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Timothy; or, Notes of an Abject Reptile
Few writers have attempted to explore the natural history of a particular animal by adopting the animal’s own sensibility. But Verlyn Klinkenborg has done just that in Timothy : an insightful and utterly engaging story of the world’s most famous tortoise, whose real life was observed by the eighteenth-century English curate and naturalist Gilbert White. For thirteen years, Timothy lived in White’s garden. Here Klinkenborg gives the tortoise an unforgettable voice and keen powers of observation on both human and natural affairs. Wry and wise, unexpectedly moving and enchanting at every–careful–turn, Timothy surprises and delights.
192 pages, Paperback
First published February 7, 2006
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757 people want to read
About the author
Verlyn Klinkenborg
44 books107 followersVerlyn Klinkenborg is a member of the editorial board of The New York Times. His previous books include Making Hay, The Last Fine Time, and The Rural Life. He lives in upstate New York.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 108 reviews
February 3, 2025
Many thanks to Debi, who alerted me to this book in her 2024 recap, saying this was her favorite of the year.
Timothy was a very real turtle who was under observation by the naturalist Gilbert White for much of the 1700's, in his walled garden in the village of Selborne. White was a curate and amateur naturalist who tried to figure out habits and motives of the animals around him, mostly birds, but Timothy was left to him at the death of a relative, having been brought to England from the Mediterranean.
Timothy was given a voice by this author, who imagined her (Timothy was a female, being assigned the wrong sex because of the difficulty of figuring it out by early scientists.)
She was given the run of the garden, plenty of good food, a sort of pet by the household, but still we learn that she is dissatisfied with her lot, longing for the freedom of wild places and missing her warm, native homeland. Unknown to those who keep her, she is observing the humans around her, and has some very astute opinions on these strange gaited, erect creatures who are ill-equipped for life on their own.
"But humans are blinded--even the naturalist--by being human. Barely able to witness what is not human."
This was a fascinating and philosophical tour through the mind of a tortoise and the world of an English village. Quite different, as it's neither wholly fiction or fact, but an entry into the brilliant mind of a reptile who saw people as they were and found us lacking.
Timothy was a very real turtle who was under observation by the naturalist Gilbert White for much of the 1700's, in his walled garden in the village of Selborne. White was a curate and amateur naturalist who tried to figure out habits and motives of the animals around him, mostly birds, but Timothy was left to him at the death of a relative, having been brought to England from the Mediterranean.
Timothy was given a voice by this author, who imagined her (Timothy was a female, being assigned the wrong sex because of the difficulty of figuring it out by early scientists.)
She was given the run of the garden, plenty of good food, a sort of pet by the household, but still we learn that she is dissatisfied with her lot, longing for the freedom of wild places and missing her warm, native homeland. Unknown to those who keep her, she is observing the humans around her, and has some very astute opinions on these strange gaited, erect creatures who are ill-equipped for life on their own.
"But humans are blinded--even the naturalist--by being human. Barely able to witness what is not human."
This was a fascinating and philosophical tour through the mind of a tortoise and the world of an English village. Quite different, as it's neither wholly fiction or fact, but an entry into the brilliant mind of a reptile who saw people as they were and found us lacking.
November 23, 2014
Timothy is such a great character. I'm surprised at how fond I am of him and how much I wish his life could have been more natural, content and at home. His kidnapping and captivity, no matter how humane and gentle, were still an entrapment and narrowing of his life.
I loved Timothy's observations, his earthy outlooks on life, the world and it's inhabitants. In this book, it's the humans that come across as narrow, unseeing, clunky and out of place as they try to re-order Nature into what they feel it should be, rather than enjoying Nature in the natural beauty that is unfolds.
A wonderful story, told in short, staccato sentences in the manner of a true tortoise. Hugs, Timothy.
I loved Timothy's observations, his earthy outlooks on life, the world and it's inhabitants. In this book, it's the humans that come across as narrow, unseeing, clunky and out of place as they try to re-order Nature into what they feel it should be, rather than enjoying Nature in the natural beauty that is unfolds.
A wonderful story, told in short, staccato sentences in the manner of a true tortoise. Hugs, Timothy.
January 14, 2025
"Now, then."
Verlyn Klinkenborg spent four years studying famous English naturalist Gilbert White's writings. I underlined half this book, taking weeks to read it, savoring it. I am tempted to write Mr. Klinkenborg, care of his publisher. I want to tell him, gushingly, all fan-girlish, how moved and spellbound I was by this work, a wonderment.
It takes its place, now and forever, as a beloved favorite among my favorites.
In a nutshell, or if you prefer, in a tortoise shell, Timothy is the observer of Mr. Gilbert White. The tables are turned. Both poetic and crass, she calls it like she sees it (Timothy was indeed a female, a fact unknown to White).
She is no anthropomorphic sweetie. Her voice is that a tortoise, a reptile, a hibernator, a sentient being that is distinctly not under the spell of human beings, those dear sweet misguided and obnoxious human beings and their hurly-burly 18th century lives in Selborne.
Like White, Timothy too, is a naturalist, records human species' oddities, rhythms and predictable schedules, is astounded by their awkward physical attributes, and puzzles over their behaviors. Everything so oddly different from Timothy's own.
There is a passage where Timothy wonders what would happen if she simply said, "Now, then" to Mr. White who has such a devoted interest in her, tenderly cares for her, and unlike with the other Selborne humans, they sometimes exchange a brief glance, recognizing mutual consciousnesses. If she did speak, though, how that would change the human perspective! She notes it would require "All the world to be rearranged."
Being an unwitting transplant from her Mediterranean home, she is always a transplant, an alien, a misfit, a survivor, living in a "tiny, miserable kingdom of one," without any kin during her long years in England from 1740 to 1794. 1794 is, when at last, she does not rise from her annual winter hibernation. White had died just the summer before, at age 72. One has the feeling that she was at least that old, having lived who knows how long on the coastal ancient Greek ruins in the south of Turkey, her native land, the land she was physiologically, ecologically bound with, before being swooped up by anonymous human hands and carried worlds away.
