The Whole Hog: Exploring the Extraordinary Potential of Pigs
The Whole Hog: Exploring the Extraordinary Potential of Pigs Books
- ISBN13: 9781588342164
- Shape up: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
A lyrical, lively natural history and illustrated guide to the wonderful world of…pigs!
Not all animals are made equal. For a start, pigs have it, sheep don’t; that is, that unique quality of intelligence, a sense of play, and a gregariousness that make these tragically misunderstood—yet no less winning—creatures more like us than any other animal. Best-selling author Lyall Watson takes a delightful look at the occasionally amusing, often instructive, and absolutely admirable qualities of pigs in this obligatory book, not only for everyone interested in natural history but also for fans of Babe, lovers of Piglet, readers of Charlotte’s Web and Animal Farm, gourmands and truffle hunters, folklorists, and, of course, believers in meaningful interspecies communication. The book is filled with both realistic and wonderfully fanciful illustrations of pigs that illuminate everything you may possibly possibly want to know about the extraordinary family of Suids, from their origins and evolution, rich social lives, and combat strategies to their unique relationship with truffles, popularity in art and literature, and increasing use today in cold-edge medical transplant technology. 50 color, 30 b/w illustrations.
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This is just a darn excellent book. The author clearly knows more than practically anyone else alive about pigs, and has carefully clarified everything about this remarkable animal in clear, readable prose. If you want a definitive and thorough overview of pigs, read this book. It is surprisingly fascinating.
Rating: 5 / 5
As everlastingly, Lyall Watson is a joy and delight with his insights. An enjoyable experience. What a fastinating animal!
Rating: 5 / 5
These days the majority of us are city-bred and effectively clueless when it comes to farm animals. Seldom do we get much closer to these domestic denizens than the kindergarten song about Ancient MacDonald’s boisterous barnyard. Except, of course, when we lift our forks, at which top such creatures hardly resemble their living selves. Perhaps this mollifies our consciences, i.e. that pork and beef, lamb and fowl seem closer those edibles springing from the earth (corn and cabbage) and less like our not-so-distant, four-legged cousins.
With his 24th and latest book, Lyall Watson may inadvertently launch a new wave of vegetarianism, so charming is the porcine portrait he paints. (To counterbalance any economic shock to the meat industry, it should be mentioned that earlier in his three-decade writing career, Watson also penned a link of essays on the topic of whether or not plants feel pain.) At any rate, once you have delved into “Whole Hog”, you cannot help but come away with an altered perspective and just a bit of guilt about this `star’ of so many meals.
Watson describes not only the hog versions with which we are familiar, but contrasts them with their wild varieties, as well as, their close relatives, the peccaries. He intersperses scientific fact with fanciful in rank such as the origin of piggy banks and the distance covered by a single year’s worldwide sausage production.
This ode to pigs will likely result in criticism for something that has long been the bane of naturalists: anthropomorphism. Anything smacking of benevolence towards, or support of, animal consciousness elicits supercilious smirks from humans. (Are we inherently so unsure of our place in nature and our tenure as its `rulers’?) Loren Eiseley, who during his years as Benjamin Franklin Professor of Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania, won more awards and accolades than any predecessor except Franklin, addressed this. “There is a sense in which when we stop to anthropomorphize, we stop to be men, for when we stop to have human contact with animals and deny them all relation to ourselves, we tend . . . to deny our own humanity.”
Watson, too, weighs in on the come forth with, “It is indeed trying to exhibit right awareness or consciousness in other species, but it is apt more trying to deny the possibility of animals having minds and using mental experience in the do of their behavior.”
This book is filled with sober and comic photos, statue renderings, and drawings of pigs in various situations. Several are downright winning, reminding me of someone I knew who, in raising an occasional hog to feed his large family, maintained detachment from the animals by giving them names such as `Food’ and `Dinner’. If you have read any of Lyall Watson’s books, you already know the smooth, effortless quality of his writing. If you haven’t, let “The Whole Hog” be your introduction to it. You may well want to go back and read others (“Dark Nature,” “Supernature,” “Gifts of Unknown Things”) representing this author’s broad range of interests.
Rating: 5 / 5