sociological Abstracts, Worldwide Political Science Abstracts， 以及月旦法學知識庫、華藝線上圖書館、碩亞學術研究知識網、臺灣人文及社 會科學引文索引、臺灣人社百刊、臺灣全文資料庫等國內外資料庫。 投稿請至本刊線上投稿系統：https://euramerica.org，撰稿凡例亦請上網查詢，網址 同前。投稿相關問題歡迎來函：euramerica@sinica.edu.tw 定價：國內每冊新臺幣100 元，一年新臺幣400 元；國外每冊美金4 元，一年 美金16 元 (郵資另計)。 國內讀者如欲購本所出版品或訂閱本刊，請將書款或訂費交存郵局劃撥儲金 「1016448-2 號，中央研究院歐美研究所」帳戶，並註明書名或起訖卷期數。 聯絡電話：(02) 37897212 傳真：(02) 27851787 出版日期：中華民國一一一年九月 ©本刊版權屬於中央研究院歐美研究所 Print ISSN 1021-3058 / Online ISSN 1991-7864 DOI: 10.7015/JEAS
ADVISORY BOARD King-Kok Cheung, University of California, Los Angeles, USA Marise Cremona, European University Institute, Italy Bruce Cumings, University of Chicago, USA Lawrence M. Friedman, Stanford University, USA Robert M. Hauser, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA Ronnie Po-chia Hsia, Pennsylvania State University, USA Paul Lauter, Trinity College, USA John McDowell, University of Pittsburgh, USA John Parham, University of Worcester, UK EDITORIAL BOARD Chih-hsing Ho, Academia Sinica Chung-Li Wu, Academia Sinica Kuey-Ying Catherine Li, Soochow University Hsiu-Chuan Lee, National Taiwan Normal University Der-Chin Horng, Academia Sinica Wen-Chen Chang, National Taiwan University Szu-Ting Chen, National Tsing Hua University Ray-May Hsung, National Chengchi University Shun-Liang Chao, National Chengchi University Norman Y. Teng, Academia Sinica Chien-Yi Lu, Academia Sinica Yeu-Sheng Hsieh, National Taiwan University Chih-Mei Luo, National Taipei University EDITOR-IN-CHIEF / Norman Y. Teng EXECUTIVE EDITOR / Chien-Yi Lu ASSISTANT EDITOR / Jeffrey N. C. Cuvilier MANAGING EDITOR / Mei-Tung Wu, Hsin Hsu BUSINESS ASSISTANT / Shao-Ching Chiu Founded in 1971, American Studies has been renamed EurAmerica as of September 1991 (Vol. 21, No. 3). The journal is devoted to the publication of scholarly papers from a wide variety of perspectives on European and American cultures. It is published quarterly in March, June, September and December by the Institute of European and American Studies (formerly the Institute of American Culture), Academia Sinica. EurAmerica is a multiple winner of the National Science and Technology Council Award for Outstanding Academic Journal in Taiwan. The journal has been ranked Tier 1 in 2011-2018 by the Evaluation Program for Academic Journals of the Humanities and Social Sciences for the category of multidisciplinary journal by National Science and Technology Council. It is indexed/abstracted in Academic OneFile, Airiti Library, America: History and Life, AsiaWorld Academic Research Database, Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI), Historical Abstracts, Hyread Journal, International Bibliography of Periodical Literature in the Humanities and Social Sciences (IBZ), International Political Science Abstracts (IPSA), Lawdata, MLA International Bibliography, Periodicals Index Online, Political Science Complete, SocINDEX, Sociological Abstracts (SOCA), Taiwan Citation Index-Humanities and Social Sciences (TCI-HSS), Taiwan Periodical Literature System, and Worldwide Political Science Abstracts. Please submit manuscripts using our online submission system at https://euramerica.org Contributors are advised to consult the Submission Guidelines on the website. For questions, please contact us at euramerica@sinica.edu.tw Subscription rates: NT$100/single copy, and NT$400/year in Taiwan; US$4/single copy, and US$16/year abroad (shipment excluded). Telephone: (02) 37897212 Fax: (02) 27851787 Publication Date: September 2022 Copyright © 2022 by the Institute of European and American Studies, Academia Sinica Print ISSN 1021-3058 / Online ISSN 1991-7864 DOI: 10.7015/JEAS
歐美研究 EURAMERICA 目 錄 研究論文 戴雅雯 讓牠們活過來：野生動物捕捉的兩種流行敘事 373 朱偉誠 惠特曼的同性文本、同性政治與同性國族主義： 一個歷史主義式平行閱讀的主張 413 陳湘韻、顏均萍 論邦斯的性別形上學與性別詞理論 463 楊廼軒 論美國法精神障礙抗辯的新發展： 以Kahler v. Kansas 案為核心 505 《歐美研究》投稿須知 歐美研究所近年出版品價目表 第五十二卷第三期／中華民國一一一年九月
歐美研究 EURAMERICA CONTENTS RESEARCH ARTICLES Catherine Diamond Bring ’em Back Alive: Two Popular Narratives of Wildlife Capture 373 Wei-cheng Chu Whitman’s Homotextuality, Homopolitics, and Homonationalism: A Case for Historicist Parallel Reading 413 Hsiang-Yun Chen and Chun-Ping Yen On Elizabeth Barnes’ Metaphysics of Gender and Theory of Gender Terms 463 Nai-Hsuan Yang Insanity Defense Developments in the United States: Kahler v. Kansas 505 Information for Authors Recent Publications of Institute of European and American Studies VOLUME 52, NUMBER 3 / SEPTEMBER 2022
EURAMERICA Vol. 52, No. 3 (September 2022), 373-412 DOI: 10.7015/JEAS.202209_52(3).0001 http://euramerica.org Bring ’em Back Alive: Two Popular Narratives of Wildlife Capture TP PTP P Catherine Diamond Department of English Language and Literature, Soochow University (Taipei) E-mail: diamondcatherine53@gmail.com Abstract In the mid-twentieth century, when the United States and Britain were building up their public zoos, they sent collectors to capture wild animals in the Global South. These collectors’ narratives included both the thrill of the chase and the challenges facing animal caretakers, and became source material for popular books, television programs and films. American Frank Buck and Englishman Gerald Durrell achieved exceptional local and international success, first through their written memoirs of animal capture, later in visual media, and finally through the establishment of their own zoos. While both Buck and Durrell featured their personal relationships with animals, their individual narratives exemplified contrasts between British and American humor and wildlife programing styles, as well as reflecting shifting attitudes toward wild animal captivity before and after World War II. This essay © Institute of European and American Studies, Academia Sinica Received August 21, 2021; accepted December 23, 2021; last revised November 14, 2021 Proofreaders: Yi-Han Huang, Pi-Mei Lin, Hsin-Wen Fan