Here is a 10 minute interview with Klinkenborg about Timothy. He sounds like I had hoped he would! If Klinkenborg would have made the audiobook himself, I would want to buy, listen, and treasure it as well. Instead they used a female narrator and rightly so, avoiding heaping another injustice of ignorance onto Timothy:
https://www.loe.org/shows/segments.ht...
489 total GR reviews. Hmph. Not all wonderments are lauded, as would be just.
Verlyn Klinkenborg spent four years studying famous English naturalist Gilbert White's writings. I underlined half this book, taking weeks to read it, savoring it. I am tempted to write Mr. Klinkenborg, care of his publisher. I want to tell him, gushingly, all fan-girlish, how moved and spellbound I was by this work, a wonderment.
It takes its place, now and forever, as a beloved favorite among my favorites.
In a nutshell, or if you prefer, in a tortoise shell, Timothy is the observer of Mr. Gilbert White. The tables are turned. Both poetic and crass, she calls it like she sees it (Timothy was indeed a female, a fact unknown to White).
She is no anthropomorphic sweetie. Her voice is that a tortoise, a reptile, a hibernator, a sentient being that is distinctly not under the spell of human beings, those dear sweet misguided and obnoxious human beings and their hurly-burly 18th century lives in Selborne.
Like White, Timothy too, is a naturalist, records human species' oddities, rhythms and predictable schedules, is astounded by their awkward physical attributes, and puzzles over their behaviors. Everything so oddly different from Timothy's own.
There is a passage where Timothy wonders what would happen if she simply said, "Now, then" to Mr. White who has such a devoted interest in her, tenderly cares for her, and unlike with the other Selborne humans, they sometimes exchange a brief glance, recognizing mutual consciousnesses. If she did speak, though, how that would change the human perspective! She notes it would require "All the world to be rearranged."
Being an unwitting transplant from her Mediterranean home, she is always a transplant, an alien, a misfit, a survivor, living in a "tiny, miserable kingdom of one," without any kin during her long years in England from 1740 to 1794. 1794 is, when at last, she does not rise from her annual winter hibernation. White had died just the summer before, at age 72. One has the feeling that she was at least that old, having lived who knows how long on the coastal ancient Greek ruins in the south of Turkey, her native land, the land she was physiologically, ecologically bound with, before being swooped up by anonymous human hands and carried worlds away.
Here is a 10 minute interview with Klinkenborg about Timothy. He sounds like I had hoped he would! If Klinkenborg would have made the audiobook himself, I would want to buy, listen, and treasure it as well. Instead they used a female narrator and rightly so, avoiding heaping another injustice of ignorance onto Timothy:
https://www.loe.org/shows/segments.ht...
489 total GR reviews. Hmph. Not all wonderments are lauded, as would be just.
March 17, 2019
Sometimes the things that draw me to love a book are outside the book itself and relate to events in my own life. That is the case with this little book. It is all about Timothy, a tortoise who belonged to Gilbert White, a country parson who lived in the parish of Selborne in southern England and wrote his famous Natural History of Selborne in 1789.
I had an old copy of Gilbert White’s book when I was a teenager. It was full of beautiful pen and ink drawings of the village, probably dating from the early 1900s. I spent hours drawing these sketches myself in my school art classes. It would probably be another ten years before I would visit the village in person, but when I finally got there, it was as if I already knew the place. I recognized the houses and the church, and the odd names for certain features; hangers, the Short Lythe and the Long Lythe, and the Plestor which serves as the village green. When I finally visited, I was amazed how close together all these places were. Gilbert White’s home is now a museum, preserved and decorated much as it would have been while he lived there in the 1700s, although the house has been extended since then. I have also seen Timothy, well his shell at least, since it resides in the Natural History Museum in London. It has a special place in the history of the study of nature.
So, finding this little book about Timothy was like taking a trip back in time to a place I loved so such, and to reacquaint myself with stories that are half familiar.
Gilbert White is often called the father of naturalists. He obsessively recorded what was happening in his garden, in the village and surrounding countryside. He charted the arrival of different bird species, when they sang, when they stopped and opened up a world of records which are invaluable to the modern-day naturalist as a record of what England was like two hundred and fifty years ago. Some of the bird species he mentions are no longer found in England. There were mole-crickets, which have been considered extinct in the UK for decades. I also remember White was obsessed by swallows, swifts and martins, which arrive for the summer but then return to Africa for the winter. In White’s day, none of this was known, so he was in the habit of prodding sticks into holes in river banks trying to find where these birds spent the winter. Of course, he had Timothy the tortoise, to show him that is was possible for animals to hibernate.
The book is narrated by Timothy, as he turns the tables on Gilbert White, watching and recording what he is doing, giving his tortoise eye view of what is happening around him.
Here is a typical passage, where Timothy comments on the strangeness of what he sees in the gardens:
“This is the headache that gratifies humans so. Contagion of their company. Stew they frolic in. I have no part in it. Want none.
Not just the fracas, the rolling of their presence. Only a human could love the order of this garden. Laid out as carefully as the prayer-book. Profound attention for geometry. Firs in the quincunx. Vegetable indices in sharp, neat rows. Planted just so, just thus, just short of alphabetical. The eye herded down views. Decoyed into landscapes. Gaps in the hedges promptly filled. Carrots and cabbages picked to preserve the symmetry of their beds. Each blade of grass on the grass-plot cut to just the same height. Plants that play truant encouraged to do so to heighten the sense of order.”
