Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #141537 in Books
• Published on: 2006-10-12
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 192 pages

Sue Baker, Publishing News
...a book I read with great delight...beautifully observed and pure magic.

Richard Mabey, author of Nature Cure
brilliant and audacious

Richard Mabey, author of Nature Cure
Brilliant and audacious

Customer Reviews

A tortoise's-eye view of the world
This elegant little novel is narrated from the point of view of Gilbert White of Selborne's pet tortoise, Timothy. For White, the great 18th-century British naturalist, Timothy was both an object of warm domestic affection and cool scientific observation, but for Timothy - at least according to the fictional version presented here - White and most of the other humans encountered by the venerable creature continually misunderstood and misrepresented him; so here, in his own book, Timothy gets to set the record straight, and offer the tortoise's-eye view of the world. He is, for example, continually surprised at humanity's lack of a fitting home (in contrast to his own snug shell): 'Great soft tottering beasts. Houses never by when they need them. Even the humblest villagers live in ill-fitting houses. The greater the personage the worse the fit', and he is eloquent on the subject of the dreamy pleasures of hibernation ('Earth beneath me throbs with warmth. Cold black sky presses down. Current of memory tugs at me...')
The danger of a fictional device such as having a tortoise for a narrator is that it could come to seem whimsical over the course of an entire novel, but the way that the author slyly reverses the sometimes arrogant human observation of the natural world, to present nature's view of humanity, is wonderfully done, and in the end Klingenborg succeeds in creating not only a sympathetic historical character, with a voice and personality all his own, but a powerful ecological fable for our times.

A wonderful read
Having just- in the past five minues- finished reading this book, I thought it important to let others know what a charming book this is.

Looking through the eyes of Timothy- Gilbert White's tortoise, we see a different perception of Selbourne so widely recounted through Gilbert White's own writing. This book ran the risk of coming across as twee and sickly, but the book is written sensitively and with great understanding and admiration for Timothy the tortoise.

Timothy notes the behaviours of those living in Selbourne and others who enter his life- just as Gibert White observed the behaviour of the flora and fauna around him. You can not help but empathise with this creature who sees things with humour, honesty and respect and highlights the differences between him and many of the villagers.

This book is written beautifully and allows the reader to stop and really reflect on the world in which Timothy lived- a far cry from his natural habitat, and reflect also on why it was thought acceptable and such a spectacle to remove an animal from this and move him to a village in Hampshire. There are thought provoking ethical strands running through this book and I found it easy to engage with these throughout.

I highly recommend this book and I defy anyone to not have admiration for such an incredible species once reading it.

Slow moving and hard to get into (just like a tortoise)
We read this book for our book club and it got a near-unanimous thumbs-down. Dull, dull, dull.