Birds and Man by W. H. Hudson

More concerned with words than birds

W. H. Hudson was born in Argentina to a family of English and Irish heritage. He grew up in South America, emigrated to England in his early thirties, and published his first book in his early forties. Despite his late start, however, Hudson became a prolific author and published about four dozen books, mostly nonfiction but also a few novels (Green Mansions being his best-known work). Hudson was a naturalist who studied the plants and animals, particularly birds, of his native Argentina and later did the same in England. His book Birds and Man, published in 1901, is a series of essays about birds. In this volume, he’s only writing about English birds, not those of South America.

Hudson may have literally wrote the book on Argentine Ornithology (1888), but the books that I’ve read by him make it hard for me to believe he was a scientist. He writings come across more like the work of an avid birder with literary aspirations. What surprised me about this book, and why I dislike it, is because I learned almost nothing about the birds discusses, other than Hudson’s “artistic” descriptions about what they look or sound like. Each chapter focuses on a particular species, family of birds, or bird-related subject, within which Hudson will rattle off a string of anecdotes. These usually take the form of “I once saw a bird do this . . . It made me feel this way . . . That reminds me of a poem . . .” This book is not about the birds, it’s about Hudson’s feelings, and him showing off how he can relate those feelings through flowery language. 

This is not the first time reading a Hudson book has left me somewhat irritated (see also Idle Days in Patagonia). He seems like the kind of writer who one day decided, “I’m going to be a writer, and I’m going to write x thousand words a day . . .” whether he has anything interesting to say or not. Here in Birds and Man he shows no interest in educating the reader about birds. Rather, Hudson is trying to earn his place among the great British essayists like Thomas Carlyle and John Ruskin. One way to get there, he thinks, is to reference poets—Wordsworth, Tennyson, Cowper, etc.—any chance he gets. Despite his attempts to flaunt his erudition, Hudson is just not that good of a writer to belong in such company, and most of this book ends up being an utter bore. 

As a birder, Hudson also sports a very snobbish, know-it-all attitude towards those who aren’t his equals in bird knowledge. There is no sense of him welcoming amateur birders into the fold. Anyone who doesn’t fly into fits of ecstasy at hearing the song of the Wood Wren is a Philistine. Those with pet parrots are simpletons. Those who can’t name the species in their local woods are idiots. Hudson complains a lot in this book about taxidermy. He prefers living birds to stuffed ones. He thinks dead birds belong in specimen drawers where only ornithologists can view them. He hates museum displays of stuffed birds, from which the public might actually be able to learn about and appreciate birds, thus becoming less of the Philistines he despises so much.

One interesting matter he discusses is how English bird species have been driven to extinction or endangered status because so many collectors want to have glass cases full of pretty stuffed birds in their living rooms. There are also a couple mildly amusing stories about a pet owl and some pet parrots. Other than that, I found this book to be a complete waste of time. I’m a birder; I enjoy books about birds, but I did not enjoy this one.

The Purple Land by W. H. Hudson

An Englishman’s adventures in Uruguay

William Henry Hudson (1841–1922) was born and raised in Argentina. His parents were immigrants of English and Irish origin. At the age of 32, Hudson emigrated to England, became a British citizen, and started a literary career. He wrote many books about South America, both fiction and nonfiction. He was also an ornithologist and published numerous books on birds and nature. Hudson made his authorial debut in 1885 with his novel The Purple Land. From the preface, however, it sounds like the book was not widely read until a couple decades later when Hudson hit it big with another novel, Green Mansions.

Richard Lamb is an Englishman in Argentina who falls in love with a local girl named Paquíta. They elope against her parents’ wishes and flee from Buenos Aires to escape persecution. They cross the Río de la Plata to Montevideo, in Uruguay, where they temporarily take up residence with an aunt of Paquíta’s. Lamb has trouble finding work in the city and decides to venture off on his own into the countryside in hopes of finding work at an estancia (ranch or farm). This was a time when a traveler (at least an Englishman) coming upon a country house could expect to find hospitality, food, and shelter. As a result, Lamb doesn’t really do much work at all, but he does visit several different estancias where he is welcomed with mostly open arms. Along the way he lives a bit of the gaucho life, gets involved in a revolution, and experiences other adventures.

Hudson provides some historical context in a brief appendix. You’d be better off reading that first. At the time of this novel, Uruguay was governed by the Colorados (a.k.a. the Reds, liberals). This follows a long period of Civil War against the Blancos (a.k.a. the Whites, conservatives), who continue their rebellious resistance against the Red regime. The “Purple Land” of the title refers to the region being “so stained with the blood of her children.” The territory that now comprises Uruguay was also known as the Banda Orientál. Hudson uses the word “Oriental” quite a bit throughout the book. Here it simply means “Eastern,” as in Eastern South America, east of the Río de la Plata. Hudson also mentions ostriches several times in this novel. Although he was an ornithologist who should know better, I think he’s referring to the native rhea, which at the time might have been more commonly referred to as the “South American ostrich.”