Timothy can be the subject of experiments. The sound of injustice in his voice when he is lifted from the ground and taken to the village store to be weighed, is wonderfully captured. As it is in this passage where his similarity to a turtle is put to the test:
“I am not taken in by the tide, borne up by the counterpoise of the deep. I sink. The water doesn’t sustain or welcome me. It soaks me like a week’s worth of washing. I am merely a long-pampered tortoise – decades removed from my natural life – standing at the bottom of a water-tub in the south of England. Two male humans in wigs look down with expectant, distorted faces. Waiting to draw the proper inference from my unhappiness.
Next day they weigh me, and my unhappiness is complete.”
I cannot end this review without talk of the swift. A sharp-tailed, fast flying bird that will spend almost its whole life in flight. I love the screaming call of the swift, and know that it will arrive in England in the first days of May and be gone again as soon as September starts. It is a bird I have written much about myself, missing the fact that they do not come to New Zealand, but hearing them sometimes on the TV in a drama series and knowing at once we are between May and September. I have written about their calls above the traffic noise of Paris, among the ruins of Rome, and chasing each other round and round a village plane tree in a village in the foothills of the French Pyrenees.
So when Timothy observes Gilbert White observing the swift, I am the happiest man around.
“Gilbert White could preach a sermon upon the constancy of the swift. Unvarying cycle of its year. Eight or nine pair arrive in Selborne at the end of April. Retreat from it punctually by mid-August. Eleventh Sunday after Trinity. As true to their time as the solstice or the arrival of Findon, the Faringdon carrier.
They build under low thatched roofs along the street. Dash and frolic through Selborne. Around St. Mary’s, above the glebe-close, and back again. Pursuing church-owls and hawks. Squeaking on wing until a quarter before nine in midsummer.
Dear to Mr. Gilbert White above all other birds, the swifts, though defective in architecture. Fledgling falls from the nest into the churchyard. Curate feeds it with flies. Tosses it back up onto the shingles. He studies the swifts with great penetration. Observes their behavior in every weather. How they mate in air. How their wings meet over their backs when they do so. How in Selborne they build under the “lowest and meanest cottages” as well as on the tower of St. Mary’s. Theirs is an earthly ascension. Making no distinction between rich and poor.”
And Timothy has memories of his own, he is more widely travelled than Gilbert White. His description of life in its short sentences quite unique. This little quote was my favourite:
“I was intrepid at birth. Hatched in the Cilician brush. Above the warm salt sea. Possessed of the memories I know to be ancient instinct. Broken shells and a common nest the only sign of kin. Mother a scent on the gravel. Father a scent on mother.”
My warmest thanks to Lark Benobi for bringing this wonderful book to my attention. It has been around since 2006, and without that little prompt I might never have found it and had so much fun.
I had an old copy of Gilbert White’s book when I was a teenager. It was full of beautiful pen and ink drawings of the village, probably dating from the early 1900s. I spent hours drawing these sketches myself in my school art classes. It would probably be another ten years before I would visit the village in person, but when I finally got there, it was as if I already knew the place. I recognized the houses and the church, and the odd names for certain features; hangers, the Short Lythe and the Long Lythe, and the Plestor which serves as the village green. When I finally visited, I was amazed how close together all these places were. Gilbert White’s home is now a museum, preserved and decorated much as it would have been while he lived there in the 1700s, although the house has been extended since then. I have also seen Timothy, well his shell at least, since it resides in the Natural History Museum in London. It has a special place in the history of the study of nature.
So, finding this little book about Timothy was like taking a trip back in time to a place I loved so such, and to reacquaint myself with stories that are half familiar.
Gilbert White is often called the father of naturalists. He obsessively recorded what was happening in his garden, in the village and surrounding countryside. He charted the arrival of different bird species, when they sang, when they stopped and opened up a world of records which are invaluable to the modern-day naturalist as a record of what England was like two hundred and fifty years ago. Some of the bird species he mentions are no longer found in England. There were mole-crickets, which have been considered extinct in the UK for decades. I also remember White was obsessed by swallows, swifts and martins, which arrive for the summer but then return to Africa for the winter. In White’s day, none of this was known, so he was in the habit of prodding sticks into holes in river banks trying to find where these birds spent the winter. Of course, he had Timothy the tortoise, to show him that is was possible for animals to hibernate.
The book is narrated by Timothy, as he turns the tables on Gilbert White, watching and recording what he is doing, giving his tortoise eye view of what is happening around him.
Here is a typical passage, where Timothy comments on the strangeness of what he sees in the gardens:
“This is the headache that gratifies humans so. Contagion of their company. Stew they frolic in. I have no part in it. Want none.
Not just the fracas, the rolling of their presence. Only a human could love the order of this garden. Laid out as carefully as the prayer-book. Profound attention for geometry. Firs in the quincunx. Vegetable indices in sharp, neat rows. Planted just so, just thus, just short of alphabetical. The eye herded down views. Decoyed into landscapes. Gaps in the hedges promptly filled. Carrots and cabbages picked to preserve the symmetry of their beds. Each blade of grass on the grass-plot cut to just the same height. Plants that play truant encouraged to do so to heighten the sense of order.”
Timothy can be the subject of experiments. The sound of injustice in his voice when he is lifted from the ground and taken to the village store to be weighed, is wonderfully captured. As it is in this passage where his similarity to a turtle is put to the test:
“I am not taken in by the tide, borne up by the counterpoise of the deep. I sink. The water doesn’t sustain or welcome me. It soaks me like a week’s worth of washing. I am merely a long-pampered tortoise – decades removed from my natural life – standing at the bottom of a water-tub in the south of England. Two male humans in wigs look down with expectant, distorted faces. Waiting to draw the proper inference from my unhappiness.
Next day they weigh me, and my unhappiness is complete.”
I cannot end this review without talk of the swift. A sharp-tailed, fast flying bird that will spend almost its whole life in flight. I love the screaming call of the swift, and know that it will arrive in England in the first days of May and be gone again as soon as September starts. It is a bird I have written much about myself, missing the fact that they do not come to New Zealand, but hearing them sometimes on the TV in a drama series and knowing at once we are between May and September. I have written about their calls above the traffic noise of Paris, among the ruins of Rome, and chasing each other round and round a village plane tree in a village in the foothills of the French Pyrenees.
