Bonobos

There's a lovely article in the New Yorker (July 30) which I've been reading in fits and starts over the last few days, about how bonobos might not be the hippy chimps of popular legend, which of course would be interesting anyway in a mean-hearted revisionist way (because bonobos are so often wheeled out as political symbols) but what struck me was how breathtakingly well it was written (by Ian Parker, who I've never noticed before). It's in that great tradition of New Yorker articles about stuff that you really couldn't care much less about but which you read anyway because they're so beautifully-written - the fabled (and apocryphal)16-page article about zinc, for example.

I waded through the first few pages, on the train, in the supermarket checkout, then, later, at the thai place around the corner, having a bowl of plain rice because it was all could keep down, when I came upon this. He's describing going into the jungle with an expedition to camp out for a few months. There's him, the sullen and difficult german scientist who leads the expedition and a few others, including a languid young american man, Matthews, who'd answered an online ad to be the camp's manager. He descibes the things they take with them, and it's all very practical and ascetic (the german has a pennkife and a copy of 'the pillars of wisdom'). Then, he tells us:

"Matthews was carrying more. As we discovered over time, his equipment included a fur hat, a leather-bound photo album, an inflatable sofa, and goggles decorated with glitter."

Is it just me, or is this just great? I especially love the way he's inserted over time, so you can almost imagine over the succeeding weeks and months the expedition members being introduced to this stuff piece by piece, with, one assumes, mounting incredulity. On the same page, this line, after an airborne mishap involving liquid nitrogen "Meanwhile Matthews told his mother, 'the plane seems to be filling with smoke', at which point his phone dropped the call".

It goes on like this - later, he describes a particular male bonobo "... his hair looking as if he'd just taken off Darth Vader's helmet, his expression grave".

I'm a sucker for this sort of stuff.