Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)Author Sue Halpern has written a book about her time spent with people across North America who follow the supposed migration of Monarch Butterflies through the United States to Mexico. Entitled Four Wings and a Prayer - Caught in the Mystery of the Monarch Butterfly, the book chronicles her journeys throughout the US and Canada in pursuit of knowledge about the Monarch butterfly while detailing her interaction with the various butterfly enthusiasts (lepidopterists) that she meets along the way. Superficially, the book's subject would seem to hold much promise. Interesting people, little-known facts, sweeping vistas described in stirring detail; there would seem to much that this book could offer the reader, sadly, not much of it is here.Like far too many writers today, Halpern can't seem to keep herself out of the story. In the context of this book, which indeed includes some fine passages, Halpern's New Age navel- gazing is largely unwanted and often tiresome; "What is passion? I asked myself again." Halpern writes (and the reader cringes) and then goes on to wax philosophically about `knowing before understanding' or some other such airy-fairy mysticism. It's unfortunate that in a book that offers glimpses of some true characters Halpern can't help interjecting herself. The reader is told that Bill Calvert is a legend among Lepidopterists not only for his research but for his passion and unique character, yet description of that character is largely limited to repeated references to his messy truck and trite answers to the questions of others. The reader can forgive Calvert this though after having been subjected to Halpern's rhetorical wonking - by the end of the book the reader suspects that Calvert might not have been so taciturn had the company been less vocal. Like so much literature today Halpern's Four Wings and a Prayer unfortunately attempts to serve up commonplace events as mystic happenings. Worse still, the story is overlaid with the trappings of New Age mysticism at its worst: the reader is treated to the writer's account of her attempt to think like a butterfly and to experience flight as known by a butterfly via a convenient flight in a glider. These events, which are silly and romanticised in themselves, in the context of the book enmesh the reader in a sickly treacle of breathless prose from which it is frustratingly hard to escape. Hard fact is confused with psuedo-intellectual fancy, buried beneath a style of writing which encompasses so much forced gravitas that the reader is wont to think that the appropriate response would be to cry while reading this book.
At 29.95 CAN and at 207 pages this book is certainly not a good buy for everyone. Those that ponder this book should do so at length. Contrary to the heartfelt testimony printed on the cover this book will probably not "change your life" nor is it "a book we have needed whether we knew it or not". This book may be life-affirming and transcendent to a crystal-wearing, latte- guzzling "wind spirit" but to the average reader, even to the inveterate naturalist, this book is bound to be a disappointment. If you want to read of one woman's spiritual awakening in the world of butterflies this might be the book for you; but for those truly interested in the fascinating sub-culture of the lepidopterist and their pursuit of the Monarch, your money is better spent elsewhere.
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