Customer Reviews

The Voyage of the Beagle: Complete and Unabridged

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

This is an extremely interesting book; well worth reading. However I would not recommend getting the edition published by Wordsworth (ISBN 185364768). It was not proof-read very carefully, and contains a lot of typographical errors.

From 1831 to 1836 Charles Darwin, then a young man in his twenties, was the official naturalist on the Royal Navy ship HMS Beagle. The Beagle spent five years completing a survey of the coasts of South America and making a series of longitude measurements around the world. This proved to be one of the most important scientific voyages of the 19th century, for it was on this voyage that Darwin made the observations that lead, twenty years later, to his formulating the theory of evolution by means of natural selection. This book is Darwin's account of his observations on this voyage. Darwin was a master of detailed observation, and he describes the things he observed -- the plants, animals, geology, and people -- in loving detail. His accounts are always lively and full of interest. Darwin was also a master of inductive reasoning, and there are several superb examples of this in this book. Perhaps the finest is Darwin's induction of the cause of the formation of the coral atolls that dot the South Pacific and the Indian Ocean (his theory was proved correct in the 20th century). Indeed, much of the value of this book for the modern reader lies in the many examples it contains of scientific, inductive thought; a powerful method of reasoning that is as neglected today as it was in Darwin's time.

This free Kindle edition stinks-- no pictures. Darwin refers to the illustrations in the text, but they are not there. Get the Kindle Version With Images from Gutenberg.org instead, which otherwise is the same text, right down to the page numbers which are included just as text on their own line (and that's where footnotes are included too.)

This was not the best choice for listening to in the car: too much tedious detail, and I found my mind wandering too often. Still, it was interesting, and I learned a lot.

Darwin was a promising but obscure student at Cambridge when he was suggested for the trip. By the time he returned, his reputation was made. It's not hard to see why: this book is packed with careful observations and attention to detail, as well as thoughtful analyses of topics from species extinction (though not origins at this stage) to the formation of coral atolls. Darwin is clearly very well-read and makes frequent references to the noted authorities of the time, sometimes supporting them and sometimes disagreeing.

I hadn't actually realized that the voyage of the Beagle was as long as it was. I saw it as a year or so, going from England to South America and back again. It was in fact a five-year, round-the-world cruise, covering the Pacific Islands, New Zealand, Australia, and numerous other locales as well as the well-known South America and the Galapagos.

My favorite parts are actually the more human anecdotes. Darwin is less than enchanted with New Zealand and Australia, and is not afraid of saying so, noting that most of the citizens are ex-convicts. My favorite single anecdote, though, is about the South American governor who is so dedicated to the rule of law that he has himself put in the stocks when he violates one of his own laws. Darwin also indicates his dislike of slavery and admits to feeling shame when he accidentally causes a male slave to flinch when he makes a threatening gesture to him. So much for that creationist conceit.

There are two appendices not written by Darwin. One is a summary of the orders given to Captain Fitzroy about the mission of the Beagle, which is very telling of the naval issues of the time. It focuses on getting accurate locations of known ports as well as the possible finding of new ones. As a Hornblower fan (and therefore with some interest in naval trivia), I found this very interesting.

The other appendix is Captain Fitzroy's attempt to construe their geological observations to be evidence of the Noachian Deluge. This is not on the same intellectual level as Darwin's writings, and I found it mostly of intellectual interest as evidence that creationist arguments have changed hardly at all in the last 175 years.

All in all, it's an interesting book and a classic of natural history, though not something I'd recommend listening to unless one has a passion for the subject.

One of the amazing things about the voyage of the Beagle is that Darwin survived it! On the voyage south along the eastern coast of South America and then later on the western coast he would frequently take to the land and meet the Beagle at its next port of call further south or north. He would travel the land hiring gauchos or other guides and horses and mules so that he could study the geology and the flora and fauna. The hardships and dangers he encountered and survived would in some ways put Indiana Jones to shame. In Patagonia amidst the constant gaucho and Indian wars, rife with wanton bloodshed and a kind of genocidal determinism, Darwin rode on horseback and slept on the ground and ate mostly animal flesh of all kinds, including mare's flesh. In Tierra del Fuego the cold and barren lands were enormously forbidding, the inhabitants savage and the dangers very real. One senses in the young Charles Darwin a determination to be the kind of naturalist who leaves no stone unturned, no ridge unclimbed and no species uncollected.

