Customer Reviews

In the Arms of Africa: The Life of Colin Turnbull

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

What a fascinating and eye-opening book! I vaguely remember Colin Turnbull from my freshman anthropology class, but Grinker's book brings to life just what motivates people to fall in love with other cultures. As it turns out, it's not so different from love affairs in general -- and just as heartbreaking -- and this is the lesson gleaned from this chronicle of one extraordinarily brave British anthropologist. While I did learn alot about African traditions, this book reads like a novel, not an academic treatise. Grinker is a fluent and imaginative writer whose prose swept me along from the very first page. I suggest this book for people who enjoy reading psychologically astute biographies as well as gripping love stories -- it's probably the most affecting biography of the season.

This was the best read I've had in years. The story of Turnbull's life, as Grinker tells it, is a page-turner but also leaves you with much to contemplate. It was, for me, a window into worlds I've always wanted to travel to but know I'm not likely to visit.

Turnbull, born in England to a life of privilege, was passionate and iconoclastic as both a man and an anthropologist. He lived among the Mbuti Pygmies of the African rain forest, whom he romanticized, as well as the starving and aggressive mountain people of Uganda known as the Ik, whom he reviled. The African parts of the story would be reason enough to read this book but there's so much more - Turnbull's early experiences in the world of the English boarding school, with its sometimes brutal homosexuality; his life in a Hindu ashram in India under the tutelage of a famous female guru; museum politics and academic infighting in America; the theatre world of Peter Brooks, who dramatized Turnbull's book on the Ik; redneck homophobic Virginia, where Turnbull and his long-term companion made their home; anti-death penalty advocacy; ordination as a Buddhist monk by the Dalai Lama; and death by AIDS. Perhaps most important, Turnbull was also a gay man totally devoted to - in fact obsessed with - his partner of thirty years, Joseph Towles, whom he sought to protect and mentor and whom he idealized in the same way he idealized the Pygmies.

What makes the book hang together is the cohesive psychological portrait of Turnbull. Reacting to the cold isolation of his advantaged childhood, Turnbull was a seeker of goodness and beauty with an overwhelming need to find those qualities among the disenfranchised or less privileged and then to become one with them. This need allowed him to see the positive essence of other people(s) but it also blinded him to unpleasant truths about those he idealized. His strengths as a person and as an anthropologist, in other words, were also his weaknesses. Ultimately, it is only because of the psychological insight Grinker brings to this biography that we can begin to understand the otherwise incomprehensible pull that the generally unimpressive and often unappealing Towles had on the larger-than-life Turnbull.

All this without leaving your armchair!

I was gratified that Dr. Grinker wrote this book because Colin Turnbull was my cousin, and I knew almost nothing about him. I echo the postive comments by the other reviewers, but what made the book special for me were the references to his family and his relations with them. Dr. Grinker does a wonderful job of not bringing his personal feelings about Colin's work, his homosexuality, or his relationship with Joe Towles into the book. Grinker does, however, give a wonderful sense of Colin and Colin's take on life. One doesn't have to be interested in either anthropology or homosexuality to like this book; it is, simply put, an excellent study of an all-too-human man.

This is a terrific biography about a fascinating 20th century mind: Colin Turnbull. What a life Turnbull had from academia to ashrams, Africian culture to the African queen, homoerotic british school boys to the emergence of the gay bar scene in 1960's New York, the devastation of WW II to the devastation of HIV, and above all a profound love story. Richard Grinker does a marvelous job of recreating the personal life of one of the centuries great intellects. This is a fascinating work on so many levels. It traces the development of an important new contribution ot the study of man while keeping the reader step by step in touch with the man who added a humanistic and compassionate insight to the field of Anthropology. Mr. Grinker lends his considerable psychological and anthropological insight to helping the reader understand who and what this great man was. I strongly recommend this book to any reader who wants a gripping read about an extraordinary 20th century intellect who ultimately transcends all of his great achievements through love. Five stars to Mr. Grinker.

Quite naturally biographers are frequently drawn to understand some famous person's contribution to history or the world of ideas and letters. Such stories inevitably involve that famous person rubbing shoulders with some other famous person and we lucky readers gain insights into a world we thought we had already known. Grinker's biography of Colin Turnbull takes an entirely different tack. He tells the story of an apparently second rate anthropologist -- if he was an anthropologist at all -- but a character of the first order. And through his incredibly rich life, we are introduced to, among other things, English boarding school, Indian ashrams, the world of the Pygmies and other African peoples, death row, academic intrigue, and a bizarre relationship with his true love. Grinker spins the tale deftly and is a delightful tour guide through the life of a man who had an uncommon zest for adventure and a passion for the world.

This is just about the perfect book about an imperfect man -- which makes him real and alive, because who is perfect? I was fascinated by Turnbull -- who, as a "character," I came to not only respect but like -- and the way anthropologists work and also encounter other cultures, sexualities and so on. The book seems very well-researched and is intellectual but is very very readable. It is a great story which, I bet, will become a film. I highly recommend it.

This is such a captivating love story that the issue of whether the subject is gay is not the essence of the passion. I admit that I do love biographies, and it is amazing how many informative details are contained in this adventure, which was Colin Turnbull's fascinating life. Colin Turnbull came in contact with so many varied people. Nonetheless, the story is hard to put down, as it moves so seamlessly from one experience to the next. Although I knew nothing about the Mbuti, the Ik, nor the steps to be taken to become a Buddhist monk before this exposure, Turnbull's affection for these cultures serves as a fascinating introduction. Like the Bushman story Colin loved to tell, it seems that this man should be content with a life well spent. Unlike most biographies, the reader is left inspired to follow one's own life passions to seek similar satisfaction.

This is a really great book. It was entertaining, moving, and the author writes beautifully. And now I want to learn a lot about anthropology. But there was one thing that didn't ring true. I couldn't understand why Joe Towles wanted to become an anthropologist. I never got it. I just didn't learn enough about HIM. This is a biography of Colin Turnbull but I wanted to know much more about J. Towles. What I did find so moving was the passionate relationship colin turnbull and joe towles had. I love romances, and I love books that entertain me rather than tax my mind. This was a good beach book for me. If you like love stories, this is a wonderful read.

This is an interesting book, but I did not find it as compelling as other reviewers. The material is fascinating, but the presentation is a bit plodding and detracts from the narrative. As a fellow academic, I understand Grinker's desire to include the wealth of details his painstaking research uncovered; but as a reader I wished he'd had a more careful editor who would have excised some of the irrelevant, distracting details and polished the presentation of the rest of the book. (Apart from some clumsy writing, there are even spelling and typographical errors in several chapters!)

As for content, Grinker does a decent job explaining Turnbull's fascination with Africa and "the Other." The chapters on Turnbull's early (pre-anthropologist) life are too many and too long for me, but they do help provide a context for what came after. Grinker does offer some important insights on paradoxes in Turnbull's life and on anthropology's connection to colonial projects. If you are interested in the anthropology of Africa, Anglo-American social science, pre- (and post-) Stonewall experiences of gay men, or Turnbull himself, you will probably enjoy the book despite its flaws. But if you have no patience for slow and awkward writing, don't buy this without perusing it first!

I admit I had to buy this book for class. But it's easiliest one of the most interesting "textbooks" I've ever had to read. It presents a balanced, intense examination of Turnbull's life, from England to India (the most interesting part, I thought) to Africa. The best way to read this book would be in conjunction with Turnbull's own "The Forest People" and "The Mountain People," to get a more complete picture of his life with the Mbuti and the Ik. (And if you read this, Dr. Grinker, I'm kidding about the class participation. Mostly.)