The Natural History of Unicorns
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. In an inspired iteration of a cluttered genre-world-history-through-innocuous-topic-U.K. natural historian Lavers (Why Elephants Have Big Ears) rattles off a history of the mythical unicorn that "binds... the earth's natural history to our own." An object of fascination for at least the last 2,000 years, the unicorn was described in 398 B.C. by the Greek Ctesias as "wild asses as large as horses... white bodies, their heads dark red" with a horn that, when used as a drinking glass, protected men from epilepsy and poison. Ctesias became a source for Aristotle and Pliny, who shaped European beliefs for 1500 years. Wending its way into (and possibly out of) the Old Testament (Ctesias's ass was, "like the Hebrews' totemic reem, real strong, horned, indomitable and, crucially, not a cow."), unicorns are incorporated into Bible translations and the Physiologus bestiary (in its time, almost as big as the Bible), and one-horned creatures have even been found drawn on the walls of African caves. Laver's tongue-in-cheek delivery maintains its charm throughout while turning up a good bit of knowledge about natural history and how it's been artfully embellished by those recording it.
From The Washington Post
From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com Reviewed by Michael Sims bookworld@washpost.com "The legend of the unicorn is far from being a tall tale," writes Chris Lavers in "The Natural History of Unicorns," "and ancient texts give us many clues to the beast's identity and home." A lecturer in natural history at the University of Nottingham, Lavers beautifully demonstrates what natural science and cultural history can show each other about the origins of enduring myths. Rigorous but never stodgy, precise without becoming arid, he has a lot of fun in these pages while pursuing one of the favorite beasts of mythology. Don't confuse this book with cryptozoology, with its snapshots of the Loch Ness Monster (or is that driftwood?) and plaster casts of Bigfoot's tracks (unless that's a seam showing). Lavers is a scientist and a scholar. He isn't trying to prove the existence of an elusive beast. He understands that myths, like hardy plants, grow from their native environment, then get carried abroad and cross-fertilize with indigenous stories elsewhere, producing hybrids whose lineage requires careful untangling. Lavers wants to know what inspired the many different versions of the unicorn that cavort through such diverse sources as Pliny's natural history encyclopedia, the medieval pharmacopoeia and Christian fables of sacred virginity. His quest takes him from ancient natural scientists such as Ctesius and Aristotle to the Islamic scholars who preserved those worthies' learning through the Dark Ages. Then he takes us along on exciting 19th- and 20th-century expeditions into jungle and veldt. Real animals that contributed to the unicorn or its potent horn include the yak, narwhal, oryx, rhinoceros, okapi and the now extinct auroch. Determined, Lavers pursues his quarry wherever it leads. When he reads in one source that the interior of a purported unicorn horn resembled a cucumber peeled lengthwise, he peels a cucumber himself and compares it with animal horns until he finds a resemblance. The answer: The ancient source was describing walrus horn. Wit enlivens many pages. Surveying medieval commentary on the unicorn, Levers remarks, "The full breadth of the Christian imagination was let loose on the problem of the meaning of a creature that was of the utmost importance to God (it was in the Bible) but which otherwise did not appear to exist." Lavers keeps his intellectual detective story passionate and suspenseful. Illuminated by his erudition, symbol-rich scenes that have darkened to opacity over time turn translucent again. We see through museums' carved horns and faded tapestries and into the world that inspired them. Lavers shows us the parade of beasts wild and tame, familiar and exotic; the unforeseen side effects of co-opting other culture's stories; the mistranslations and deliberate distortions; and most of all, in a world tormented by ignorance and violence and disease, the yearning for magic.
Copyright 2009, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright 2009, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.
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