So when Timothy observes Gilbert White observing the swift, I am the happiest man around.
“Gilbert White could preach a sermon upon the constancy of the swift. Unvarying cycle of its year. Eight or nine pair arrive in Selborne at the end of April. Retreat from it punctually by mid-August. Eleventh Sunday after Trinity. As true to their time as the solstice or the arrival of Findon, the Faringdon carrier.
They build under low thatched roofs along the street. Dash and frolic through Selborne. Around St. Mary’s, above the glebe-close, and back again. Pursuing church-owls and hawks. Squeaking on wing until a quarter before nine in midsummer.
Dear to Mr. Gilbert White above all other birds, the swifts, though defective in architecture. Fledgling falls from the nest into the churchyard. Curate feeds it with flies. Tosses it back up onto the shingles. He studies the swifts with great penetration. Observes their behavior in every weather. How they mate in air. How their wings meet over their backs when they do so. How in Selborne they build under the “lowest and meanest cottages” as well as on the tower of St. Mary’s. Theirs is an earthly ascension. Making no distinction between rich and poor.”
And Timothy has memories of his own, he is more widely travelled than Gilbert White. His description of life in its short sentences quite unique. This little quote was my favourite:
“I was intrepid at birth. Hatched in the Cilician brush. Above the warm salt sea. Possessed of the memories I know to be ancient instinct. Broken shells and a common nest the only sign of kin. Mother a scent on the gravel. Father a scent on mother.”
My warmest thanks to Lark Benobi for bringing this wonderful book to my attention. It has been around since 2006, and without that little prompt I might never have found it and had so much fun.
January 30, 2019
Reading this small pastoral book was something like sitting on a covered porch on a hot summer day, with lemonade. In a rocking chair. Nothing much happens. You're so happy anyway.
February 11, 2008
Ugh, awful book. Christmas gift from Mom. Usually recommends awesome books. Moves at a snail's pace. Or a tortoise's. Guess that's the point. Narrated by snobby, snotty, snooty reptile. Better than humans. Humans use complete sentences. Tortoise too cool for that. Speaks in fragments.
Really. Here's a paragraph from the first page:
"Through the meadow. Past the alcove and down the brick-walk. Wicket-gate clicks shut behind us. Thomas sets me down beside the asparagus. Edge of my umbrageous forest. All feet square on the ground again. Into the rubbery trunks. Young asparagus thrusting out of the earth like turtles' heads. Ferns just joining in a canopy above. Print of Thomas's warm fingers on my tiled belly, smell of tar and damp mould."
And it doesn't let up. Yes, an entire book of this shyte. Plus there is a 100% POINTLESS glossary ("look, I know biology words!").
Admittedly, I only read half. Sorry, Mom, I tried. Maybe it got better. Maybe I missed something. Maybe I don't care.
Really. Here's a paragraph from the first page:
"Through the meadow. Past the alcove and down the brick-walk. Wicket-gate clicks shut behind us. Thomas sets me down beside the asparagus. Edge of my umbrageous forest. All feet square on the ground again. Into the rubbery trunks. Young asparagus thrusting out of the earth like turtles' heads. Ferns just joining in a canopy above. Print of Thomas's warm fingers on my tiled belly, smell of tar and damp mould."
And it doesn't let up. Yes, an entire book of this shyte. Plus there is a 100% POINTLESS glossary ("look, I know biology words!").
Admittedly, I only read half. Sorry, Mom, I tried. Maybe it got better. Maybe I missed something. Maybe I don't care.
March 25, 2024
This is an American, current companion volume to Gilbert White's Natural History of Selbourne, narrated by Pastor White's own tortoise Timothy. Many times Timothy cites what Mr White said as there is such "a propensity in mankind towards deceiving and being deceived...that one cannot safely relate any thing from common report, especially in print, without expressing some degree of doubt and suspicion" (85). Timothy soon adds, " Mr White's true music is the repeated, unresolved music of birdsong. Melody that never finds the tonic again"(90). {I may add that I, Alan Powers, have written two books on birdsong, BirdTalk (2003) and Conversations with Birds (2023)}.
Klinkenborg is a deft and skilled writer, a journalist of course, though not in this book. Associative, fragmentary disjunctive and surprising writing.
Klinkenborg is a deft and skilled writer, a journalist of course, though not in this book. Associative, fragmentary disjunctive and surprising writing.
October 24, 2015
A wonderful book for reading in the back yard, or outdoors anywhere. Not a lot of plot, not a lot of conflict. Exactly the kind of book they warn you not to write.
I liked it for its observations of humans and nature. And I got choked up at the end.
“This is the story of a tortoise whose real life was observed by the eighteenth-century English curate Gilbert White, author of The Natural History of Selborne.” (from the Random House blurb)
I also liked Klinkenborg’s Making Hay, which I read many years ago.
I liked it for its observations of humans and nature. And I got choked up at the end.
“This is the story of a tortoise whose real life was observed by the eighteenth-century English curate Gilbert White, author of The Natural History of Selborne.” (from the Random House blurb)
I also liked Klinkenborg’s Making Hay, which I read many years ago.
September 12, 2020
"Notes" is right: Timothy is an exceedingly impressionistic work, an overgrown garden of fragments of precisely figured images, reflections, and moods. Bonafide sentences, as such, are rarer. But the effect, a cumulative one, an at once wandering and recumbent one, is marvelous -- and in this way it reminds me of another, rather quiet and contemplative work of fiction, the excellent Tinkers by Paul Harding. I should also mention that this volume comes armed with a glossary of terms, which wasn't always necessary to consult but was consistently pleasant to peruse; I certainly benefited by learning that a lorum is "the space between the eye and bill of a bird."