374 EURAMERICA analyzes what their capture narratives meant during their lifetimes, and how they continue to impact two different strains of popular representations of human-wildlife relations—the threat of violence and the desire for friendly kinship. Key Words: zoos, wildlife films, nature broadcasting, Gerald Durrell, animal capture
Bring ’em Back Alive 375 The Zookeeper’s Secret (2018) is the title Jeffery Thompson and J. Stuart Bunderson chose for their book about finding fulfillment in one’s career because of all the employed people they interviewed, zookeepers were among the happiest. Passionate about their work despite being underpaid and often unappreciated, zookeepers, from German Carl Hagenbeck (1909) in Beasts and Men to Australian Terry Boylan (2011) in The Keepers and the Kept, have written popular memoirs about the animals under their care. Their observations range from humorous descriptions and emotional attachment, to collecting scientific data and coping with emergencies, as well practical, often maternal, routines of attending to animal welfare.1 Zookeepers’ work encourages them to be contemplative about evolution, ecology, destruction of the environment, and what humans have to learn from animals. William Hornaday, the first director of the New York (Bronx) Zoo (1896-1926), alarmed at the precipitous disappearance of the American bison that once numbered in the millions, brought a few to his new zoo. There he not only established a breeding population, but returned the offspring to the wild in 1907, initiating the world’s first captive breeding and reintroduction program.2 Equally popular at the turn of the twentieth century, and often with the same audience, were narratives about big game hunting— outdoor adventure stories of going into the wild, stalking and killing a variety of dangerous or rare animals for the thrill, and returning in the name of science with trophies to deposit in natural history museums. European and American big game hunters wrote, and were written about, as exciting adventure seekers in Africa and Asia, creating a new hero paradigm. H. Rider Haggard’s Allan 1 Zookeeper’s anecdotes about their intimate relations with animals are now replicated in online videos about rescued animals that watched by millions of people. 2 Nigel Rothfels (2019: 57) points out that Hornaday, like many early American zookeepers, was also a hunter.
376 EURAMERICA Quatermain in King Solomon’s Mines (1885), a typical example of the genre, was based on explorer-hunter Frederick Selous, who paradoxically was one of the colonial hunters responsible for establishing wildlife reserves in Africa and Asia that now host safaris for ecotourists who “hunt” with their cameras and prize their photo trophies. Big game hunting remains a favorite sport among international elites and hunter narratives continue to be popular in contemporary magazines and websites devoted to the subject. Despite exposés of some notorious hunts, the allure remains, or even increases, as megafauna become rarer, and therefore more valued.3 Combining these two narratives about zookeeper care and trophy hunter adventure is a third genre of storytelling—that of the live animal collector. From 1870 to 1980, the rise of public zoos in America and Europe required the services of collectors who obtained live wild animals, primarily from Africa, Asia, and South America. Collecting living animals emerged from the eighteenthcentury gathering of specimen fragments and taxidermies for natural history museums and scientific research institutes. Even David Attenborough, arguably the most famous media personality for conservation, began his career as a collector for zoos.4 The practice was phased out in the 1980s when most zoos stopped taking animals directly from the wild and instead traded animals born and bred in other zoos within self-regulating associations. The wild animal capture narrative belongs to a specific period— from the height of colonialism in the early twentieth century to the post-World War II aftermath—and reflects many American and European attitudes toward colonized peoples and territories. In addition, however, it records a transition in perspectives concerning 3 For example, the American dentist Walter Palmer, who went into hiding after receiving wide-spread condemnation and death threats for shooting the famed lion, Cecil in 2015, resumed both his dental practice and big game hunting, boasting of his latest shoots of an Altai argali (Mongolian wild goat) online in 2020. 4 Attenborough featured as a young collector in the television show, Zoo Quest (1954-1963), which Jean-Baptiste Gouyon (2019: 87) suggests was a template for Durrell’s shows.
