Man-Eaters of Kumaon (Oxford India Paperbacks)
by Jim Corbett
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Book Summary Information
Author: Jim CorbettEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1993-06-17
ISBN: 0195622553
Number of pages: 228
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Book Reviews of Man-Eaters of Kumaon (Oxford India Paperbacks)
Book Review: Great Stories by a very perceptive Hunter
Summary: 5 Stars
I read these when I was younger, and have found them again having met someone who comes from Kumaon.
The stories of the hunts are absolute page-turners. Corbett is a master of detail and of his craft. He writes with the directness and absence of sentimentality that is very much of his age and genre - not a word is wasted and his observation is first class.
I agree with one review that these books (and the original, which I have a copy of) could be improved with maps or diagrams, but they don't suffer too badly for that such is the care of Corbett's descriptions and they were obviously not reproduced on a large budget, which is hardly surprising.
Finally - a word about Corbett. He was a man of his times and we are foolish to try and imprint 21st Century morals or thinking onto him. He was a man who hunted a huge amount of game for sport - the Batchelor of Powalgarh and the Pipal Pani tiger paid with their lives because they were great trophies. Talking of the Pipal Pani tiger Corbett weighs the balancing factors of a magnificent trophy vs. not seeing any more the tiger he had hunted for years - close to extraordinary in our eyes. In time he seems to have mellowed and become more of a conservationist - but he never completely put down the gun to adopt a 'maneaters only' approach. Those who don't hunt/shoot may find it difficult to understand, but most hunter/shooters develop a respect for their prey and a desire to preserve it and its habitat - even if for purely selfish reasons, but usually for a whole range of complex and competing reasons.
Corbett did undoubtely provide a great service in hunting maneaters - one that took up time, earning opportunities, and which levied a heavy cost in terms of nerves (read the story of the Thak maneater where this is at its clearest). He deserves his credit for that.
In short, his legacy is a mixed one - it is wrong to lionise him completely, he was not a saintly conservationist in the Joy Adamson mould, but its daft to criticize him as being one with a callous city executive who wonders out of London in a pink cashmere sweater and tight-fitting tweeds to wipe out low-flying pheasants in the Home Counties but whose total absence of fieldcraft means that he cannot tell the difference between a pigeon and an ostrich and doesn't care either.
In my view his legacy is mostly good - he was a man of his time and there is much about him that is unattractive to today's eyes, but he did the hard work leading him to love and understand and explain the habitat and animals he lived amongst and hunted. He did do much good for conservation.
One final quality which I consider is very valuable in him is his absence of sentimentality - nature is an unsentimental state and far too many 'animal lovers' and would be 'conservationists' adopt an unrealistic sentimental attitude - it leads to unintended consequences and ultimately bad conservation. It is necessary, especially in a country like the British Isles, to understand that man has more or less completely upset the balance of nature, and that we can't just any more leave animals completely to themselves on the basis that all human attempts to control creatures by culling &c are wrong - that way the species that have adapted best to man's encroachment (In the UK - rats, crows, magpies, pigeons, foxes &c &c) will triumph over biodiversity. Also, the concentration by some on support for 'cute' animals over less 'cute' animals which nonetheless occupy their own important niche in the overal structure has unwelcome consequences. Corbett's insight, which he turned to the good before he died, was to see nature how it is and to want to protect it from man how it is as best as we can.
Summary of Man-Eaters of Kumaon (Oxford India Paperbacks)
Jim Corbett was every inch a hero, something like a "sahib" Davy Crockett: expert in the ways of the jungle, fearless in the pursuit of man-eating big cats, and above all a crack shot. Brought up on a hill-station in north-west India, he killed his first leopard before he was nine and went on to achieve a legendary reputation as a hunter.Corbett was also an author of great renown. His books on the man-eating tigers he once tracked are not only established classics, but have by themselves created almost a separate literary genre. Man Eaters of Kumaon is the best known of Corbett's books, one which offers ten fascinating and spine-tingling tales of pursuing and shooting tigers in the Indian Himalayas during the early years of this century. The stories also offer first-hand information about the exotic flora, fauna, and village life in this obscure and treacherous region of India, making it as interesting a travelogue as it is a compelling look at a bygone era of big-game hunting.
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