Customer Reviews

A Primate's Memoir: A Neuroscientist's Unconventional Life Among the Baboons

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Anyone who begins a book by telling us that he "had never planned to become a savanna baboon when [he] grew up" deserves a read. Such an opening promises witticisms and wisdom and A PRIMATE'S MEMOIR doesn't disappoint. The story is captivating whether Mr Sapolsky is telling us about his experiences in Kenya or about the interesting life of...his extended family? The book is only part scientific study: the effect that stress has on primate social behavior; it is also a travelogue, a little bit of cultural anthropology, a comment on globalization and economic inequality, a memoir of course, and finally, a pure joy to read.

Although it is now widely known that stress affects health, Mr Sapolsky's work has shown that this differs among individuals. He has also exploded the myth of the supremacy of the alpha male in primate groups. Among the baboons he shows complex social arrangements where important leadership functions are carried out by senior females; and what else but a complex social order would show - as his troop did - that lower ranking males suffer higher stress levels and greater ill health? After twenty years of on and off study Mr Sapolsky has naturally grown fond of the baboons. He gives them Old Testament names not from affection, but simply because they exhibit individual personalities. The King of the troop is naturally Solomon and Nebuchanezzar is a vengeful, attacking female.

The book is never sappy and does not romanticize the beasts and that is good - because wild animals they certainly are. A troop is an appropriate name for a group of baboons. Perhaps squad could work also because when approaching an unknown there is an element of military purposefulness and discipline about their behavior. As a 10 year old in Kenya in the sixties, I was stranded with my uncle in his car on the side of the road from Mombasa to Nairobi. While we waited baboons approached: there was the dominant male as point man - up front to get our attention; there were flankers on the sides, circling; and sure enough there were commandos coming up from the rear, behind the car. I can fully appreciate Mr Sapolsky's comment on their intelligence when he says: "you find yourself, a reasonably well-educated human with a variety of interests, spending hours each day and night obsessing on how to outmaneuver these beasts, how to think like them, how to think better than them. Usually unsuccessfully."

The depradations of bush life, the difficulties that he occasionally got into, and the intruding, harsh reality of life in the Third World are all addressed by Mr Sapolsky is an honest and yet very humorous way. Overall, above and beyond science and the odd difficulty, A PRIMATE'S MEMOIR portrays a wonderful joi de vivre that both Mr Sapolsky and his baboons seem to have enjoyed most of the time.

As much fun to read as any book by Redmond O'Hanlon or Gerald Durrell, A Primate's Memoir is funny, irreverent, and full of adventure, while also being a serious scientific study of the savanna baboons of Kenya. Sapolsky's goal is to determine the relationship of baboon stress levels to their overall health over a period of years. A neuroscientist, he observes the social hierarchy and interactions of his baboon group, guesses which individuals appear to be most stressed or most relaxed and then checks their hormones and blood chemistry, not an easy procedure, given his clever and not always co-operative population. Sapolsky, who works alone, must first outwit the baboon, use a blowgun to dart him, follow and wait for him to become unconscious, and then carry him half a mile or more to his portable lab facilities, where he then draws blood and does measurements. The baboons, of course, react to stress the way humans do.

The title of A Primate's Memoir is deliberately ambiguous--it is both Sapolsky's memoir and that of his baboon population, and his experiences and interactions with the outside world are remarkably similar to theirs. Leaving the relative safety of the game reserves and hitchhiking into dangerous territories during his "down time," Sapolsky describes his travels with enthusiasm, impeccable timing, and great, self-deprecating humor, subtly selecting details which show how similarly he and his baboon population deal with their worlds' uncertainties. Kenya is experiencing civil unrest and corruption; Uganda has just deposed Idi Amin; the Sudan is in the midst of a long civil war; the border of Zaire is under siege; and the Somalis refuse to accept any borders at all, stealing lands and property wherever they go--all dangerous and stressful atmospheres for their populations and for visitors like the author.