Bring ’em Back Alive 377 human-animal relations, from killing for the triumphal display of the hunter, to capturing to save species from extinction. In written and cinematic forms, the capture narrative combines aspects of both the thrill of pursuit and demonstrations of intimate care. Two animal-collectors-turned-zookeepers stand out as literary and media celebrities of the “Bring ’em Back Alive” genre: Texan Frank Buck (1884-1950) and Englishman Gerald Durrell (1925-1995). Both stressed that capturing an animal alive and preserving its life was more brave, difficult, and ethical than killing it, and the skills needed to do so far superseded those of the hunter, or the explorer-scientist who killed specimens for study. Their memoirs and biographies reveal them to be enthusiastic animal collectors in childhood who later turned their hobbies into a profession. Finding the job fulfilling but financially unviable, both turned to writing about their collecting trips and their resulting books proved popular with both children and adults, and men and women of all social classes. After becoming bestselling writers, each became involved in other forms of media, first radio broadcasts, then television programs and wildlife films, and finally, opening and curating their own zoos— Buck’s Jungleland (1939-1944) on Long Island, and Durrell’s Wildlife Conservation Trust (1959-) on Jersey Island. Frank Buck came from a poor family in Texas and his autobiography, All in a Lifetime, describes the hardships he endured as a young man struggling to survive in a frontier society that was rough, violent, and yet full of opportunities (Buck & Fraser, 1941). G. Durrell (1956a) describes his extended idyllic childhood on Corfu with an indulgent mother, sympathetic mentors and amusingly annoying siblings in his most famous book, My Family and Other Animals. Though both boys were fascinated with the biota around them and collected all the creatures they could find— their formative years, hardscrabble and modestly gentile, respectively, continued to permeate their relations with nature. Although their early careers began with similar passions for animals, their later trajectories were pursued to very different
378 EURAMERICA purposes, as is clearly evident from their book covers: Buck’s feature tigers leaping to attack, indicating the thrill of the hunt, while Durrell’s show him hugging wide-eyed lemurs, emphasizing his role as protector and caregiver.5 Both Buck and Durrell understood the entertainment value of animals, and the power of storytelling to portray their relationships with them. Both created distinct and dominant personae to tell their capture narratives that blur fact and fiction. Their accounts not only combine tales of pursuit and care, but also reflect changes occurring in their societies’ perceptions of animals in the wild and in captivity. Moreover, the narratives reveal differences in their American and British heritages, both in their types of humor as well as in their styles of presenting wildlife on film. Their dual hunter-zookeeper perspective continues to shape popular wildlife documentaries and television programs that “capture” animals on camera—featuring both the dangers savored by hunters and the sentimental affinity favored by caregivers. Both writers depict how they relate to wildlife from a particularly privileged vantage point that exists primarily among people whose lives do not depend directly upon those animals; they are by, and for, people for whom wild animals are a cause and a pleasure—not the next meal, nor an immediate threat to their lives and livelihoods. In their expeditions to Asia, Africa and South America, Buck and Durrell each relate how they rely heavily on native people’s knowledge of habitats and animals, and include native attitudes towards the species they capture. The ecological worlds Buck and Durrell present differ from those of the indigenous people who create folklore and mythologies that integrate themselves and their origins with the animal world. Instead, they focus on the intimacy of their individualized relationships, for 5 The conservationist Durrell would not like to find himself linked to the showman Buck—the epitome of the self-promoting adventurer Durrell frequently mocked— and yet he began his career following in Buck’s footsteps. During his first expedition to Cameroon in 1947, he writes in his diary, “I engaged a hunter the next day, and two boys, and armed with a shotgun sallied into the jungle à la Frank Buck” (Botting, 2000:120).
