Mystery book possibly by David Attenborough? Gerald Durrell?

March 5, 2024 4:17 PM

I distinctly remember reading a book about a British man going to another country, to find animals, possibly for a zoo. What book was I reading?

Here's what I remember:
The author was a British man, a genuinely nice person with a great love for animals and other people. The book was possibly written in the 60's or 70's, and detailed his adventures going to ... some other distant country (Papua New Guinea?) where he persuaded some local men to take him to a place where they had seen the animals he wanted. On the long trek there, the men made up songs, and the British man listened because he was in the process of trying to learn their language. At some point the British man broke into their song with his own verse, with the language mangled and hilarious, and everybody thought it was funny.

I really thought this was in _People of Paradise_ by David Attenborough, but that's not the right book. Any ideas?

posted by Vatnesine to Pets & Animals (9 answers total)

Could it be "Last Chance to See" by Douglas Adams?
posted by heatherlogan at 4:19 PM on March 5

I should have mentioned that this was non-fiction, sorry.
posted by Vatnesine at 4:40 PM on March 5

"Last Chance to See" is definitely nonfiction. But there's no singing in it.
posted by zadcat at 4:46 PM on March 5

I don't remember any of Durrell's books being set in PNG, but there were some extremely daft anecdotes from his time in Cameroon, and this might have been one of them
posted by scruss at 5:11 PM on March 5

Could it be Gerald Durrell's "A Zoo in my Luggage"? Although this review doesn't mention the song incident you describe, it recounts a lot of other parts of the book that might trigger some recognition (or confirm that it isn't the right one).
posted by Athanassiel at 5:18 PM on March 5

This story is definitely David Attenborough.

The verse he made up was something like "I ate (bland staple food in the region) yesterday. I ate (bland food) today. And I'm definitely going to be eating (bland food) tomorrow"

It's from his first autobiography, but he wrote more than one version so I'm unsure of the title. Possibly Zoo Quest.
posted by Zumbador at 7:58 PM on March 5

Gerald Durrell did indeed visit most distant countries in this era - and also wrote about them. His Wikipedia page lists those visits and the books he wrote from each. Durrell and David Attenborough were on many of the same expeditions in this era - and you can hear Attenborough talking about those experiences here. - my money would be on "Catch Me A Colobus" about a trip to Siera Leone
posted by rongorongo at 9:36 PM on March 5

Yes, I found the passage.

This is from the book Zoo Quest, the chapter "The Painted Cliff" and is about Attenborough's trip to Guyana.

Screenshot of a page from Google books

It's a fantastic book.
posted by Zumbador at 6:48 AM on March 6

This is fascinating to me because Zumbador absolutely nailed it, but the passage doesn't sound the way I remember, the title doesn't sound familiar, and none of the book cover designs look familiar at all. I have no idea when I read this or how out of everything I didn't remember I managed to hold on to the idea that David Attenborough wrote it. This is a great example to me of the mutatibility of my own memory.

Also - the Ask Metafilter ability to find a book/movie within 24 hours of being given even the tiniest clue continues to be astounding.

Also also - I'm looking around for this book because now I need to own it so I can read it again and see what else I've forgotten.
posted by Vatnesine at 6:52 PM on March 8