Even more so than many inappropriate writers of the Victorian era, Hudson had a thing for young girls. I haven’t come across a book of his yet where some adult male isn’t romancing a girl of 14 or 15 (Hudson was 44 when this book was published). Even though Lamb is a newlywed, he’s constantly on the lookout for another woman, the younger the better. Such unfaithful behavior is unusual for a “gentleman” protagonist in British literature of this era, but Lamb falls in love with four or five girls or women over the course of this novel. The puritanical conventions of the Victorian novel, however, prevent him from getting very far with his infidelities.

I have read three other books by Hudson and found them mediocre at best, but I enjoyed this one quite a bit. The contents of this novel read like an assortment of Hudson’s own experiences, second-hand stories, and folklore. Every time Lamb moves to a different estancia, it’s like starting a new short story, which may last two, three, or several chapters. One of the more memorable chapters is just a half dozen guys sitting around a campfire telling tall tales and ghost stories. Hudson succeeds in providing the reader with colorful and revealing glimpses into Uruguayan life and culture. This not only works for “tourist” readers like me; this novel has even been praised by the great Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges. Ernest Hemingway, Joseph Conrad, and Ezra Pound were all fans of Hudson’s work, and after reading The Purple Land, I can kind of understand why.

Idle Days in Patagonia by William Henry Hudson

Too many idle thoughts, not enough Patagonia

William Henry Hudson (1841-1922) was born in Argentina, the son of settlers from the United States. He was raised in the pampas near Buenos Aires. He became a British citizen in 1900, and over the course of a literary career that spanned roughly four decades, he published many books on Argentina and England, including ornithological treatises, travelogues, memoirs, and novels. His book Idle Days in Patagonia, published in 1893, is about his first trip South into the vicinity of Argentina’s Rio Negro.

In the opening chapter, Hudson tells us that this journey to Patagonia is a lifelong dream of his. He has always wanted to study the birds of that region. On his way down the Atlantic Coast from Buenos Aires, the steamer in which Hudson is traveling is inadvertently grounded on a beach. All of the passengers have to get out and walk to their destination, a journey of a couple days. Shortly after reaching the Rio Negro, an English acquaintance of Hudson’s accidentally shoots him in the foot. This injury puts a limit on his birding and botanizing expeditions, and, as Hudson explains, results in the “idle days” of the title. Nevertheless, Hudson does manage to venture out a bit on horseback and observe the scenery, wildlife, and vegetation of the region, his descriptions of which constitute much of the book..

Although Hudson is an ornithologist, this book is not a scientific text. He mentions many bird species by name and gives a sentence or two about how pretty they are, but there is very little to learn here about the anatomy or behavior of South America’s birds. This is more a work of travel literature, and not a very good one at that. Successful travel literature requires that the author give the reader a sense of place in regards to the location that’s being discussed, and Hudson doesn’t really accomplish that. In fact, he doesn’t even seem to care whether he writes about Patagonia or not. He drew several of the chapters from papers and articles he had previously published in periodicals. There is an entire chapter in which he rambles on about snow, whiteness, and Herman Melville that has nothing to do with Patagonia at all. Two chapters on eyes and eyesight only vaguely touch upon the people and birds of South America. A chapter on the sense of smell is even more irrelevant. There is even a brief passage in which Hudson advocates for nudism. Hudson frequently departs from his Patagonian narrative to go off on all sorts of asides, which might be forgivable if they approached the philosophical profundity of Henry David Thoreau’s digressions. Instead, Hudson’s musings are mostly just common sense and personal opinion.

Hudson strikes me as one of those authors who decided early in life, “I’m a writer, by God!” and then proceeded to crank out a relentless stream of books about anything that crossed his mind without any consideration of whether what he was saying would be interesting to others. Many writers, once they’d been shot in the foot, might have decided “OK, I guess I’m not going to write this book,” but not Hudson. As a birding enthusiast, I have a high tolerance for writers who just like to talk about birds. Idle Days in Patagonia, however, left me with the feeling that, if I went and spent some time in Argentina, even I could write a better book about it than this.
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Green Mansions by W. H. Hudson

Edenic romance in the jungles of Guyana

William Henry Hudson (1841-1922) was a naturalist, ornithologist, and a writer of fiction. (In his books, his name is often abbreviated to W. H. Hudson.) His parents were English and Irish immigrants to the United States, but he was born in Argentina and lived most of his adult life in England. His novel Green Mansions was published in London in 1904.

In a brief prologue, an unnamed narrator (presumably Hudson himself?) explains that the following story was told to him by a friend, a Venezuelan man named Abel. Decades earlier, Abel was the son of a wealthy family of Caracas. Having made enemies through some of his political activities, he flees impending arrest and ventures into the wilderness, heading towards Guyana. He settles with a tribe of Indians in their remote village. Venturing into the forests on hunting expeditions and nature walks, he discovers an area where the Indians fear to go. There he hears a strange voice in the air in a language he doesn’t understand, yet it somehow directs his actions nonetheless. Soon he discovers the voice belongs to a mysterious girl named Rima who lives in the forest and communes with the woodland creatures.