Bring ’em Back Alive 379 example giving animals personal names, in order to assist their readers in sharing the experiences vicariously. Neither writer was an academically trained zoologist; instead they negotiated their own paths through the realms of entertainment, anthropology and natural science, afforded them by the rise of public zoos. I. Buck’s Collection Journey from Texas to Singapore After recalling childhood obsessions with beautiful birds and poisonous snakes, Buck portrays himself as learning from the “school of hard knocks,” like a picaresque hero evading gunmen and partaking in barroom brawls. Having worked as a boy as a pig farmer and cowpoke, he would later invoke the image of a cowboy in the Malayan jungle by displaying his lassoing skills, merging his Texan identity with that of the explorer in exotic faraway places. At seventeen, he married Amy Leslie, a drama critic who introduced him to the luminaries of the Chicago entertainment world. These connections stood him in good stead when he later began making movies and helped him understand the importance of creating a star persona. Despite the glamor, however, his passion for animal collection lured him away to Brazil, where he bought Amazonian birds that he later sold for profit in New York and London. Observing large wild animals for the first time at the London Zoo, Buck had revelation that led to his lifelong commitment: The animals fascinated me. I could see Texas music in the lithe way a striped Bengal tiger paced his cage, each step keeping time to the banjo-ring of mythical boys from Dallas strumming on strings. I could fancy the elusive wind I had never quite caught in the sleek way a coal-black leopard. darker and glossier than the trough of any ocean wave I had ever seen. (Buck & Fraser, 1941: 86)
380 EURAMERICA Discovering that collecting would both bring him in constant proximity to wild animals and earn him a living, he amicably divorced and took off for Singapore—the center of the Asian wildlife trade (Barnard, 2019: 62-65). In Singapore, his base for thirty years, Buck bought more animals from the shops of Chinese middlemen than he captured, but recreated his persona as an intrepid pursuer who caught his prey through cunning, persistence and brute strength. Buck portrays himself as a man of action, both capturing animals and keeping them alive in his camp in Katong village outside of Singapore. Also as an established member of the international set that congregated at the Raffles Hotel bar, he personified the romance of colonial life, common enough in British literature, but less familiar to Americans starring a fellow American. He rose to prominence between the two World Wars, rarely alluding to either social discontent in Asia or Europe, or the extinction of species, and instead embodied the vitality and growing prosperity of the United States. His narrative expresses naïve optimism and the assumption of an eternal plentitude of wildlife in faraway jungles, despite, or perhaps because of, the warning signs of extinction in North America. Buck’s emphasis on animal savagery plays to an ecophobic strain in American culture that came from experiencing its own wilderness as dangerous and needing to be civilized (or eradicated). It also appeals to the machismo of the rugged individual male proving himself against fierce nature as epitomized by hunternaturalist President Theodore Roosevelt (terms of office 19011909). Buck not only describes the beauty and danger of the jungle, but emphasizes the allure of the mysterious Far East as a place of excitement and opportunity where even a poor boy could exploit racial privilege to hold sway. His narrative exudes brash Texan confidence that he alone can provide the American public with the animals it wants, especially when World War I prevented the premiere animal trader, the German Carl Hagenbeck, from operating. When the 1929 financial
Bring ’em Back Alive 381 crisis brought Buck’s own animal trading to a halt, however, he discovered that writing about his adventures was far more lucrative. Employing Edward Anthony, a well-known New York writer, to assist him, Buck turned out two bestsellers, Bring ’em Back Alive (1930) and Wild Cargo (1932). According to Buck scholar, Steven Lehrer, Anthony wrote the stories in a modest, matter-of-fact, allin-a-day’s-work fashion; yet almost everyone has its own breath-catching spice of danger. With his knack for eliciting telling details, Anthony created a real sense of drama. (2000: xi) We do not know the exact contributions of each, or the liberties taken to enhance the encounters described, but the formula was a winning one. During the Depression years, Buck’s books and films provided tales of fantasy escapism. His stories brought the thrills of the trophy hunt, formerly only available to the elite, to the common man, who, because of Buck’s collecting, was also able to see the same fantastic beasts for the first time in the public zoos. II. Gerald Durrell’s Worldwide Family Gerald Durrell, born in India, describes his passion for natural history beginning with his family’s four-year stay on Corfu (19351939). However, Durrell did not write about this childhood idyll in My Family and Other Animals until after his first four books on collecting in Africa and South America became bestsellers. With amazing recall for the sensuous detail of the island’s terrain, he recreates the enchanted time on Corfu as an Edenic world without evil; all living things were delightful and every difficulty could be told as a comic misadventure. This boyish enthusiasm and wonder for life in all of its forms remained the touchstone of not only his approach to the capture, and subsequent care, of animals, but also of his perception of what animals are vis-à-vis humanity—all kin. Growing up in Corfu contributed to Durrell’s unique brand of
382 EURAMERICA modern pantheism and his own private fantasy of being a beloved boy-king of all he surveyed. Exploring the same ground that the ancient Greeks had already populated with gods, which his elder brother Lawrence alludes to in his writings, Gerald, like a true “primitive” found god in every creature and each godlike in its own way. With the onset of war in 1939, the Durrell family returned to England, where despite the vastly different environment, the outdoors was still his home and houses were merely dormitories for his collections. Durrell was an autodidact naturalist coming from a long tradition of British amateur naturalists, receiving an informal and eclectic education from various tutors, but unlike Buck, he showed early talents for concrete and vivid writing and sketching. His biographer Douglas Botting (2000: 94) mentions that while Durrell was apprenticing at the Whipsnade Zoo, he began composing his own list of endangered animals. He was alarmed by the fate of the dodo, but inspired by the recovery of the nearly extinct Pere David’s deer that were present at the zoo. At what might have been a pivotal moment of commitment— like Buck’s epiphany at the London Zoo—Durrell describes his night time feedings of these baby deer: Then came the exquisite moment when the teat was pushed into their mouths and they sucked frantically at the warm milk, their eyes staring . . . . I was very conscious of the fact they were the last of their kind, animal refugees living a precarious existence on the edge of extermination, dependent on their existence on the charity of a handful of human beings. (Botting, 2000: 94) Durrell creates a bizarre, but moving, Madonna-and-Child portrait, of himself as a young man feeding and protecting a species that would possibly not survive. He takes on the burden of becoming their savior, of capturing members of an endangered species in order to save them and preserve the natural world as he knew and loved it.
