Timothy, or Notes of an Abject Reptile

by: Verlyn Kinkenborg

Published by: Knopf

Kathy Perschmann, Chanhassen (MN) Librarian

Klinkenborg, a member of the New York Times editorial board and author of Making Hay, has produced a wondrous flight of fancy. This is a book written by Timothy, a tortoise kept in the late 1700s by Gilbert White, a curate and the author of The Natural History of Selborne (the small English village where he lived and served).

Timothy and Gilbert White both actually existed; Timothy's shell is preserved in the Natural History Museum in London. Timothy's philosophical view of the fast-paced, ridiculous, two-legged humans are always refreshing, often amusing, and sometimes sad.

The text is more accurately a prose poem than a novel; with wonderful descriptions of eighteenth-century village life. Farmers, smiths, sheep shearers, hop pickers, and of course, the family and visitors to the curate's garden where Timothy lived all play a role. They are observed and recorded in a manner similar to White's musings on nature. The seasons, the droughts, freezing winters, diseases, and deaths are all chronicled fleetingly by Timothy.

Timothy, while he appreciates the kindness of White, still yearns for his warm home and freedom. Actually a female, Timothy also finds White's fumbling attempts at studying nature somewhat humorous.

"There is too strong a propensity in human nature towards persecuting and destroying."

Mr. Gilbert White writes. The rest of nature concurs. From Timothy, or notes of an abject reptile.

Armchair Interviews says: Timothy is truly a most unusual and unique book--both in writing style and subject matter.