Book Review: Monster of God by David Quammen

 

Unlike what the title may imply this isn't a religious text at all, but instead a non-fiction on various man eating species.

Quammen has traveled across the world and in this book delves into various man-eating animal species throughout history, from the brown bears in eastern Europe to the tigers in Asia to the Asiatic lions in India to the crocodiles in Australia. Quammen delves deep into cases of these animals being man-eaters, and also describes the relationships the local peoples have historically had and currently have with these animals.

A great non-fiction if you ask me. It's not one I went through in a breeze like some other books I read this year, as this one took me quite long to complete reading (over a week). But that said, I was pretty much invested the entire way through, which I definitely commend the author for since this is a 500+ pages long non-fiction, where drifting off can happen. But instead I was thoroughly invested from page one.

I found the author's writing voice to be very accessible and pleasant to read, despite how long some sections are and how much information is given. I learned a lot from this book and it never grew stale for me, even when tackling predators I'm less interested in (e.g. the crocodiles).

I also greatly appreciate how Quammen delved into the local peoples and their relationships with the animals. We get a lot of firsthand accounts from locals about encounters with these dangerous animals, sometimes even stories of attacks or family/community members being killed. I also found all their different takes and philosophies on the animals to be described well and I appreciate how Quammen went out of his way to showcase many different viewpoints on the animals. Some want to protect these predators at all costs, others think that they should get to live but should be allowed to be killed in smaller quantities, and there's also of course those who wish to actively hunt or even possibly exterminate them. Which can be a dangerous viewpoint to have, especially with some of these predators being quite threatened already (e.g. the tigers and Asiatic lions).

And we also get a nice bit of folklore about the animals as well, mostly what the native peoples of each region believe about the species. Just super interesting to read and Quammen did, as far as I know, a good job of bringing all this information to the reader. 

So while this is definitely a long read, I do recommend it if you want to learn more about dangerous predators and their relationship with humans. Despite this book being about animals that have attacked and sometimes eaten people, I truly appreciate how it's less sensationalism surrounding the man-eater factor and much more so a focus on the relationships humans have with the animals. 

I do understand that this book isn't for everyone, though, since there's quite a few instances of human/animal injury and death and it's also a very long read that does require the reader to stay focused if they do not want to get lost in the amount of information given. But for me personally, it was a great read.

Rating: 4/5