Book Rec: The Whole Hog by Lyall Watson

 

Subtitle:  Exploring the Extraordinary Potential of Pigs

Best book plug ever:  ‘After reading Lyall Watson’s splendid celebration of the pig, if anyone calls me a swine I shall take it as a compliment.’  —Desmond Morris*

This book was, I think, a biggish** deal when it appeared in—yeep—2004.  I bought it relatively soon after it came out—in hardback no less—because I’m a bit of a natural history nerd, especially the frivolous end when I don’t have to remember a lot of Latin names and derivations and blah.  Watson actually gives you all these, but he does it so charmingly and with such a lively and immediate description of the critters in question that all the sober stuff doesn’t have a chance to oppress your spirits.  What I remember best about it is that it was one of the first books I read after the move out of our old house AND I NEEDED CHEERING UP.  It fulfilled this function admirably.***

I’ve never been friends with a pig† but I’ve known too many people who have, not to be sure that there’s something there to get to know.††  Watson has been friends with lots of pigs.  He may even be slightly cracked on the subject.†††

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2004/oct/23/featuresreviews.guardianreview2

. . . Although I don’t find the opening lines nearly as eye-catching as a paragraph a few pages later, this arising from an encounter from an aristocratic Tamworth boar:  ‘ . . . the Tamworth boar’s stare was unnerving.

‘I have since learned that pigs are past masters of the art.  They grow up on the game of ‘Who Blinks First?’ and can hold their ground against anyone.  Each time I join a herd of pigs, in captivity or in the wild, the same thing happens . . . no one bats an eyelid or breaks visual contact until I concede defeat . . .’  Italics mine.

Here is more about THE WHOLE HOG although on my screen at least there’s some inept silliness where the first few paragraphs are repeated, but keep reading:

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-whole-hog-by-lyall-watson-6159132.html

And, just by the way, I am SO JEALOUS of his childhood in Africa, and especially of his warthog.  Sic.

Read the book.

* * *

* Quoted toward the end of the book:  ‘The paradise of my fancy is one where pigs have wings.’  G K Chesterton^

^ For some reason Watson seems to leave mythological pigs mostly alone.  Okay, they’re mythological, but Circe and the Gadarene swine get a look-in.  For those of us who raised ourselves on fairy tales and legends and so on, the fact that two of the Norse Vanir rode big scary heroic boars predisposes us to respect and be interested in pigs.

** Not to say piggish . . . ‘Cats look down on you;  dogs look up to you;  but pigs look you in the eye as equals.’  —Winston Churchill

*** Even if he’s mistaken about the lack of ‘rocking pigs’ for kiddies to ride on.  I’ve seen pigs with saddles on merry-go-rounds too.

† Unless you count Wilbur.

†† I’m a meat-eater but I don’t actually like pork much.  This may make it easier to be chirpy and engaged about pig personalities.  I’m afraid I pass over the cookbook in the first review.

†††  Or was.  This was his last book.  He died much too young.