Village explainer goes global - Australia/Environment
Roger McDonald; 6/2/08
An Explorer’s Notebook: Essays on Life, History and Climate; By Tim Flannery; Text Publishing, 304pp, $34.95
What more simply effective few lines than the following have been written in recent years by any Australian writer? The feeling is close to that of a biblical creation myth, such is the storytelling promise conjured from a zoological specimen collecting trip in the mountains of western New Guinea: “The worlds of men and tree kangaroos are largely separate. The lives of men centre upon villages, gardens and rivers, and upon the gentler and more easily hunted closer slopes of the mountain ranges. The world of tree kangaroos is often perched high above. It is one of precipices and swirling mists - a cold, dank and dangerous world. The infrequent flashing moments when tree kangaroos and men meet, however, are full of meaning and excitement. Their importance is out of proportion to their brief duration, for they shape the lives of both the hunter and the hunted long after they have passed.” (From Tree Kangaroos: A Curious Natural History, 1996, reprinted in An Explorer’s Notebook.)
I have no idea if Tim Flannery labours long and hard over his writing or has an enviable flair for tossing it off as easily, lucidly and evocatively as it reads. I hope the latter, because from the evidence of the final chapter of An Explorer’s Notebook, titled A New Adventure, time has been running out for Flannery’s writing availability since the publication of The Weather Makers in 2005 (and many reprints since).
See: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23125510-25132,00.html