Bring ’em Back Alive 383 He made his first trip to Cameroon in 1947, taking orders from British zoos to bring back the animals they wanted. He would later return to Cameroon and West Africa several times and then branch out to South America, and later the islands of Madagascar and Mauritius; he never had a permanent foreign base like Buck in Singapore. Although his trips to Cameroon and Guyana gained him renown as an animal collector, they did not financially sustain him and his wife Jacquie, whom he married in 1951. Noting the popularity of Durrell’s radio broadcasts about animals, she, along with his literary brother, Lawrence, pressed him to write about his adventures. 6 Beginning in 1953 with The Overloaded Ark, he downplays the dangers of the Cameroon jungle, and instead, extolls its botanical beauties and the quirky endearing qualities of the animals and people he meets. He produced three travelogue-capture books in quick succession and their combination of humor, zest, scientific detail, sensitivity, and poetry heralded a new kind of nature writing, a unique product of Durrell’s empathy for animals and his ironic view of human behavior. The financial and critical success of his books encouraged him to propose his own new kind of zoo, one specifically for the captive breeding of endangered species. Like Buck, Durrell discovered that it was storytelling, not the actual collecting, that would be profitable enough to help him reach his goal. In the process of writing, Durrell learned to limit his faithfulness to the facts as they were recorded in his diaries and to borrow techniques from fiction—reorganization, selection, compression, inversion—to enhance the tale and present himself and his experiences to best effect—as Anthony did for Buck. Durrell’s narrative trajectory picks up on the tail end of Buck’s, beginning after World War II when countries of the Global South were not accepting the yoke that colonial powers were trying to reimpose, including decisions about who should determine what 6 J. Durrell (1967) mentions her role in persuading him to write in Beasts in my Bed.
384 EURAMERICA happened to local fauna. Dissatisfied with leaving the fate of animals in native hands or current British zoos, Durrell voiced his commitment to open his own zoo with increasing urgency because no one else seemed either interested in captive breeding or equipped to do so. He ventured forth during a period of postcolonial transition in which his gender, race, and nationality still aided him, but he was aware that that status was quickly changing. He was not the only one prescient about the natural world’s impending disappearance, which lent a palpable angst to his otherwise joyful discoveries, but he was unusual in being spurred to action to stave it off. Claiming his previous bestsellers and the promise to produce more as his only collateral, he finally managed to get a bank loan and opened the Jersey Zoo in 1959. From then on, all of his capture narratives pertain to developing and sustaining it. III. Big Cat and Big Snake Experiences While it was Buck’s job to supply charismatic megafauna— tigers, bears, elephants, rhinos, orangutans—which zoos were eager to purchase because they were popular with the American public, Durrell, instead, introduces the British public to an extraordinary array of unusual and rare animals—the giant water shrew, angwantibo, armadillo, giant horned toad, rhea, and the then littleknown pangolin. Nonetheless, the two men inevitably had some similar experiences; both describe their first encounters with large cats as highlights of their early careers, but their accounts exemplify their divergent styles as raconteurs. Buck relates that on his very first trip into the Malayan jungle he learns that a black leopard is killing village livestock—thereby justifying its capture. He employs a Malay carpenter to fashion a trap of wood and rattan: “When we visited it the next morning there was the village marauder, black as coal and angry as sin, spitting and snarling at us from behind the log bars” (1941: 107). Not satisfied with this easy triumph over a “villain,” Buck shifts emotional gears and exclaims,
Bring ’em Back Alive 385 I felt as I looked at that leopard that this was a wonderful life—fine and thrilling. I felt that the world was mine. I loved the jungle, I loved the people, I loved the wild creatures. Had I died then and there, beside that first leopard trap in Johore, I would have been content. I felt that I had seen life in its fullest. (107) In this moment of capture, he feels the greatest euphoria as if he had conquered the world, a fulfilment of his intimation at the London Zoo. Durrell recounts his first experience with a serval, a leopardlike, but smaller, cat in Cameroon in a tone that is characteristic of Durrellian storytelling—humorous understatement and surprisingly pertinent comparison: nearly every book that has been written about the forest assures one that if you catch a glimpse of a great cat once in fifty years you are doing fine. So I was filled with a mixture of apprehension and pleasure on finding the