Like many a Victorian romance written by a male author, Green Mansions wreaks of sexual fantasy. It seems like every adventure writer of that era wanted to fall in love with a 17-year-old girl with the mind of an 11-year-old. Rima’s childlike innocence only makes today’s reader question Abel’s intentions. Rima is described as a white woman from some mysterious lost race. Even though Abel is a Latino, Hudson just couldn’t see his English and American readers fantasizing about a romantic heroine who was anything but light-skinned and potentially European. The description of Native Americans in the book seems ethnographically realistic but socially derogatory as they are shown as shifty, superstitious, and usually villainous.

I previously read Hudson’s novel A Crystal Age, a utopian story set in a future England. That was a pretty terrible book, and Green Mansions is quite an improvement. As they say, write what you know. Having worked as a naturalist and ornithologist in Patagonia for many years, Hudson demonstrates a great knowledge of and sensitivity toward the natural environment, flora, and fauna of South America. His nature writing is really the best aspect of Green Mansions. Hudson capably brings the setting vividly to life. The wilds where Abel and Rima dwell are depicted as idyllic, as befitting any romance, but not idealized to the point of defying natural realism. Amid this well-drawn environment, Hudson enacts an operatic melodrama but one that isn’t overly bogged down in Victorian clichés. Though the story is predictable at times, the ending is truly a surprise, and Hudson deserves credit for not settling for the easy way out.

The main problem with Green Mansions is that large passages of it are rather uneventful exercises in needless verbosity. Before anything of import happens, too much time is spent merely wandering around in the jungle. Hudson de-emphasizes the struggle for survival on a daily basis that such a lifestyle would entail, in favor of a too leisurely romance. Much ink is spent on Abel’s interior monologue as he contemplates, overanalyzes, and repeatedly describes his love for Rima. Even when the characters embark on a quest, it’s pretty much a waste of time. Nevertheless, Hudson manages to craft a love story sufficiently different from his Victorian contemporaries to be memorable. Green Mansions sometimes bored me, but I did enjoy Hudson’s scientifically realistic depictions of nature, drawn from his first-hand knowledge of South America.

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A Crystal Age by W. H. Hudson

An irritating Rip Van Winkle romance
A Crystal Age, published in 1887, is a utopian science fiction novel by English author W. H. Hudson. I hesitate to use those adjectives in describing the book, however, because it barely qualifies as either. The book reads like a tepid, watered-down ripoff of William Morris’s novel News from Nowhere, and Hudson even acknowledges the similarities in his preface to the 1906 edition. It turns out, however, that Hudson’s book preceded Morris’s by three years, so the former deserves credit for that. Wikipedia states that A Crystal Age “has been called a ‘significant S-F milestone.’” I don’t know who would call it that, however, because it is vastly inferior to News from Nowhere and just about any other utopian or dystopian novel I’ve ever read. Regardless of what influence it may have had on the genre, A Crystal Age is merely a baby step towards futurism and suffers from being too deeply rooted in the histrionic romantic literature of the past.

The story is narrated by a man named Smith. While out hiking the English countryside, he stumbles off a cliff and is knocked unconscious. When he comes to, he is covered in earth and entwined in tree roots. After digging himself out he discovers that the world he has awoken to is very different from the one he fell down in. At first, Smith doesn’t comprehend what has happened, but the reader recognizes that, much like the fairy tale of Rip Van Winkle, Smith has been asleep for a long time indeed. The sylvan landscape in which he now finds himself is largely uninhabited, but he soon encounters a party strolling in the woods, engaged in an apparent funeral procession. These beautifully dressed strangers gaze in horror at Smith’s antiquated and dirt-covered garments, and they are equally disturbed by his attempts at conversation. Although they speak the English language, they have no comprehension of words like “England,” “city,” or “money,” and do not recognize the names of any of a long list of historical personages. Though they suspect Smith may be insane, they recognize a traveler in need and invite him to accompany them back to their home. This fish-out-of-water scenario is humorous at first, but it becomes annoying as it goes on for half the book. The others take so much offense at everything Smith says, they come across as a bunch of annoying, puritanical pricks.

Smith is taken to a mansion which seems to function as an independent city state. One patriarchal couple governs over this domain, and the mother is worshipped as a goddess. Unlike Morris’s novel, which contemplates in great detail the social conditions of a future world, this is about the extent of Hudson’s utopian thought. The world depicted has a vaguely Pre-Raphaelite vibe, and only serves as background to a plot about Smith chasing after a 15-year-old girl. To be fair, the narrator is only 21, but his pursuit of the fair Yoletta borders on stalking. Despite all his waxing poetic about the nature of love, it’s clear his attraction towards her is purely physical. Much to his chagrin, her world does not comprehend romantic love, only a sort of universal brotherhood and affection, which makes his task more difficult. He soon realizes that to win the girl he must win over the mother, so he sets about kissing up to the matriarch.

Smith doesn’t even seem to realize that he’s been transported to the future. Only in the final two chapters is there any degree of philosophical reflection on mankind’s present or future existence. I enjoy 19th-century literature and utopian novels of all stripes. Even by the standards of its day, however, A Crystal Age is merely a dull, pedestrian love story, and 21st-century readers will learn little from it. News from Nowhere is no masterpiece either, but it’s a lot better than this.
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