Frank BucklandBesprekingen

Quaint and quirky.

This is a collection of stories, word pictures and curious encounters with birds, fishes, snakes, and wild animals written by an enthusiastic outdoors-man. It is by no means a scientific treatise, but rather a joyful walk with the author as your guide to point out quirks and habits of animals in their natural homes.

A short but interesting selection from McSweeney's books regarding the reviews of Frank Buckland. Buckland made a habit of traveling around England inspecting and sometimes debunking bizarre claims about mysterious objects and happenings. Some of the chapters in this collection of Buckland's articles include The Ceiling Walker, Catch Pennies, Fleas to Meet You, and Petrified!, just to name a few. The book is not as relevant as perhaps it was during its time but its still interesting to read how one Victorian man of quality viewed the baubles of life. I wonder what he would say about the big foot corpses and balloon boys of today.½

One of the newest offerings in McSweeney's Collins Library Series is Curious Men, a selection of eighteen essays from the voluminous writings of Frank Buckland, a Victorian-era surgeon-zoologist and chronicler of all things odd.

Collins brings us Buckland's tales of giants, mummies, faux-mermaids, petrified hats, trained fleas, and people who walked upside down, in a short and accessible volume that can be read quite comfortably in a single short sitting (in fact, my only quibble with the book is that a few more essays might have been welcome).

Buckland's prose is quite pithy. Here, for example, is a short riff on mermaid attractiveness, which he found rather wanting in one particular specimen he examined: "If I were a merman I should decidedly not fall in love with any mermaid who was not a great deal more particular in matters of hairdressing than our friend under the glass case" (p. 69).

The perfect diversion for a weekend afternoon.

http://philobiblos.blogspot.com/2009/03/book-review-curious-men.html½

This book pleased me greatly. It's an incredibly slim work with (apparently) very little editing from the original essays. Times have not changed that much and we are all still (privately) enthralled by so-called "freaks." I was especially intrigued by the chapter about the baby showcases - we could not imagine today putting babies on display for hours on end for the enjoyment of others...or could we? Jon and Kate plus their Eight are doing the 2008/09 equilivant...can we feel shocked at the audacity of the past and still order DVDs of something similar and even more cruel of today?

Well over 100 years after Frank Buckland documented the curiousities he witnessed in Victorian England, these essays still have the ability to enchant. Yes, we're sooo much more sophisticated and educated these days. But I'll bet you'll still be surprised and intrigued by some of these curious folks. Buckland had a knack for relating the joy he got seeking out these oddities, while mixing journalism and scientific observation to provide thorough accounts of the strange phenomena that seemed to have come from every corner of the British Empire when Victoria was queen.

This collection from Buckland's papers can be read in an evening or two; or kept handy for filling an occasional odd moment. The Collins Library has preserved yet another treasure from obscurity.

Os.