What most surprised me was how well and vibrantly he described the many people he met. Here he speaks of the governor of St. Fe: his "favourite occupation is hunting Indians: a short time since he slaughtered forty-eight, and sold the children at the rate of three or four pounds apiece" (from the entry of Oct 3 and 4, 1832). And here is his description of Queen Pomarre of Tahiti: "The queen is a large awkward woman, without any beauty, grace or dignity. She has only one royal attribute: a perfect immovability of expression under all circumstances" (entry of November 25, 1835). Darwin was quite taken with the Tahitians lauding their sobriety (thanks to the temperance movement of the missionaries) while at the same time bringing a flask of spirits on his travels there. He seemed unaware of any inconsistency.

I was also surprised by Darwin's vigor. I had thought that he was prone to being sickly, and indeed at times, he reports that he was confined to his quarters and that he suffered from seasickness and even homesickness; but when one considers all the miles he travelled on foot, on horseback, and all the mountain peaks he obtained, and the deserts he crossed, the many insects bites he endured, and the hard, cold and wet ground on which he often slept, one has to applaud his strength of body and character. Another surprise was the amount of time he devoted to geology and speculations about the how the land came to be the way he found it. When he spoke of how the land had risen and the mountains formed I had the sense of how thrilled he would have been to have had the modern understanding of plate tectonics.

At a couple of points in the narrative, Darwin speaks of how the most luxurious vegetation does not support the greatest number of animals, or the largest. He compares the plains of Africa and Patagonia with the Brazilian rainforest and speculates on why this should be. At no point does he use the term "grasslands," and so I think we can conclude that he didn't have the knowledge we have today about how fertile grasslands can be, nor did he realize that most of the nutrients in the rain forest are contained within the living plants and organisms above ground leaving the soil relatively poor compared to grassland soil. In the entry for September 15, 1832, he writes: "In grassy plains unoccupied by the larger ruminating quadrupeds, it seems necessary to remove the superfluous vegetation by fire, so as to render the new year's growth serviceable."

Another bit of modern knowledge that would have pleased him to know is that the marine iguanas of the Galapagos Islands cannot just jump into the very cold water that exists there but must warm themselves first, and even then can only stand the water for a limited period of time (an hour or two, I believe). Darwin kept tossing one of the lizards into the water only to watch it return inexplicably again and again to the land.

I was looking for hints that Darwin was already thinking about natural selection, but the text contains nothing that I could find that is directly specific although at one point he refers to the origin of species as that "mystery of mysteries."

The book was written (and obviously rewritten and polished many times over) after Darwin returned to England after comparing notes with other naturalists. The advantage of this approach is the scientific rigor with which he is able to describe and evaluate his experiences. As a professional scientist, Darwin wanted to get all the scientific names right and avoid errors. One would expect through this approach that some immediacy would be lost, but if anything I suspect his journal gained in vividness and was made all the more intriguing for the precision of expression. It is, after all these years, still a most engaging and readable account of a most remarkable adventure--one of the best I've ever read, and I am surprised that it took me so many years to get to it!

The Voyage of the Beagle is also a book that will stay in print for many decades if not centuries to come, partly because it is so well written, and partly because Darwin is Darwin, but also because he was so precise in his descriptions of the animals and the people and the lands that he visited. By reading this we and future generations can learn of the changes that have taken place.

In short I was thoroughly dazzled at Darwin's enormously wide range of knowledge. But I shouldn't have been. In just reading this journal, one can easily see that young Mr. Darwin was already a superb naturalist and a brilliant thinker and observer.

This so-called "Illustrated Edition" contains very few illustrations: a mere handful of small black-and-white graphics. Evidently the book is just a reprint of an earlier edition. It has no introduction and no notes. Darwin, yes; this edition, not so much.

Listening to Charles Darwin's Voyage of the Beagle may have not been the best decision. Darwin tends to describe a lot, and my mind easily wandered as long lists of descriptors made it difficult to understand what exactly Darwin was talking about. Reading the book would probably have given me a greater understanding and increased comprehension of what exactly Darwin studied, saw, and observed. But, one advantage to listening to the Voyage was that the narrator David Case, in a very old English accent, made me feel like Charles Darwin was the one speaking to me in first person. I was many times caught thinking that the narrator really was Darwin himself. Having never listened to an audiobook before, this experience was a lot of fun.

