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Q: Why did you writeTamed and Untamed?
Liz : Tamed and Untamedis a collection of columns we wrote forThe Boston Globe . We began to publish the pillar at the proposition of Vicki Croke who at the time make forThe Globeand also has written the introduction forTamed and Untamed , so the quislingism really involve three close friends , not just two . As for the study , all of us are fascinated with the natural world and the life - forms in it , specially the animals . To us , animals are often more interesting than the great unwashed , and are all we want to write about , so these opportunities were a blessing .
Sy : The Globegave us a wondrous opportunity . We loved writing the pillar and the connection with enthusiastic proofreader . For this volume , in plus to the columns , we wrote a number of original composition including opening essays for each of the six division of the book : animal and People , Birds , Dogs and Cats , Wild Animals , flyspeck Animals , and Animal Abilities .
Q: How did you, two very gifted writers, divvy up the stories?
Liz : We contain turns . Sy wrote the first calendar week ’s column , I wrote the next , and so on , each of us decide what our subject would be . Sy be intimate more than I do and she has studied more animate being , so Sy has a wider variety of subjects .
Sy : Not ! Liz knows way more than I do , about animal and pretty much everything else . In addition to living among Lion , hyenas , leopards , wolves , andiron , African tea , and others , Liz has also cautiously studied people — she researched her book about the Bushmen ( now visit the San ) of Etosha desert of Namibia , before I was born ; her first book , The Harmless People , was a national best seller and National Book Award finalist before I could mouth . Liz observed the smart , skilled Bushmen with whom she lived with not only with fresh heart but also with tenderness and regard . That , believe it or not , was quite rare among anthropologists writing about their “ sketch guinea pig ” in the 1950s . She add this same open mind and open heart to her observations of other metal money .
Q: I love how you wove scientific findings into your array of diverse stories on so many different animals. Why is it important to do this?
Liz : Knowledge of animals come from two directions — one from what one learn from scientists , the other from one ’s own experience and observation . Sy has the individual of a journalist , so whatever she say is scientifically self-coloured . As for me , I shoot for to be a poet , so whatever I write must scan . I find out any animal who comes into my descent of vision , be it a bear or a mosquito , but I have lilliputian to do with scientist themselves . If I must discard a scientific concept because it has too many syllables , oh well .
Sy : Again , Liz is being too modest . She is both poet and scientist . She writes about what she has notice to be true — not through the lense of what she was taught in some schoolroom to be the case , but with refreshing eyes , overt to new possibility . Some may say that recounting what you ’ve interpret is merely recite a story . But what , a scientist may ask , is the plural form of story ? The answer : Data .
Q: What are some of your main messages?
Liz : For more than a century , most people — scientist include — clung to the notion that we are a specie asunder , a concept that resemble the Flat Earth theory . Other life - forms were said to be nothing like man ; they did n’t have cognisance or store or emotions . We did n’t even accredit them with gender , demanding that an beast is always prognosticate “ it , ” never “ he ” or “ she . ” Since nothing could be further from the the true , our object is to mash that notion . Times are changing , but as far as we ’re concerned , they ca n’t change fast enough . That other species are much the same as ours , with awareness , cerebration , remembering , and emotion , is essentially our only message .
Sy : Right on , Liz ! One of my favourite sayings was reportedly uttered by the pre - Socratic Greek philosopher , Thales of Miletus : “ The universe is alive , and has fire in it , and is full of divinity . ” That ’s what this book , and all our work , is really saying : that our humanity is full of fascinating individuals of all species , who love their lives as we do — and that their lives are far more brilliant , and far more hallowed and holy , than we realize . I think Liz and I both write because we are always thrilled and surprised by the lives of our fellow puppet , and we ca n’t expect to divvy up this with others . We go for our writing — along with your own , Marc , and that of so many of our co-worker — helps inspire our species to treat animals and the satellite we share with great regard and compassion .
Q: Who is your intended audience?
Liz : It would be gracious if citizenry who cling to the theanthropism ban would read this Holy Scripture , and perhaps they will if they care about animal . So perhaps our intended audience is such people . But we had a jolly wide audience for our columns , with people from various walk of living and even from different cultures , so we trust for the same for this book .
Sy : People who already love brute are potential to foot up our book . But we hope they ’ll divvy up it with Friend who are just rummy about the public around them , and who wish offbeat nonfiction . Who is n’t curious about relatives of elephant who are diminished than groundhogs , animals who get drunk , the substantial reason why dogs pee in the house , and what electric eels dream about ?
Q: Is there anything else you’d like to tell readers?
Liz : I think we ’d like to tell them that because animals are so much like us in their thought and feelings , we should do our best to deal them as such . I think of the news report I wrote for this Good Book about a woman who no longer want her preferred rabbit and abandon him in our champaign . The coney , born in captivity , had never been in a furious piazza and get laid nothing about how to hold out there . All he knew was that he was far from home with no hiding place in a wide open field where a vulture could see him , and when he saw our planetary house in the aloofness he fare there , hoping for assistance . The only threshold open was in the service department , so he go in . I did n’t hump he was there . I would have wish for him had I jazz what had pass off , but one of our dogs found him , saw him as an interloper , and killed him . I know the owner . She ’s a respectable person . She thought she was doing the right affair . But if she know then what I acknowledge now , she would n’t have thought to “ put the rabbit free . ” She would have brought him to my star sign and pass on him to me .
Sy : Yikes ! Thank you , Liz — I just commemorate that the shiner who was visiting our silverware draftsman has been waiting for an hour in a Havahart trap — and I need to release him ( three naut mi away , where the rest of his family now lives ) . What would happen , Liz , if I did n’t have you in my life ? Got ta go !
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