Serval (sic) there when I awoke. It stood quite still, regarding me thoughtfully and the tip of its tail moved very gently among the grass stalks. I had seen domestic cats looking like this at sparrows . . . . Also, I was stark naked, and I have found that in moments of crisis to have no clothes on gives one a terribly unprotected feeling. (2001: 154) Buck’s jubilation over capturing the live panther that he casts as the embodiment of nature “red in tooth and claw” could not provide a greater contrast to Durrell comparing himself to a diminutive sparrow, potentially prey, made pathetically comic by the vulnerability of human nakedness. He reverses the capture narrative to view his own endeavors through the eyes of the resident cat. Another such disparity occurs when they encounter famously lethal serpents—pythons, cobras and anacondas. Well-practiced in capturing poisonous snakes as a boy, Buck proudly proclaims that his first captured animal in the Malayan jungle was a 28-foot python. As he approached it “the python reared around instantly, thrashing
386 EURAMERICA in the grass, and with its head raised charged us like a bolt of shining lightning. I dodged the charge and dropped the noose of my Texas lasso over the head and a foot or two along the gleaming throat” (Buck & Fraser, 1941:104). Buck invokes the image of a rodeo wrangler, and aside from difficulty of knowing where a python’s throat begins and ends, he later reveals that it is actually Ali, his Malay assistant, who shows him how to transport the snake using forest materials. While saying that over the years he brought many pythons to America, he does not include any factual information about the snake, other than to correct the common misconception that pythons are venomous. He knows his readers do not want scientific detail or poetic descriptions, but crave action-packed prose and demonstrations of Texan know-how tempered with confessions of human fallibility such as his failure to conquer the mosquito. Durrell, describing his contact with an anaconda, again takes pleasure in debunking his Buck-like predecessors: In nearly every book written about South America the author at some point or other . . . stumbles upon an anaconda. These eternally measure anything from forty to a hundred and fifty feet . . . in spite of the fact that largest anaconda ever officially measured was a mere thirty feet. Inevitably, the monster attacks and for three or four pages the author wrestles in its mighty coils until he either manages to shoot it with his trusty revolver, or it is speared by one of his trusty Indians. (1956b:141) Durrell’s real anaconda half-heartedly attempts to evade his sack, and Durrell makes its anticlimactic capture a case in point. At every opportunity, he scoffs at the self-aggrandizing thrill-seekers, replacing their exaggeration with comic minimizing that ridicules human fear and violence. Both capture narrators engage the readers to see the world through their eyes, and to share their feeling of being only truly and fully alive when among animals. They often concur, however, the real danger lies in their own mistakes and give
Bring ’em Back Alive 387 many examples of having to recuperate from their moments of absentmindedness or acts of folly. IV. Heroic and Anti-Heroic Humor As the cat and snake examples indicate, both Durrell and Buck were conscious of not only of the manner in which they wished to narrate their experiences but also of how they themselves were to be perceived in their roles. The two narrators are always the largerthan-life protagonists, with other people and animals cast in antagonistic or supportively subordinate roles. Buck depicts himself in a heroic mode of being brave, persistent and resourceful, the one at the top of a social and natural hierarchy, while he casts both animals and humans in the familiar theatrical stereotypes of the time—devoted subalterns, loving mothers, drunks, bullies, clowns, and maidens-in-distress. Though Buck emphasizes his bravery and intelligence, he also admits to fear, confusion, and occasionally despair, to heighten the tension and risk, and magnify his perseverance against the odds. Durrell, from a more privileged background, portrays himself as a socially-awkward eccentric anti-hero, driven by an insatiable curiosity for the natural world. He revels in his own personal clumsiness and is quite willing to describe his abject failures, as they make as interesting stories as his successes. He relates his humiliating experiences with aplomb so that he flattens differences between himself and others even though it is always through his perspective that everyone else is viewed. He avoids describing conflict among animals but highlights the quibbling among people—both those in his team and locals—inverting the traditional hierarchy of humanity on the top. His depictions of nonhumans stress their admirable behavior, individualized characters, and ecological importance, and that they are all esteemed members of the rich diversity that inspires and supports homo sapiens—a species that he increasingly argues does not deserve it.