Sapolsky is a great story teller, however, equally entertaining in presenting both his adventures and his research, his world and that of his baboons. While life may be "nasty, brutish, and short," Sapolsky shows us it's a lot more fun if one keeps a sense of humor--and a lot less stressful. Mary Whipple

Sapolsky devotes very little time to himself in this memoir, partly because he has so much of interest to say about his acquantainces (human and baboon) in Kenya. The title aptly describes his location of himself in the evolutionary picture. There are several kinds of primates in this story, but all have similar flaws and gifts--baboons as well as humans. Unlike many people who write about animals, Sapolsky doesn't credit the baboons with a wiser or kinder lifestyle. He makes it abundantly clear that they can be mean, selfish, and stupid--and then he turns around and makes exactly the same points about humans. Yet there's a very warm sensibility about all of his encounters. Sapolsky is capable of enjoying the humour in many situations, and is also redeemingly honest about his scientific motivations--he really likes playing with dry ice and cutting up dead things.

The framework of the book is Sapolsky's decades-long study of a baboon group, but this is by no means the majority of the subject matter. Spending three months of every year in Kenya, Sapolsky witnesses its many political changes, makes lasting friendships with some of the locals, and gains a unique perspective from which to critique both his original and his adopted cultures (his chapter on various scams perpetrated against tourists, both in Kenya and New York, is hilarious).

The writing, often conversational and humourous, gains in power from this natural style. In the final chapter, disease strikes the baboon group Sapolsky has come to know so well, and his narration of the tragedy is simple, honest, and all the more devastating because of it.

When a recipient of the MacArthur Foundation "genius grant" decides to write about his work for the general public, it's a good idea to pay attention, especially when the author already has a reputation for being as entertaining a storyteller as neurobiologist Robert Sapolsky. This book could not be improved upon. Part travel adventure, part coming of age story of a young scientist, and part life among the baboons, A Primate's Memoir tells what happens as the author travels to Kenya at age 21 to study how the social rank of baboons winds up affecting their physiological stress levels. Sapolsky readily describes himself in primate terms "young transfer male" as he recounts his hilarious, poignant and truly harrowing encounters with the world around him, sharing his candid reactions to some pretty novel events. In the course of this book he does achieve "full adult status" and circumstances grow more serious. You just have to read it yourself as examples could not convey the genuine humanity and originality of his overall experience. How does social status affect one's stress levels? He gives a bit of the answer in this book, but if you want to know more about the science of stress, still told very much in layperson's terms, read The Trouble with Testosterone, (thought provoking and hilarious) or the more fact-filled (if potentially anxiety-arousing), Why Zebra's Don't Get Ulcers. These books could affect how you perceive the world

Sapolsky's book, "A Primate's Memoir," is a work of a true comic artist. Conjuring fear, anxiety, sadness, and joy through the prisim of laughter, Sapolsky's book managed to be both hilarious and poignant. It's a personal account, interweaving a patchwork of observations on Africa, baboons, and primate nature in a series of essays based on Sapolsky's experience studying a troop of baboons in Kenya. The book illustrates both his work with the animals and his experience as a New York City naturalist in the heart of Africa.

Loosely organized around the life cycle of a male baboon, "Memoir of a Primate" constantly compares Sapolsky's life with those of his subjects. And it's no wonder, as the author delightfully paints his subjects in anthropomorphic colors, going to far as to give the baboons Old Testament names, to make friends in the troop, and, more tragically, to fall in love with a doomed female.

Sapolsky's rites of passage occur on the fields of Africa, as he injects himself onto a foreign culture he is utterly unprepared for. On his first day in Kenya, he is swindled no less than three times. As he spends more time in Africa, he becomes a member of the community of park rangers, local herders, tourists, farmers, and naturalists that border Kenya's national parks. He extends his territory, poking into the Sudan and Uganda, travelling in Ruwanda to visit Fosse's apes. And finally, he is psychologically sheared from his tribe through an outbreak of a preventable disease.

I wish, however, that the Sapolsky had more carefully described his experiences to us. He never described his initial foray into the bush, the first meeting with his subjects, his first days living in Africa. We also learn about baboon behavior only in passing, never get an adequate description of an animal, nor do we fully understand what he was studying and why. The book also jumps around time and place, major characters (such as his wife) are oftentimes relegated to obscure passages in what must be an attempt to protect their honor. And at one excruciatingly annoying literary moment, Sapolsky admits that he made an incredibly stupid mistake while in Uganda that placed him facedown on the pavement with several automatic weapons pointed at his head, but never reveals what that mistake was. Apparently, he was too embarrassed.

