Customer Reviews

Zarafa: A Giraffe's True Story, from Deep in Africa to the Heart of Paris

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I nearly set this book aside, unread, when the author started talking about his personal fascination with snakes. What was this all about? I am so glad I skipped through is personal information and entered the world of Zarafa! I was enthralled by the descriptions of Africa and the 1800s... I followed each step of the giraffe's journey on the map provided, never wanting it to end. The book makes an avid reader want more about the history and culture of the time. I agree, though, that the description of Zarafa herself and her life in Paris is lacking. I was quite disappointed at the way the story ended without more details about her life, her health, her diet, her happiness. Maybe more excerpts from the newspapers of the time, more personal accounts from people who saw her would have been nice. But all in all -- imagine being there at the time and seeing that beautiful animal proudly march by! And thanks to the author for all the research that went into this book! Incredible!

If you are between serious history books, or if you just like to dabble in history & enjoy a curious story around which a broader tale of culture can be told, this is a nice volume. Allin is a very good writer, holds your attention throughout with a trail of trivia, all held together by the story of this giraffe. I read the book in a couple of days & have now went ahead & circulated to friends of mine who, like me, travel alot on airplanes. This is the perfect book for a long airplane flight.

In "Zarafa," author Michael Allin has the gift of engaging the reader in a tale he or she would not have necessarily selected off a bookshelf. Zarafa is the main character - not a king, conqueror or superhero, but a giraffe. As we follow this giraffe from the depths of Africa to cosmopolitan Paris, we get to know her as intimately as any human travel companion. Along the way, we learn about French and Egyptian history, Arabic customs and Parisian ways, geography, exploration and many other interesting tidbits. The book's only shortcoming is its sentimentality, but this is not of the heavy-handed Disney variety and does not detract from a most engaging, interesting, and enjoyable journey.

Delightful, charming, magical. The story of the giraffe will stay with you like a dream. An enjoyable and non-cynical fable about colonialism, the birth of the modern world and the death of wonder. I think the success of these elegant little non-fiction books (Longitude, Cod etc) is somehow very heartening. Long live the General Reader!

I *REALLY* enjoyed this book! Allin does a remarkable job of historical research, but he doesn't stop there: by providing many fascinating details of life in early 19-th century Europe and Africa, he fleshes out the remarkable story of this gentle beast and the humans so enchanted by her. Allin proves that history, properly told, is if nothing else a fascinating story. I am eagerly awaiting his next book.

Michael Allin takes us on a Mike Toddian historical joyride, managing to leap gracefully from the time of the pharoahs to Napoleonic Europe (which is the story's focus) and back again. The central episode of this delight ful collage is the odyssey of a single (although for a time there were two) female giraffe calf which began in 1824 when the Viceroy of Egypt sends her as a gift to King Charles of France to divert the French from Egypt's excesses on the side of the Turks against Greece. Zarafa,though she has the title role, does not really appear for fully a third of the book, but her story is obviously the lens through which we are to view the author's canvas. Western Europe has entered the Age of Enlightenment. That means that the powers no longer make war and subjugate lesser beings for the usual reasons (fun and profit) but rather in quest of ideas and learning and other intellectual pursuits.Having ousted (make that beheaded) their king and queen at the end of the eighteenth century in favor of some sort of popular republicanism, by 1810 the fickle French returned to royalism and reinstated the very family that they had targeted in their bloodbath barely two decades earlier. Napoleon passes from military hero to banishment following a poor won-lost record. The French and other Western powers are newly obsessed with Egyptology and everyone has been happily plundering, brutalizing, enslaving and generally exploitingthe Nile Valley and the wonders of grave-robbing. Egypt itself is preoccupied with its own alliance with Turkey in their rape of Greece, although before too long Egypt decides to change sides and turns on the Turks. Enter Zarafa. Michael Allin clearly knows and loves his subject. He has exhaustively researched Zarafa's journey and takes us from her capture in Africa to her arrival in Paris in 1827after having actually trekked the last 500 plus miles from Marseilles. In this pre-photography era, no one has seen her like and crowds mob her along her route. Allin applies his brushstrokes with great affection, irony, enthusiasm and above all considerable wit and amusement. While the reader is inexorably caught up in the historical sweep of the author's scape, Allin makes certain that we do not miss the greed, sadism, incest, waste, class consciousness and raw power struggle that have fueled these events. What better way to underscore the ugliness that has marked man's time on this planet than to contrast the innocence and charm and beauty of this exotic creature. She seemed to bear a message that, while everyone was captivated by the messenger, no one heard. Zarafa is a jewel and is not to be missed.