388 EURAMERICA Their heroic and anti-heroic stances as well as the comic sensibilities with which they are expressed have root in crossAtlantic differences that British comedians have commented upon. Actor and social commentator Stephen Fry who has also featured in wildlife programs explains with an example from the American film, Animal House: there’s a fellow playing folk music on the guitar, and John Belushi picks up the guitar and destroys it. And the cinema loves it. [Belushi] just smashes it and then waggles his eyebrows at the camera. Everyone thinks, “God, is he great!” Well, the British comedian would want to play the folk singer. We want to play the failure. (2012) Adopting a jocular tone, Buck epitomizes the humor of the Belushi character—it is big, physical, and is about winning. With brash self-confidence, he relates his exploits at getting the better of his human and nonhuman opponents. Buck enjoys catching out other people’s boastful pretentions, such as bargaining with a dato (Malay headman) who assumes he is a stupid white man willing to pay an outrageous sum for an orangutan, or betting with his good friend, Sultan Ibrahim of Johor, that he will catch a man-eating tiger. He enjoys playing practical jokes on those who are “asking for it,” such as spooking a drunken guest at his animal camp by placing a tiger under his bed, or facing off a macho sailor with an escaped orangutan. His humor is either a one-line reference to some aspect of American popular culture rendered amusing in the Malay context e.g., “my camp wasn’t exactly the Astoria Hotel,” or the clever comeuppance of another’s (and occasionally his own) complacence or hubris. Durrell exemplifies the folksinger and Fry’s definition of the British ironic humorist whose mainstay is failure and selfdeprecation. He takes the mickey out of himself first, which both deflects other people’s criticism and gives him license to good-
Bring ’em Back Alive 389 naturedly satirize them as well.7 He utilizes the Wildean formula of exaggerating the trivial and trivializing the important in regard to his own comforts, expectations and abilities. Durrell sets himself up as the fall guy and depicts incidents with the humor of hindsight, such as in his slapstick account of his surprise at opening a box to have the rattlesnake inside strike out at him: I flung myself backwards in a leap that could only have been emulated but not bettered by a wallaby in the prime of life and in full control of its faculties. Unfortunately, I rather spoilt the athletic effect by tripping over my machete and sitting down heavily. (1956b: 170) The sardonic tone permeates his dialogues and descriptions of people as well as exaggerating what is embarrassing to him. He presents his actions (but not his goals) as a series of comic mishaps. Recounting events in retrospect affords both writers comic distance from what was likely fraught, frightening, or irritating at the time. V. Dealing with Animal Death Capture, unlike hunting, does not end with simply obtaining an animal body, but extends to include care for its wellbeing, and therefore its death is not a victory but a failure. While acknowledging the excitement of the chase, as well as the boredom of the routine cleaning and feeding many animals several times a day, both Buck and Durrell attest to great satisfaction in getting an animal safely to its new home. Confronted with inevitable animal sickness and death, Buck and Durrell do not mention the numbers of animals that die in the course of their expeditions, and instead 7 Writer-actor Ricky Gervais concurs with Fry’s assessment, “They [Americans] applaud ambition and openly reward success. Brits are more comfortable with life’s losers . . . . We use sarcasm as a shield and a weapon. We avoid sincerity until it’s absolutely necessary. We mercilessly take the piss out of people we like or dislike basically. And ourselves. This is very important. Our brashness and swagger is laden with equal portions of self-deprecation” (2011).
390 EURAMERICA express sorrow and empathy toward some individuals while taking in stride as unavoidable the loss of others. Buck waxes unreservedly sentimental when recounting the excellence of simian mothers and casts them in the role of heroic martyrs. On one occasion, he is transporting a proboscis monkey family across the ocean, when the male suddenly dies. Although the female is visibly affected, she concentrates on keeping the baby alive. When the baby dies, however, she, despite being physically healthy, follows suit inspiring Buck to comment, “This is the only instance I have ever encountered, in all my years as a collector, of an animal dying of a broken heart” (Buck & Anthony, 1930: 188). Responsible for transporting thousands of animals, Buck’s caretaker persona emerges primarily onboard ship where he does not have the help of Malay assistants who did much of the work in the Katong camp and must do all the cleaning and feeding himself. He faces typhoons, hostile crews, a lack of water and food for the animals, animal escapes and many deaths. Having a soft spot for fragile creatures, Buck expresses a particular fondness for the diminutive mousedeer. As prey to all carnivores including humans, it has been given a clever trickster character, Sang Kancil, in Indo-Malay folklore, and yet the Malays set traps for them which Buck often destroys to release the deer. When after lovingly caring for the first ten mousedeer ever to be brought to America, he tells of his heartbreak when forced to chloroform them because they were not allowed entry by US Customs. Buck’s compassion, though affected by commercial and competitive interests, is nonetheless sincere. G. Durrell (2001) loved a similar tiny antelope in his Cameroon camp, and relates his keen distress at not being able to sustain the lives of the baby Olgiby’s Duikers brought to him by local people after they killed the mothers. He tries to feed them with every kind of milk, and takes them into the forest, hoping they will gravitate toward some plant they can eat, but watches hopelessly as they dwindle away from starvation. When one more is brought to him, he vows not to take it, “but when it nuzzled my hand with its wet
Bring ’em Back Alive 391 nose and turned it great dark eyes on me. I was lost . . . . I shall never forget the long and depressing struggle I had with these little antelope” (91-92). The animals die not from his capture, but native hunting practices that he both understands and condemns. Their experience with the delicate antelopes exemplifies the ongoing conflict they have with local people—on one hand, they need their expertise and labor to help catch and care for the animals, and on the other, they are at odds with the local superstitions and hunting customs that appear to have no restraints on what, when, or how many animals can be killed. All the animals they capture are local people’s food—as Durrell emphasizes in Cameroon where all types of wildlife are referred to as “beef”. He acknowledges the luxury of pursuing animals for either pleasure or scientific knowledge, but after becoming devoted fulltime to insuring species survival, he battles all humans who are not fighting on his side, harping on the pressures of human overpopulation in the Global South rather than the capitalist agenda of overconsumption in the Global North. Buck, working under the presumption of animal abundance, is rarely troubled by thoughts of extinction, or his own contribution to the early twentieth century’s massive slaughter of wildlife, but he makes one exception when he describes the extraordinary pains he went to in order to obtain two rhino calves from Nepal. Buck did not personally capture the calves but transported them to New York for Hornaday, who, when he heard that twenty-one adults had been killed in the process, was aghast: I’ll never forget Hornaday’s horror over the fact that these rare and almost extinct patricians of the animal kingdom, these survivors of the great race of Indian rhinos that had practically ceased to exist except in books telling of their mighty feats, should have suffered the ironic fate of being shot down as public nuisances. (Buck & Anthony, 1930: 60) Buck justifies his collecting as a business venture and a service, removing dangerous pests that imperil both plantation laborers and
