Timothy, or Notes of an Abject Reptile

"Now, then."

Verlyn Klinkenborg spent four years studying famous English naturalist Gilbert White's writings. I underlined half this book, taking weeks to read it, savoring it. I am tempted to write Mr. Klinkenborg, care of his publisher. I want to tell him, gushingly, all fan-girlish, how moved and spellbound I was by this work, a wonderment.

It takes its place, now and forever, as a beloved favorite among my favorites.

In a nutshell, or if you prefer, in a tortoise shell, Timothy is the observer of Mr. Gilbert White. The tables are turned. Both poetic and crass, she calls it like she sees it (Timothy was indeed a female, a fact unknown to White).

She is no anthropomorphic sweetie. Her voice is that a tortoise, a reptile, a hibernator, a show more sentient being that is distinctly not under the spell of human beings, those dear sweet misguided and obnoxious human beings and their hurly-burly 18th century lives in Selborne.

Like White, Timothy too, is a naturalist, records human species' oddities, rhythms and predictable schedules, is astounded by their awkward physical attributes, and puzzles over their behaviors. Everything so oddly different from Timothy's own.

There is a passage where Timothy wonders what would happen if she simply said, "Now, then" to Mr. White who has such a devoted interest in her, tenderly cares for her, and unlike with the other Selborne humans, they sometimes exchange a brief glance, recognizing mutual consciousnesses. If she did speak, though, how that would change the human perspective! She notes it would require "All the world to be rearranged."

Being an unwitting transplant from her Mediterranean home, she is always a transplant, an alien, a misfit, a survivor, living in a "tiny, miserable kingdom of one," without any kin during her long years in England from 1740 to 1794. 1794 is, when at last, she does not rise from her annual winter hibernation. White had died just the summer before, at age 72. One has the feeling that she was at least that old, having lived who knows how long on the coastal ancient Greek ruins in the south of Turkey, her native land, the land she was physiologically, ecologically bound with, before being swooped up by anonymous human hands and carried worlds away.

Here is a 10 minute interview with Klinkenborg about Timothy. He sounds like I had hoped he would! If Klinkenborg would have made the audiobook himself, I would want to buy, listen, and treasure it as well. Instead they used a female narrator and rightly so, avoiding heaping another injustice of ignorance onto Timothy:
https://www.loe.org/shows/segments.html?programID=06-P13-00006&segmentID=6

489 total GR reviews. Hmph. Not all wonderments are lauded, as would be just. show less

The author of Timothy might well have had more readers if he had not adopted Gilbert White's
unwelcome descriptor.

Timothy is actually an acute observer of humans, nature, and a fun and insightful philosopher.

I miss Timothy!

It is difficult to pretend that Gilbert White’s tortoise Timothy had the same literary skills as his ‘owner’. However, picking up a copy of Timothy’s book: notes of an English country tortoise by Verlyn Klinkenborg whom I took first to be a publisher rather than the author, I was spurred on to things that I thought might be great. It was the handwritten inscription that provided the spur. ‘For Kurt on his 19th birthday. You’ll learn a lot from this book. Love Rachelle and Anastasia’. Gilbert’s observations are seen through Timothy’s eyes. I soon came across a corner of a page turned over, a despicable habit. This was on pages 3 and 4 out of a total of 181 pages. I realised too that it was the only such instance of a show more turned over corner. That is as far as I got myself. The device of an observant Timothy is clever but just did not work for me. show less

i like the idea of this book, and klinkenborg is obviously a good writer (just mostly not my style), but i couldn't get into this at all, or be made to care about any of it.

still, i liked this:

"He picks me up one day in Ringer. Idle question on his face. Feels my tail and feet and as much of my neck as I allow. Concludes that I have no perceptible pulse. As if I would keep my pulse where a human could touch it. What would be the point of all this armor then?"

Reading this small pastoral book was something like sitting on a covered porch on a hot summer day, with lemonade. In a rocking chair. Nothing much happens. You're so happy anyway.

This is an American, current companion volume to Gilbert White's Natural History of Selbourne, narrated by Pastor White's own tortoise Timothy. Many times Timothy cites what Mr White said as there is such "a propensity in mankind towards deceiving and being deceived...that one cannot safely relate any thing from common report, especially in print, without expressing some degree of doubt and suspicion" (85). Timothy soon adds, " Mr White's true music is the repeated, unresolved music of birdsong. Melody that never finds the tonic again"(90).
Klinkenborg is a deft and skilled writer, a journalist of course, though not in this book. Associative, fragmentary disjunctive and surprising writing.

Wise fun as Timothy, the 80 year old tortoise who lived in Gilbert White's garden in Selborne, England, gives his viewpoint on the famous naturalist and human society in general.