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A hitchhiker's guide to the animal kingdom Feb 17, 2001 (67 of 69 found this helpful)
Douglas Adams' sense of humour is so strong, it could inject a bucketful of laughs into an obituary. Needless to say I wasn't surprised when this book, his elegy for endangered species, turned out to have a welcome balance between laughter and melancholy.
Adams is joined by zoologist Mark Carwardine, as they use their last chance to see a variety of animals on the brink of extinction, such as the Komodo Dragon, the White Rhinos of Zaire, New Zealand kakapos, and Yangtze river dolphins. Adams, amateur wildlife lover, is wise enough to know the purpose of his journey: to shine some of the glare from his celebrity as a "science-fiction comedy novelist" on the issue of global extinction. He does wisely not to downplay the plight of these animals in the favour of commerciality, but manages to produce an entertaining work nonetheless. Carwardine, and the other people we encounter, sometimes come off as little more than characters in a Douglas Adams novel. I am hesitant to believe that everyone he encounters has the same dry, deadpanned British sense of humour. Nonetheless, the characters' eccentricities further shed light on the kinds of people who are willing to undertake the monumental task of saving these beautiful beasts. It is not work for the dispassionate.
"The great thing about being the only species that makes a distinction between right and wrong," he notes at one point, "is that we can make up the rules for ourselves as we go along." Which brings up the second theme he hopes to illustrate here. Humans are dumb. No, that's too simple. Humans are egotistical, selfish, wasteful, materialistic, impudent, and dumb. The single, overwhelming reason why most of these animals must fight for their survival is the sheer audacity humans have in moving into their natural habitat, and upsetting the balance of nature. Adams has no time for individual moments of human idiocy, best exemplified by his wonderful line skewering young Yemeni men who insist on wearing rhino tusk costume jewelry: "How do you persuade [them] that a rhino horn dagger is not a symbol of your manhood but a signal of the fact that you need such a symbol?" His exasperation is evident in this and other such pearls of prose.
I admit that I read this book more for Adams himself than for the subject matter. It is a credit to the author that by the end, I felt some sense of emotional investment in the animals, without the bitter feelings that usually emanate whenever I am subject to an overt tug at my heartstrings. Adams walks that fine line quite well.
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Ford Prefect should read this book Feb 3, 2000 (45 of 46 found this helpful)
Douglas Adams could have worked comfortably within his sci-fi niche for the rest of his career knowing that he had left his mark on the literary world. He chose to take a chance and write a non-fiction account of some of the most unique and fascinating animals on our planet (the same one that Ford Prefect, from the increasingly inappropriately named Hitchhiker's Trilogy, considered "Mostly Harmless").
His addictive writing style made this book impossible to put down. His accounts of the Komodo Dragon and the Kakapo bird are two of the most humorous, yet informative pieces that I have had the pleasure of reading.
I was fortunate enough to hear Adams speak at a local university a few years ago. The crowd was decidedly Hitchhiker fanatics but by the end of the evening, he had us all running to the bookstore to find Last Chance to See.
Read this book. You'll laugh. And you might even learn something, too.
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Conservation lessons couched in humor Dec 28, 2000 (21 of 22 found this helpful)
I received my first copy of Adams and Cawardine's LAST CHANCE TO SEE from one of my roommates in college. I say "first" because I am now working on my fourth copy -- people I loaned it to kept keeping it!
In LAST CHANCE TO SEE, Adams does for the non-fiction natural world what he did for science fiction: he tells an entertaining story that brings each character to vivid life for a reader. The fact that his characters this time 'round are not space aliens and a beleaguered human being, but rather the most endangered of the endangered animals on the planet makes no difference. The aye-aye, kakapo, mountain gorilla, Chinese river dolphin, Komodo dragon, and even the Rodriguez fruit bat ("...there are hundreds of them!") live on vividly in my memory, despite the fact that I have only seen the dragon and the bat in person.
The lessons to be learned in this book are most profoundly related in Cawardine's parable at the end: by losing these animals, and others like them, we are losing integral parts of the universe, important pieces to the puzzle of life. Once they are lost, there is no regaining them, and the world can never the same.
I would recommend this book to any nature lover (but don't ask to borrow my copy, I'm not losing another one!). I howled with laughter and retained the deeper meaning -- and from reading the other reviews, I can see others did the same.
LAST CHANCE TO SEE tops the list of my recommended, life-changing books. I believe nothing will ever knock it off the top. Read it!
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Douglas Adams' Finest Jan 17, 1999 (17 of 17 found this helpful)
Douglas Adams is one of the funniest authors alive. And were it not for this book, that would be all he'd ever be. This book, however, transcends humor. Whereas the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is one of the funniest books ever, no question, this book has a far more serious bent. In this book, Douglas Adams goes searching for endangered animals, and in the process winds up taking a hilarious and yet very insightful look into human nature and society. The book essentially looks at various aspects of the question "What makes humans different from animals?" And although it is riotously funny, it has some brilliant observations on this note. This book is quite simply amazing, and is one of my favorite books ever, no questions asked. It is, I think without a doubt, the finest book Douglas Adams has ever written.
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His best work, definitely... Jun 25, 2001 (10 of 11 found this helpful)
This was the book that meant the most to Douglas Adams himself, because unlike the Hitchiker or the Dirk Gently series, "Last Chance to See" is a true story. It is the story of Douglas Adams and Marc Carwardine, a zoologist, travelling around the world to experience species of animals that are close to extinction. One of the animals, the kakapo, a parrot in New Zealand, is reduced to only 40. His journey opens your eyes what it means when something is gone forever, when there is no more chance to see it in real life. You experience different cultures and customs through the eyes of a writer who has written about them all along, but by using alien worlds as metaphors, this time it is real. I have read this book many many times, but sadly have to say that the event that really opened my eyes about what it means that you missed your last chance to see is Douglas Adams's death, with it, I missed my last chance to see. Because of this book, I developed an interest in evolution and a thirst for knowledge about the way this world works. I think it is essential reading for everyone who is remotely interested in anthropology, zoology, wildlife preservation or simply a good book.