"Crickets lodged in paper houses and set chirping on sunny sills."
"Soil bound by a foot of winter."
"Night clotting in the lowlands."
"Cradle suspended in the head of a thistle."
"Long beard of bees dangling from a bough."
"Crickets lodged in paper houses and set chirping on sunny sills."
"Soil bound by a foot of winter."
"Night clotting in the lowlands."
"Cradle suspended in the head of a thistle."
"Long beard of bees dangling from a bough."
August 1, 2007
i wish i could give this book 1 million stars.
it is SOOOOOOOO beautifull written. i dont know
if i've read a book that has ever taken my breathe
away just by the powerfully poetic mastery.
it's told from the perspective of an old tortoise
who is actually a girl but has been named Timothy.
Timothy's observations of humans is so accurate &
will make u sad but is so beautiful it will lift
your heart.
if only there were more books like this. this is
one to read and re-read and read again.
March 31, 2009
Timothy, or, Notes of an Abject Reptile - Verlyn Klinkenborg
What can I say about a tortoise whose vocabulary is wider than mine? Within the first 20 pages, I had to look up umbrageous, tegument, venerey, borecole, hirundines, and sainfroin. (Thank heavens, Timothy provided a glossary.) Timothy, the eponymous abject reptile, was not showing off. He simply was using the best, most precise words he needed for his observations - the same vocabulary that Gilbert White, a 18th-century naturalist, used when he described Timothy in The Natural History of Selborne, published in 1789.
It was White who called Timothy "abject reptile." Abject he may have seemed, but he was, really, a close observer of humanity - and not a particularly fond observer, at that.
Humans, he concluded, made their fundamental mistake when they ceased to think of themselves as animals and replaced instinct with intellect.
Timothy scoffed at the animals that humans have become. "Every garment a divorce from nature... Disdaining the flesh that keeps them from heaven ... but able to argue upward from themselves to God." He is amused particularly by sentimentality ("now the rooks are saying their prayers," says a little girl).
White writes that Timothy is "a reptile that appears to relish [life:] so little as to squander more than two thirds of its existence in a joyless stupor, and be lost to all sensation for months together in the profoundest of slumbers."
"Mr. Gilbert White's stupors! How joyful are they?" sputters Timothy. As well he might.
This book is a phrase-perfect parody of a well-meaning amateur's notes. Timothy himself is a worthy companion, whose story includes a plot twist that shows just how inobservant humans can be.
Don't miss this one!
What can I say about a tortoise whose vocabulary is wider than mine? Within the first 20 pages, I had to look up umbrageous, tegument, venerey, borecole, hirundines, and sainfroin. (Thank heavens, Timothy provided a glossary.) Timothy, the eponymous abject reptile, was not showing off. He simply was using the best, most precise words he needed for his observations - the same vocabulary that Gilbert White, a 18th-century naturalist, used when he described Timothy in The Natural History of Selborne, published in 1789.
It was White who called Timothy "abject reptile." Abject he may have seemed, but he was, really, a close observer of humanity - and not a particularly fond observer, at that.
Humans, he concluded, made their fundamental mistake when they ceased to think of themselves as animals and replaced instinct with intellect.
Timothy scoffed at the animals that humans have become. "Every garment a divorce from nature... Disdaining the flesh that keeps them from heaven ... but able to argue upward from themselves to God." He is amused particularly by sentimentality ("now the rooks are saying their prayers," says a little girl).
White writes that Timothy is "a reptile that appears to relish [life:] so little as to squander more than two thirds of its existence in a joyless stupor, and be lost to all sensation for months together in the profoundest of slumbers."
"Mr. Gilbert White's stupors! How joyful are they?" sputters Timothy. As well he might.
This book is a phrase-perfect parody of a well-meaning amateur's notes. Timothy himself is a worthy companion, whose story includes a plot twist that shows just how inobservant humans can be.
Don't miss this one!
March 13, 2024
TIMOTHY is inspired by a real-life Mediterranean spur-thighed tortoise who lived in the garden of (and was the subject of observation and writings by) 18th century English naturalist Gilbert White. In lyrical, old-fashioned prose, Timothy (who is actually female) observes the goings-on of humans with bemusement and more than a little disdain.
While it has its amusing passages, there's melancholy here, too--this was the era in which birdwatching was done with a gun rather than binoculars, and to be a naturalist was to fill one's parlor with as many taxidermized creatures as possible--and the rarer the species was becoming, the more avidly they were hunted, to supply a specimen for the collection before they disappeared entirely.
While it has its amusing passages, there's melancholy here, too--this was the era in which birdwatching was done with a gun rather than binoculars, and to be a naturalist was to fill one's parlor with as many taxidermized creatures as possible--and the rarer the species was becoming, the more avidly they were hunted, to supply a specimen for the collection before they disappeared entirely.
April 3, 2011
Exquisite little book by the guy who writes, at the bottom of the
NYTimes editorial page, that occasional casual little paragraph
about what's up with the animals and plants on his NY state farm.
This book recreates the plant, animal & human life of the English
village of Selborne as recorded in the late 1700's by naturalist
Gilbert White. All from the viewpoint of a tortoise (mis-)named
Timothy who has many perceptive observations about humans and their
vaunted advantages as vertical and self-defined reasoning creatures.
Not a boring sentence in the whole 158 pages, to my amazement.
NYTimes editorial page, that occasional casual little paragraph
about what's up with the animals and plants on his NY state farm.
This book recreates the plant, animal & human life of the English
village of Selborne as recorded in the late 1700's by naturalist
Gilbert White. All from the viewpoint of a tortoise (mis-)named
Timothy who has many perceptive observations about humans and their
vaunted advantages as vertical and self-defined reasoning creatures.
Not a boring sentence in the whole 158 pages, to my amazement.
