The Gnome King reviewed Aurochs and Auks by John BURNSIDE
Review of 'Aurochs and Auks' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
Full disclosure…a lot of this book went way over my head so what you are about to read is my interpretation of where my thoughts went whilst reading this book. There are four essays here, the first is about the mighty Aurochs, it once roamed Europe but as farming became more popular it gradually ran out of space and was gone. The Aurochs is an animal that not everybody may have heard of, probably because it hasn’t featured in an animated movie yet, unlike the popular Dodo. I was quite surprised to find out just how much it has been immortalised in literature, Burnside shares quite a few excerpts, that have now been added to my reading list. And with it being such an amazing looking animal I’m not that surprised the Nazi’s tried to bring it back.
Next up is an essay on what extinction actually is. To me …
Full disclosure…a lot of this book went way over my head so what you are about to read is my interpretation of where my thoughts went whilst reading this book. There are four essays here, the first is about the mighty Aurochs, it once roamed Europe but as farming became more popular it gradually ran out of space and was gone. The Aurochs is an animal that not everybody may have heard of, probably because it hasn’t featured in an animated movie yet, unlike the popular Dodo. I was quite surprised to find out just how much it has been immortalised in literature, Burnside shares quite a few excerpts, that have now been added to my reading list. And with it being such an amazing looking animal I’m not that surprised the Nazi’s tried to bring it back.
Next up is an essay on what extinction actually is. To me it seems like the word is often misused, the dodo and the Great Auk did not go extinct, we exterminated them! This essay took me a while to read, the old brain kept going off on a tangent, some very interesting ideas and well worth getting the book for this essay.
The third essay is about our “extermination” of the Great Auk, I’ve read about this bird’s ending many times and it always hits me hard, the bird sounded amazing and we’ll never get to see it because of how callous humans can be.
Finally in the fourth essay Burnside shares with us his near death experience with COVID, this was such a good piece of writing, the other essay’s had been rather dry and very dark whereas this one was full of passion, he even show’s that he has a wicked sense of humour. I’ve been lucky enough to escape COVID but it sounded terrifying but it was lovely to see his love of the NHS and tomato sandwiches and the good work they do.
The cover and artwork inside is rather spectacular, the images are so ghostly it is like we are glimpsing what was, I especially liked the Auk on the back cover, turn the book slightly and it seems to start to disappear…almost as if it was never there.
I have really enjoyed this book and will be re-reading in the future, it was thought provoking and had me nodding my head at a fair amount of what Burnside had to say. Highly recommended.
Blog review: felcherman.wordpress.com/2021/11/07/aurochs-and-auks-essays-on-mortality-and-extinction-by-john-burnside/