But overall, the book overcomes its flaws. This is not a book that rests solely on its prose, this is no "Heartbreaking Work..." or "This Boy's Life." Instead, it's an endearing work of humanity - or perhaps better, of "primatity." Sapolsky is a mensch, and he illuminates life with a grin and a tear.

(By the way, what's up with the Amazon review? It focuses on Sapolsky's anecdotal recollection of Diane Fosse, as if that were a major component of the book. In actuality, it's just a small observation made by the author from a personal experience, and has little to do with the themes raised by his book. Drives me nuts when reviewers bring personal agendas to the table when writing a review of a book. It's bad writing.)

Sapolsky's tale does two things equally well.

First, he shares his passion for both science and adventure as a young man. He rescues the notion of an active intelligence from any stereotype of driness or excessive seriousness, although the eccentricity stereotype certainly survives. This tale is entertaining, his enthusiasms contagious. He is as observant of politics with people as with baboons; does he anthropomorphize the baboons or is it the other way around? Except for the details (i.e., not wanting to have guns pointed at my head and a personal distaste for digging latrines or centrifuging baboon blood), I almost developed a desire to go join a baboon troop myself.

The second story is of what happens to these youthful passions during a transtion to full adulthood, happening simultaneously for Sapolsky, for his baboons, and for his neighbors. This is a story of great moral complexity, of both great losses and great gains. It is in a real sense the story of every life, but easier for the reader when seen in a life so different from that lived by almost everyone. That the author can see this in his own life, share his fears, embarassments, irritations and grief, and continue to teach and write, and best yet, to still laugh, is what makes this book as worthwhile as it is enjoyable.

Dr. Sapolsky mixes deep personal feelings, intimate recountings of his experiences, and hard science to tell the story of his lifelong work studying the baboons of Kenya. The result is illuminating and entertaining at the same time. As reader, you feel like you are getting the "straight skinny," albeit in a form that is always interesting, and often hilariously funny.

There is an apocryphal story going around that Thomas Mann's typist for Joseph and His Brothers said as he finished "So that's what really happened!" (Spolsky, by the way, is not a great fan of Mann -- more smartass hilarity here.) I sort of felt the same way upon finishing this: so that's what really happens with people (Diane Fossey, Laurence of the Hyenas) who go off to Africa to do science. Sapolsky does them all justice. Life is tough, complicated, and rife with compromises, and Sapolsky captures all of this his inimitable style.

This is a great book. Read it!

I loved this book from cover to cover. About 15% of the book is about the baboons themselves, each with distinct personalities and the rest is about the places he visits, the people he encounters and the incredible, and sometimes dangerous, situations he finds himself in. Sapolsky at his finest. He's a wonderful writer (and an extraordinary speaker--I've had the pleasure of attending his seminars). Hope he lives to a ripe old age and writes further memoirs, sharing his wit and wisdom with the rest of us.

A kid who "always thought he would grow up to be a mountain gorilla but had to settle for being a baboon," Sapolsky has created an interesting life for himself that he shares with us in this delightful memoir.

I laughed out loud while reading this book -- so many times that I gave away copies for Christmas! Sapolsky manages, with dry humor and a scientist's eye, to capture his twenty years of baboon observation so well that the reader learns about baboons, the Masai, Kenya, political maneuvering and scientific studies, while enjoying a good story.

The action moves along easily as we become familiar with his baboon troupe and follow the individual characters' actions throughout the book. As a layperson, I learned a lot about long-term biological behavior study while I was getting to know Sapolsky's take on the world. A joy to read.

My husband bought this book for me as a Christmas present. OK, I'm interested in animal biology. Sure, the concept sounded fine. Suffice to say I didn't pick it up until March. And then I just plain didn't put it down. Best damn book of the year. I have recommended it to everyone from my brother to my mother-in-law. And this book has gotten under my skin in the way that really good books invariably do. I have vividly described ferocious army ants and Masai villagers drinking goat blood to my delighted five-year-old. I have watched power plays on the "monkey bars" dreaming of other monkeys in other habitats. It is rare to find a scientific book that is full of heart and folly and kindness. More difficult still to find a journey of the heart that is so rooted in unpretty things. Did I mention it's hilarious? Sapolsky and Sedaris are the only two writers I can think of who make me laugh out loud when I'm reading. It spooks the dog, but what the hell.