February 27, 2025
This was a real treat. Absolutely delightful prose, that reflects so well the sense of being an animal. Timothy is verbose, eloquent and observant but speaks in short, fragmented sentences, delivering some insightful and perceptive musings on the nature and ludicrousness of humanity. It is at times quite dense in its archaic language, but is largely very enjoyable.
August 12, 2025
The title of this book is misleading. This is not the story of a tortoise but rather a prose poem about an English town in the late 1700s. The tortoise is incidental.
July 1, 2018
I loved this lyrical book, written as the musings of Timothy, a tortoise relocated from the Mediterranean to England in the eighteenth century to live out his life in the garden of the naturalist Gilbert White. The author's observations on the human condition as seen through the eyes of a tortoise are perceptive and poignant. This is a lovely and somewhat sad little book.
Ratings (1 to 5)
Writing: 5
Plot: 4
Characters: 4
Emotional impact: 5
Overall rating: 4.5
Favorite quotes
"So it is with humans. Quickness draws their eye. Entangles their attention. What they notice they call reality. But reality is a fence with many holes, a net with many tears. I walk through them slowly. My slowness is deceptively fast."
"I wish to be out of human reach. Out from under the constant stir. Laborious turmoil of this breed. Endless bother of humans. Toil inherent in their mere existence. Dizzying inability to bask or muse."
"But I wish to live in the ancient disorder of nature again. Where everything grows according to its kind. As it will or won't, without the work of human hands."
"I wish to live again in a place that is not a map of the gardener's mind. Book of nature, as humans love to think of it. But where I wish to live is not a book at all. Not an argument for the being and attributes of an unnecessary god. Not a theorem, hypothesis, or demonstration. Merely itself."
Ratings (1 to 5)
Writing: 5
Plot: 4
Characters: 4
Emotional impact: 5
Overall rating: 4.5
Favorite quotes
"So it is with humans. Quickness draws their eye. Entangles their attention. What they notice they call reality. But reality is a fence with many holes, a net with many tears. I walk through them slowly. My slowness is deceptively fast."
"I wish to be out of human reach. Out from under the constant stir. Laborious turmoil of this breed. Endless bother of humans. Toil inherent in their mere existence. Dizzying inability to bask or muse."
"But I wish to live in the ancient disorder of nature again. Where everything grows according to its kind. As it will or won't, without the work of human hands."
"I wish to live again in a place that is not a map of the gardener's mind. Book of nature, as humans love to think of it. But where I wish to live is not a book at all. Not an argument for the being and attributes of an unnecessary god. Not a theorem, hypothesis, or demonstration. Merely itself."
November 5, 2009
Not a fast read, but it is from a turtle's perspective, so what to expect. To be honest I skimmed the turtle's description of the birds and other nature. The vocabulary was quite intense. I didn't realize that there was a glossary until I finished the book (darn, that would have helped).
"Timothy's" observations about humans are very touching. For example, Timothy pities us because we have to wear clothes and can't be in touch with nature. I enjoyed the description of "timothy's" weigh-in. Very sad when another turtle arrives for a very short time.
"Timothy's" observations about humans are very touching. For example, Timothy pities us because we have to wear clothes and can't be in touch with nature. I enjoyed the description of "timothy's" weigh-in. Very sad when another turtle arrives for a very short time.
October 11, 2007
Timothy the tortoise riffs on nature, humans, human nature, reason, instinct, religion, and the English countryside.
Beautifully written. This book did induce more than a few pleasant naps -- but Timothy would find this perfectly appropriate.
Beautifully written. This book did induce more than a few pleasant naps -- but Timothy would find this perfectly appropriate.
January 4, 2008
A tortoise-eye account of an 18th century English botanist and his obsessions. Surprising and quite brilliant
December 29, 2024
Esta es una novela que lamentablemente no existe en español, pero es una de las mejores que he tenido el placer de leer. En una narrativa lenta y una aparente ausencia de conflicto, el ritmo de Klinkenborg nos adentra en una narración que intenta alejarse de las nociones humanas para que nos sintamos en la piel de la tortuga Timothy, quien nos cuenta su propia vida a modo de autobiografía.
Esto es algo que ya se ha visto con animales ya cercanos a nosotros, como los perros y gatos domésticos, pero el conflicto secreto se encuentra precisamente aquí, vemos la perspectiva de un animal al que no somos familiares y no conocemos. Los reptiles son muy poco explorados en la literatura, a diferencia de los gatos, sobre quienes se pueden encontrar incluso antologías enteras dedicadas a ellos. Los reptiles no poseen siquiera esa familiaridad que provoca lo mamífero, por lo que esta novela es una exploración interesantísima dentro de los estudios del giro animal en la literatura.
Se nos presenta una perspectiva distinta, marcada por un ritmo que sigue el cambio de las estaciones, una conciencia del uso del lenguaje y lo humano en él, por lo que la narración es pausada y muy poética, permitiendo una lectura mucho más emocional y perteneciente al mundo de los sentidos. Esta exploración animalística se mezcla con un constante discurso de crítica a lo humano, que forma parte del conflicto de esta novela. Uno podría pensar que no sucede mucho, pero la verdad es que las reflexiones de la tortuga Timothy evocan mucho la autocrítica al antropocentrismo, no solo por lo que dice literalmente, sino también porque la tortuga Timothy sí existió, y fue mascota del naturalista Gilbert White, quien registró su vida, inspirando más de 100 años después la escritura de esta novela, por lo que los sufrimientos expresados por la tortuga en la novela, bien podrían haber sido vividos por la verdadera Timothy.
Con conocimientos actuales sobre cuidado de tortugas se puede comprobar que los cuidados de Timothy nunca fueron los adecuados, pero al mismo tiempo, conociendo la vida de Gilbert White, es difícil pensar que hubiese podido llegar a mejores manos luego de ser secuestrada de su entorno natural y llevada a Inglaterra. En esta misma ambivalencia se equilibra la tragedia y ternura de la historia de Timothy, el odio a los humanos, la añoranza por su vida anterior, y la conciencia de que el naturalista la observa y estudia con un cuidado que pocos habrían tenido con ella, denotando respeto por su vida como tortuga.
