Elephant Winter - By Kim Echlin Page 0,60
well as studies on their ability to teach each other migration routes. Her fine scientific work, and her admiration and knowledge of these great animals is an inspiration to me. It is important to stress however that while we understand elephants to have a small repetoire of infrasonic utterances with which they communicate, the Elephant–English Dictionary in this novel is a complete invention.
The work of many elephant researchers was important to me: Joyce H. Poole, Cynthia Moss, Iain and Oria Douglas-Hamilton, Heathcote Williams, Douglas Chadwick, H.H. Scullard, Ramesh Bedi. The autopsy notes are based on a 1936 report by Francis G. Benedict in Physiology of the Elephant. The ability of elephants to draw is described in David Gucwa and James Ehmann’s To Whom It May Concern: An Investigation of the Art of Elephants. For the chance to see elephants in the wild I am grateful to the guides at Fothergill Island, Lake Kariba, in Zimbabwe. For access to elephants in captivity, I am grateful to Michael Hackenburger at the Bowmanville Zoo. For information on the training of elephants, and their habits in captivity, I consulted with several elephant keepers I met through the Elephant Managers Association. I have also turned to written accounts such as Franklin Edgerton’s The Elephant Lore of the Hindus. One of my favourite descriptions of the qualities of an elephant driver comes from his book:
The supervisor of elephants should be intelligent, kinglike, righteous, devoted to his lord, pure, true to his undertaking, free from vice, controlling his senses, well behaved, vigorous, tried by practice, delighting in kind words, his science learned from a good teacher, clever, firm, . . . fearless, all knowing.
Many ancient writers were interested in the physical and metaphysical significance of the elephant. I have read their observations avidly. Cassiodorus in Variae wrote, “Its breath is said to be a cure for headaches in man.” Aelian in De Natura Animalium noted “An elephant will not pass by a dead elephant without casting a branch or some dust on the body.” Livy, Oppian, Cassiodorus, Elder Pliny, Plutarch, Cicero all wrote about elephants. But my favourite of the ancients’ observations belongs to Aristotle in De Rerum Natura: “The beast that passeth all others in wit and mind . . . and by its intelligence, it makes as near an approach to man as matter can approach spirit.”
Finally, I would like to thank the following for their generous encouragement and exchange of ideas: Rex Murphy, Leslie and Alan Nickell, Ann and Adam Winterton, Cynthia Holz, Julie Showalter, Carol Shields and my loyal and unfailingly encouraging writing group. Special thanks to Madeleine Echlin, Ross and Olivia Upshur and my publisher, Cynthia Good.
A Penguin Readers Guide
Elephant Winter
About the Book
An Interview with Kim Echlin
Discussion Questions
ABOUT THE BOOK
Thirty-year-old Sophie Walker is enjoying expatriate life in her adopted home of Zimbabwe, where she teaches art and studies ancient cave drawings, when she is called home to southern Ontario, Canada, to care for her dying mother. Sophie finds herself confined to her mother’s home, which borders a touristy safari-zoo called Ontario Safari on the stark landscape of the old escarpment. Torn between duty and love, Sophie adopts the role of caregiver, sparking an emotional and spiritual journey. Her mother, a wildlife painter, is strong and outspoken and loving; she tells tales of her younger days living in Paris with her lover, Sophie’s father. Once a vibrant and social woman, attending glamorous art openings and keeping a busy house, she has isolated herself from her friends and acquaintances during her illness, keeping company instead with her budgies and a pair of African Grays and listening to the sombre music of Arvo Pärt. In the intense daily domestic life of tending to the dying, Sophie lives moments of despair and joy and deep understanding through the daunting task of “waiting.”
Sophie watches the safari’s rugged elephant-keeper, Jo Mann, walk his elephant herd each day through the frozen fields behind her mother’s house. Seeing her in the window, Jo beckons her to join him. Sophie is instantly attracted to him. Slipping out of the house, she discovers unexpected life in Jo’s love and in getting to know his elephants. When she becomes pregnant she observes how the elephants form themselves in a matriarchal group whose purpose is to survive, to care for their young, and to keep from boredom in their enforced captivity.
When she’s not caring for her mother, Sophie works in the barn, and, observing the elephants’ behaviour, she records and analyzes their language. Woven