I loved this book it was well written, well researched and incredibly interesting. The history of Zarafa, a little Giraffe that was a gift to the king of France, is more than just a history book. It has a very fairy tale sort of a feel to it. It's so well written that it even the descrition of French and Egyptian foreign relations seemed interesting, which is some feat because politics, almost by definition are dull.

I was very disappointed in this book. Reviews of the book proclaim it to be a magical retelling of the story of the charming giraffe, Zarafa, and her odyssey from Africa to Paris. Unfortunately, this is not a correct evaluation of the majority of the book. Allin's book focuses very, very heavily on the political intrigues of the politico-warriors who ruled Egypt, France, and Turkey in the early 19th century. In attempting to set the stage for the world history, climate and culture of the time, Allin goes way overboard with the tales of war, slaughter, slaving, court intrigue, deceptions, petty rulers and such other matters. As a result, the story of Zarafa the giraffe is lost amid the pages.

It seems that very little of the book is actually devoted to telling the tale of Zarafa, and what there is about her and her journey is swathed in grisly details of warring and giraffe butcher. All this policical-historical clutter prevents the reader from reaching Zarafa except in only the barest sense. The gore of war and descriptions of heinous acts committed by those in power while on the route up to power overwhelmingly distracts from the tale. The somewhat graphic descriptions of animal slaughter at Roman fetes served no purpose. Gross.

Allin gets very wound up in the telling of the historical facts. In fact, he is so wound up in it that much of the book reads like a tangle. I had to re-read numerous paragraphs to try to make the transition from the surrounding paragraphs. There was no linear thread to guide the reader. It seemed like he just decided that a certain fact would be good at a particular point and inserted it without regard for the context of the surrounding text. It was convoluted to put it shortly.

Zarafa was apparently a beautiful, gentle creature and this could have been a magical tale. Perhaps if Allin had fictionalized the story more and added more likeable humans the story would do credit to Zarafa's legacy. I am still interested in reading the tale of Zarafa's journey -- it didn't really get told in this book.

The only part of the book which is outstanding is the design and styling of the book jacket and the binding for the volume. The book jacket is luminous, the end papers a treat. The font follows the mood. But, why the printer chose margins which necessitated numerous hyphenations on each page is a mystery. The excessive occurrence of hyphenated words distracted from the flow of the story.

The logistics alone are worth the read. How do you get a giraffe from Africa to France? You make sure it's infant enough to train, kill its its mother, ship it by barge down the Nile, cut a hole in the deck of the boat to for her head to stick out of the hold, march her daily, relentlessly for several months through the French countryside -- where she becomes adored by crowds of people lining the roads to glimpse her beauty. As slaves are shipped onboard with her, one young slave becomes her caretaker, and lives two stories above the ground in Paris so he can sleep beside her head and talk to her.

Its the story of the grace and gentleness of animals, and the cruelty and barabarism of humans. It's the story of Napoleon's campaign in Egypt, brilliant strategies against vicious desert warrior tribes, lost naval battles, and magnificent discoveries in a land where the great Pharoahs had been forgotten and mummies were burned for stove fuel. And it's the story of patching up broken relations between the East and West with a giraffe -- Zarafa -- The Lovely One.

I started this book as a simple afternoon read. Next thing I know, my child is asking me to read it aloud. Next day we find ourselves at the zoo because he's never seen a giraffe. Next day we find ourselves at the museum looking at mummies. Then we're at the library looking for more about Napoleon. This little book has lit a fire in the heart of my 10-year-old son!

I highly recommend it if you like to read down rabbit trails. Like a trek along a country road, you come across interesting things along the way.

The wonderous spectacle of Zarafa walking across France is almost unbelievable. How wonderful it would be if humans could regain that enchantment at the sight of another creature. Allin has made a page of history very real and fascinating. This is a special book to be shared with those who care.