As we all know, in Darwin's voyage around the world, Darwin spent a lot of time studying nature and making very detailed observations - which to the untrained listener - that is me - seem tedious. But Darwin also had many human-to-human interactions with Gauchos in Argentina to governors and generals in South America. Darwin's commentary on his meetings with generals, governors, and commoners was the most interesting part of the audiobook as it gave me a feel for how Darwin felt about others around him. Darwin was definitely a product of Victorian society and thus had very defined views about what is civilized and what is barbaric, but in listening to the audiobook, I found that Darwin was not a racist as much as simply a proponent of his upbringing. To prove my point, I do remember that, at one point, Darwin denounces the practice of slavery.

Darwin's voyage is considered the defining event in his life that ultimately led to the formation of his theory of evolution by natural selection. While this book shows that Darwin's keen sense of observation and later application of his observations were the source of his success, another important aspect of his life can be gained by listening to this book, that Darwin truly had a love for nature. Many of his sketches of animals and beatles are not only detailed but written in an obviously excited state. Darwin had a passion for what he did - a lesson that we all could learn from.

This audio book had an excelent reader, using pretty close to the dialect of the time. Which was good because I was using it for a character reference, playing Darwin in a theater piece. The book it self was a little long and winded. It was truely a journal of his voyage. Don't look for many of his scientific conclusions. For this you would want to get "Origin of the Spieces." It was filled with stories of his adventures and what he came accross on his trip. Good listening material for long driving trips. It was a bit dry for just sitting and listening to, but there were some entertaining parts burried in there.

This was the first book I had ever listened to rather than reading, and it was a great experience. Englishman David Case does a beautiful job narrating Darwin's classic journey. Since the book was compiled from Darwin's field notes and journal entries, I think listening is great because it was written in first-person. So the entire time, you're listening to this distinguished British accent mouthing Darwin's own words. It's hard to listen for any length of time without forgetting that you're not actually listening to Darwin himself.

I found it particularly amusing to listen to Case describe from Darwin's point of view the fascinating maneuvers of dung beetles, his description of the Spanish ladies of Buenos Aires, or the experience of tasting young tortoise soup and other exotic foods. His accounts of gaucho life in Argentina and of sneaking up behind the giant and seemingly deaf Galapagos tortoises were particularly entertaining.

Having been to several parts of South America which were visited on the voyage, I found this book to be really interesting and fun to follow along with. I would really like to visit the Galapagos or Tahiti now. I'm not sure if having visited the places makes the book more enjoyable, or if it's the other way around. I suppose I'll have to find out now. :)

The Voyage of the Beagle is a classic book, written by a man with a deep knowledge of science and an insatiable curiosity about everything he saw. By all means read the book, but do yourself a favor and buy a different edition, and not this edition by The Narrative Press.

This edition has no illustrations, not even maps of the voyage. That's a minor drawback, but it can be remedied by looking at other sources.

The real problem with this book, however, is the huge number of proofreading errors. (The errors lie not with Darwin, but with the publisher.) I've never run across such a decent-looking book that was so atrociously edited. Here are just a few examples, with my remarks in square brackets:

page 210:
"I have little to remark on the zoology of these islands. ["I" omitted] have before described the carrion-vulture of Polyborus [period omitted] There are some other hawks, owls, and a few small land-birds. The waterfowl are particularly numerous, and the [should be "they"] must formerly ..."

page 211:
"... invariably accompanied by his darker consort, an [should be "and"] standing close by each other ..."

page 212:
"In Tierra del Fuego, as well as in the Falkland Islands, ["I" omitted] made many observations on the lower marine animals ..."

That's at least five typos in three pages, and it goes on like that, page after page. Darwin is a good writer, but it takes some effort to read his books carefully, and these excessively frequent typos are a major distraction.

Bottom line: Five stars for the work, one star for this edition.

Postscript: I found several complaints on the web about numerous typos in other books published by The Narrative Press. They have a very interesting collection of titles, but you should avoid buying any book from this publisher until they learn how to produce a proper book. Also, please note that all of the other reviews listed here to date are based on other publishers' versions of the book.