Elephant Company is such a good book! Like, I am not very much the travel adventurer type, and this book had me wanting to go to the Burmese jungle!
Elephant Company is, in my humble opinion, slightly mis-titled. Don't get me wrong: fantastic book about an incredible guy... but very little of the book is about the elephants in WWII. A little over 2/3 of the book is about James Williams and the start of his career in Burma with a logging company. He was hired to oversee the elephant "workers" at multiple camps throughout the northeast of the country. On the job, he learned a ton about the elephants and their care, and the culture of the uzis (the elephant caretakers) and mahouts (elephant overseers/trainers). With this knowledge and his empathy for the gentle giants, Williams institutes new training and management techniques.
Then toward the end of the book we get to hear about the elephants in WWII. I don't remember ever learning much at all about WWII in Burma, but it was not good. Lots and lots of lives lost, unfortunately, and many of those were civilian lives. Over and over, Williams worked to coordinate teams of elephants to help ferry supplies and build "elephant bridges" to help the Allied troops. I don't want to give any spoilers; you'll have to read the book to find out about the incredible human life rescue mission that the elephants helped with!
Not overly dense, this is a great narrative nonfiction. Oh, and lots of pictures throughout. Not all crammed onto five glossy pages in the middle, but scattered among the text! I love love love that.
*I checked out my copy of Elephant Company from my local library.
No comments:
Post a Comment