Esta relación novelística se nutre de forma inconmensurable cuando se descubre la historia que existe detrás de ella. Una de las cosas que más me conmovió investigando sobre Timothy y Gilbert White fue encontrar un escrito del naturalista, donde él mismo hizo una narración de Timothy a modo de autobiografía, y pude reconocer a la misma tortuga de la novela, la misma personalidad y la misma conciencia de que su situación era trágica y que ella estaría mejor en su hábitat natural.
La novela plasma estas relaciones y reflexiones sobre lo animal de manera hermosa y muy original. A muchos puede parecerles bastante lenta y sin acontecimientos, pero yo creo que su relato de lo cotidiano y la reflexión pausada con un lenguaje poético y poco familiar es precisamente una base que invita a la reflexión sobre lo posthumano.
Creo que son necesarias estas narrativas de lo animal que se alejen de aquello que hemos domesticado y que exploren la animalidad no solo como un ejercicio divertido, sino como una exploración reflexiva sobre qué nos hace humanos y cómo esto marca nuestra relación con los demás animales, ya que es necesario este recordatorio de que nosotros también lo somos.
Esto es algo que ya se ha visto con animales ya cercanos a nosotros, como los perros y gatos domésticos, pero el conflicto secreto se encuentra precisamente aquí, vemos la perspectiva de un animal al que no somos familiares y no conocemos. Los reptiles son muy poco explorados en la literatura, a diferencia de los gatos, sobre quienes se pueden encontrar incluso antologías enteras dedicadas a ellos. Los reptiles no poseen siquiera esa familiaridad que provoca lo mamífero, por lo que esta novela es una exploración interesantísima dentro de los estudios del giro animal en la literatura.
Se nos presenta una perspectiva distinta, marcada por un ritmo que sigue el cambio de las estaciones, una conciencia del uso del lenguaje y lo humano en él, por lo que la narración es pausada y muy poética, permitiendo una lectura mucho más emocional y perteneciente al mundo de los sentidos. Esta exploración animalística se mezcla con un constante discurso de crítica a lo humano, que forma parte del conflicto de esta novela. Uno podría pensar que no sucede mucho, pero la verdad es que las reflexiones de la tortuga Timothy evocan mucho la autocrítica al antropocentrismo, no solo por lo que dice literalmente, sino también porque la tortuga Timothy sí existió, y fue mascota del naturalista Gilbert White, quien registró su vida, inspirando más de 100 años después la escritura de esta novela, por lo que los sufrimientos expresados por la tortuga en la novela, bien podrían haber sido vividos por la verdadera Timothy.
Con conocimientos actuales sobre cuidado de tortugas se puede comprobar que los cuidados de Timothy nunca fueron los adecuados, pero al mismo tiempo, conociendo la vida de Gilbert White, es difícil pensar que hubiese podido llegar a mejores manos luego de ser secuestrada de su entorno natural y llevada a Inglaterra. En esta misma ambivalencia se equilibra la tragedia y ternura de la historia de Timothy, el odio a los humanos, la añoranza por su vida anterior, y la conciencia de que el naturalista la observa y estudia con un cuidado que pocos habrían tenido con ella, denotando respeto por su vida como tortuga.
Esta relación novelística se nutre de forma inconmensurable cuando se descubre la historia que existe detrás de ella. Una de las cosas que más me conmovió investigando sobre Timothy y Gilbert White fue encontrar un escrito del naturalista, donde él mismo hizo una narración de Timothy a modo de autobiografía, y pude reconocer a la misma tortuga de la novela, la misma personalidad y la misma conciencia de que su situación era trágica y que ella estaría mejor en su hábitat natural.
La novela plasma estas relaciones y reflexiones sobre lo animal de manera hermosa y muy original. A muchos puede parecerles bastante lenta y sin acontecimientos, pero yo creo que su relato de lo cotidiano y la reflexión pausada con un lenguaje poético y poco familiar es precisamente una base que invita a la reflexión sobre lo posthumano.
Creo que son necesarias estas narrativas de lo animal que se alejen de aquello que hemos domesticado y que exploren la animalidad no solo como un ejercicio divertido, sino como una exploración reflexiva sobre qué nos hace humanos y cómo esto marca nuestra relación con los demás animales, ya que es necesario este recordatorio de que nosotros también lo somos.
January 7, 2021
In "Timothy, or Notes of an Abject Reptile" I experienced the strange sensation of nature observing humanity (more specifically, the naturalist Gilbert White) as it, in turn, observes nature-- and in a very human way, missing the point of observation entirely as humans are inclined to do. For the sake of commenting on humans. Though, ironically Klinkenborg falls victim to this same inclination and Timothy spends the majority of her time confounded by human actions and rituals. But despite this, both the focused observation and the sense of a part of nature (Timothy) longing to return to the place her body calls home, were the highlights of this reading.
As far as books written from the perspective of an animal, it is one of the better ones. It doesn't meet the allure of "Call of the Wild", but the way that Klinkenborg modifies syntax is so well done that I do feel immersed in Timothy's mind, and I can't bring myself to consider the writing as being from a human perspective. While alien, Timothy's voice is still clearly understandable and captures the plodding hopelessness and frustration of the narrator.
For instance: “How these humans dispose themselves! Unlike anything else in creation. Or rather like everything else in creation all at once. Legs of one beast. Arms of another. Proportions all awry to a tortoise's eye. Torso too squat. Too little neck. Vastly too much leg. Hands like creatures unto themselves. Senses delicately balanced. And yet each sense dulled by mental acuity. Reason in place of a good nose. Logic instead of a tail. Faith instead of the certain knowledge of instinct. Superstition instead of a shell.”