392 EURAMERICA village farmers, and he punishes the “criminals” by sending them to zoos. Durrell does not intentionally capture an animal because it is considered “a pest” though some of his first captures are of animals that local people were happy to be rid of. He rarely expresses animus toward any animal, retrospectively expressing fascination even for horseflies and sweatbees that torment him in camp. Though he confesses finding some animals unattractive, they are never criminals, nor deserving of death. Buck anthropomorphizes animal behavior to bring it into the scope of his public’s limited understanding by reinforcing cultural stereotypes of human social roles. Durrell, on the other hand, imaginatively empathizes with an animal, and strives to expand his reader’s knowledge beyond stereotypes, while still remaining within the realm of human affection. VI. The Cinematic Narrative While their written memoirs evocatively recreate large and varied worlds of human and nonhuman individuals, environments and situations, Buck and Durrell’s visual media representations are linguistically simplified because they depend on images directly perceived by viewers rather than through the imaginative descriptions of the two interlocutors.8 In addition, the complexity of their experiences are further reduced by the public relations announcements and commercial campaigns used to promote them. After the successes of their books, both Buck and Durrell became media personalities, performing the identities they had created in the books. Both men aver that their chief motivation was again financial—Buck because trading animals was increasingly less lucrative, and Durrell to fund his zoo. 8 Both Buck and Durrell also made radio programs which relied on, and, in turn, increased the popularity of their books.
Bring ’em Back Alive 393 Even more than in their written accounts, their visual media programs follow and precipitate two distinct human-animal representations in wildlife film, one toward the hunter’s preoccupation with conflict and danger, and the other toward conservationist stewardship and zookeeper welfare. In addition, their visual media presentations focus almost exclusively on the animals, whether capturing them physically or only on camera, and exclude most of their humorous interactions with people. While the visual versions provide immediacy, offering viewers the satisfaction of seeing with their own eyes the worlds and creatures previously so vividly described, the books continued to provide more personal insights and backstories of the capture adventure. Just as Durrell jettisoned aspects of the truth in his diaries to write his popular books and Buck collaborated with writer Anthony to contextualize the highlights of his captures, both men knew the same had to be done with film. They blur distinctions between documentary truth and compelling visual stories, corroborating what Jean-Baptiste Gouyon (2019: 3) attests when he states that all wildlife documentary is “intrinsically artificial.” Moreover, the relationships between their books and films vary significantly depending on whether the film/TV episode was made before or after the book. Buck capitalized on the popularity of his books by making films based on them, thereby illustrating what the audience had already read and imagined. Only in his later autobiography, All in a Lifetime, does he include descriptions of the film outtakes. Durrell was not filmed replaying what he had already written; instead he wrote books about the filming expeditions, revealing what could not be seen or told in the film itself. He and Buck both write about the travails of the filming process—its obstreperous crews and cumbersome equipment impeding their captures, as well as the events that happen off camera, both comic surprises or frightening attacks. The follow-up books counter the ocular version offered in the television episodes and films with a behind-the-scenes experienced version told in the heightened prose of the star
394 EURAMERICA participants.9 Like Gouyon, Derek Bousé in his history of wildlife films argues that the two-dimensional recorded media of television and film, as well as their commercial obligation to entertain, militate against any truthful representation of in situ wildlife. Instead, they perfect the illusion of documentary realism with increasingly sophisticated filming and editing technology. Bousé also notes, however, that after the first decade of the twentieth century, as wildlife films were becoming more commonplace, they differed in the US and Britain: Two somewhat distinct ‘tendencies’ were emerging. These might be called, for purposes of schematic simplicity, the American and British models—though they are by no means geographically bound, and elements of each can be found in wildlife films from around the world. (2000: 125-126) The American wildlife film “has tended to place more emphasis on dramatic action . . . the American tradition has also tended in the direction of filming in controlled conditions (pens and other enclosures, including zoos), and the depiction of dramatic events often constructed in the editing, or even through a bit of provocation or staging” (126). “Dramatic action” refers to both violence, such as in prey-predator chase scenes or males in combat, but also to a dramatic structure imposed upon animal lives.10 Buck develops what the earlier hunting films initiated, and accentuates what Simon Cottle suggests was to become a standard in American wildlife filming: 9 Twenty-first century wildlife films often include a MOD, making-of- documentary, a short clip tacked on at the end of the film to show their filming process. In this way they have adopted what Buck and Durrell described in their post-film books, but it is also a ploy to earn the viewer’s trust by revealing some aspects of the process while still inevitably keeping others concealed. 10 Michael Fuchs (2018: 1) writes that while Peter Steinhart finds similarity between the moment in which a predator takes down its prey and the “money shot” in pornographic films, he sees contemporary wildlife documentaries centering on large predators remediating horror film aesthetics.
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