Audubon

I enjoyed this very much. Of course I was aware of who he was, but now I'm aware of the jaw-dropping significance of what he accomplished. It is a little difficult to read in our day of extinction of species. He lived in the days when humans did not recognize the possibility that animals could die out, there was such an abundance of them. He was an avid hunter, and killed most of the birds he drew from. So, there's that, but one must remember when we are reading about and understand the mentality of that time. This book was perhaps a bit cleaned up and positive as many biographies were in the 1950s, but it is still pretty thorough for all that. Reading about the scope of his plans for painting all of the birds of America, and getting show more them published at full size, is amazing. For the most part, he had no money, yet he traversed all over the land, to Europe and back, selling portraits and scratching up enough funds to accomplish his grand plan. I wish we knew more of Lucy, his wife, because she must have been an amazing woman as well; putting up with years of separation and working as a governess to support herself and her children when Audubon couldn't. Their devotion to one another is inspiring.

My favorite quote: (for when someone is talking smack about you)
"I care not a fig-all such stuff will soon evaporate, being mere smoke from a dunghill." show less

I'd really like to rate this one star, but as I didn't finish, I won't.

I struggled through to p. 50. Painfully boring. I should have known better, after reading the same author's bio of Davy Crockett.

What is even more ridiculous is the author's infatuation with Audubon's handsomeness, with his 'look of race' -- going so far as to hint that he's the Dauphin, who went into hiding during the French Revolution. Well, according to more recent sources, he's not a blue-blood, but a mulatto, Captain Audubon's bastard from Haiti.

As if any of this matters, except as an indication of the overall accuracy, perhaps.

By the time I abandoned the book he's already grown and married. So, the rest of the book is going to be even more boring? Not for me; show more I'm moving on. show less