I do wish that I knew more about the history of Gilbert White, he was unfamiliar to me prior to this reading and I think that some measure of context would have elevated the reading of this book to a higher level.
As far as books written from the perspective of an animal, it is one of the better ones. It doesn't meet the allure of "Call of the Wild", but the way that Klinkenborg modifies syntax is so well done that I do feel immersed in Timothy's mind, and I can't bring myself to consider the writing as being from a human perspective. While alien, Timothy's voice is still clearly understandable and captures the plodding hopelessness and frustration of the narrator.
For instance: “How these humans dispose themselves! Unlike anything else in creation. Or rather like everything else in creation all at once. Legs of one beast. Arms of another. Proportions all awry to a tortoise's eye. Torso too squat. Too little neck. Vastly too much leg. Hands like creatures unto themselves. Senses delicately balanced. And yet each sense dulled by mental acuity. Reason in place of a good nose. Logic instead of a tail. Faith instead of the certain knowledge of instinct. Superstition instead of a shell.”
I do wish that I knew more about the history of Gilbert White, he was unfamiliar to me prior to this reading and I think that some measure of context would have elevated the reading of this book to a higher level.
May 27, 2020
It is a gorgeous and whimsically quiet novel. It’s filled with juicy lettuce leaves of wisdom shared through the sage, philosophical musings of a tortoise named Timothy (based on a real tortoise who lived in the garden of the 18c naturalist Gilbert White, and who was in fact a female tortoise but named Timothy because we humans hadn’t figured out how to properly sex a tortoise at that time in history). A favourite few lines: “My voice would shatter his human solitude. The happiness of his breed depends upon it. The world is theirs to arrange. So they tell themselves.”
I loved the worldview from the philosophic Timothy and found the tortoise-approved pace of this book so radically refreshing. It serves as a beautiful reminder for us to slow down and reconnect to the natural world. I liken it to another book (a human-narrated memoir) that manoeuvres at a beautiful and contemplative pace on sentences to be savoured—The Sound of A Wild Snail Eating by Elizabeth Bailey.
I loved the worldview from the philosophic Timothy and found the tortoise-approved pace of this book so radically refreshing. It serves as a beautiful reminder for us to slow down and reconnect to the natural world. I liken it to another book (a human-narrated memoir) that manoeuvres at a beautiful and contemplative pace on sentences to be savoured—The Sound of A Wild Snail Eating by Elizabeth Bailey.
June 3, 2025
Maybe I should have given it three stars because I did finish it…
We’re studying reptiles this fall and I’m on the search for a good living book for my high schoolers to read…this is not that book. It has a lot of natural history in it, some about this tortoise that lived in Selbourn in the 1700s, much more about the area and wildlife (including humans) native to the region. The 2nd half felt a bit like a diatribe about humans believing in God and thinking they were so much higher than animals. This novel is based on a true story. Such a tortoise really did exist and the parish curate was an amateur naturalist and kept notes and observations. I feel those would have been interesting….i did not care for this author’s voice or opinions though.
We’re studying reptiles this fall and I’m on the search for a good living book for my high schoolers to read…this is not that book. It has a lot of natural history in it, some about this tortoise that lived in Selbourn in the 1700s, much more about the area and wildlife (including humans) native to the region. The 2nd half felt a bit like a diatribe about humans believing in God and thinking they were so much higher than animals. This novel is based on a true story. Such a tortoise really did exist and the parish curate was an amateur naturalist and kept notes and observations. I feel those would have been interesting….i did not care for this author’s voice or opinions though.
April 6, 2021
Timothy, who was a she, died in 2004 at the age of 160. Apparently, at the end of her life, she wore a tag that said "My name is Timothy. I am very old - please do not pick me up."
I loved it more than I should have. But this natural history of an actual tortoise from the tortoise's perspective (based on historical records kept by his naturalist owner, Gilbert White) was really fun to read. I'm not sure why everyone doesn't keep a tortoise in their garden. (Except for the fact that they'll outlive you, so it's a commitment. Plus, why kidnap a tortoise, eh?)
I loved it more than I should have. But this natural history of an actual tortoise from the tortoise's perspective (based on historical records kept by his naturalist owner, Gilbert White) was really fun to read. I'm not sure why everyone doesn't keep a tortoise in their garden. (Except for the fact that they'll outlive you, so it's a commitment. Plus, why kidnap a tortoise, eh?)
October 12, 2022
What a curious book! This reads from the perspective of an 80-year-old-ish tortoise living in an English garden in the 18th century. "Timothy" seems all-knowing, sharing wry observations about nature and humanity that will provoke your thoughts while making you laugh. This tortoise certainly suffers no fools! I was particularly delighted to learn that Timothy was actually real, and this book is based on journals from the man who knew Timothy (or at least thought he did) for much of Timothy's life.
September 8, 2019
Thinly veiled excoriation of the human race as seen through the eyes of a tortoise. If you are unfamiliar with the devastation caused by humans to the planet and all wildlife, perhaps you should read this book. If you have been awake for even a small portion of your adulthood and already are well aware of the havoc we have wreaked, don't bother with this book - it's just a sad rehash of our failings.
January 6, 2022
My father bought this for me years ago as a high school graduation present. I read it and loved it! In my opinion, it's a genre-defying treasure. Can you say you've read another book from the perspective of a 18th century tortoise being kept in captivity in the English countryside? Skip it if you have. If not, read it!
July 12, 2022
This book had a sort of interesting premise but I was not a fan of the writing. The entire book was written in very short sentences that really do away with any flow the story might have naturally had. Honestly, it was kind of boring. The only good thing I can say about this story is that it’s relatively short.
August 27, 2023
I thought this was a fun concept, to be told from the tortoise’s perspective. It took me a minute to get into the author’s writing style, and I never fully got into the 18th century language. It was more philosophical than I originally expected, but I enjoyed the commentary on silly little humans and the silly little things we do.
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