Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law

While I respect the knowledge of science writers and their efforts to educate and inform, sometimes their efforts fall flat. Could be that Mary Roach’s other books are funny while being informative, but this one sure didn’t inspire me to find out if they are. Of course my reaction can merely be a mismatch. What one person thinks is funny can be insipid to another. I admire her success and her efforts, all of which are to be commended.Fuzz is laden with incomplete, dull, and repetitive supposedly humorous antidotes. Roach sounds like a guest speaker at a Middle School trying to impress disinterested teens and preteens, throwing in a cuss word here or there to prove her authenticity, straining to prove she’s cool while the kids make immature jokes about her name. When she’s not trying to be funny, she sounds like a narrator for an exceedingly dull nature show. The descriptions of offices, the drone of the obvious, and the lame attempts at humor make Fuzz difficult to slog through.The extended metaphor of animals as offenders seems forced, required by the title, itself a bad pun. By the end, the metaphor is lost in the buzz, and here, this review’s “buzz” mimicry may or may not illustrate the point, but I’m forcing it in anyway. Yes, we are constantly trying to share space with animals, and Mary Roach presents some of the informative, clever, and potentially humorous ways in which societies around the world are trying to do that. Good effort and worthy of admiration.

Mary Roach is one of my favorite authors because she digs into normally untouched subjects and investigates, and then writes with eloquence about those subjects. Here she approaches wild animals that do now want to be told what to do or how to do it.For instance, monkeys are a huge problem in India. What do you do to control them when the public hates them and wants you to control them, but they are also considered sacred. Killing them off isn't the answer, so let's look at birth control. Humorous you think, but it might just be the way to create a less harmful group of monkeys. However, because the monkeys are wild, you can't use any stitches which they would pull out. To find the really answer, you have to read the book.Throughout the book she looks at a number of species that present this unusual problem. Some solutions, such as topping of dead tress is pretty easy (comparatively speaking) but others are much more dangerous and difficult to control. Take elephants, for instance. You have food, they want the food and nobody with a brain is going to tell the elephant no. So how do you keep them from tipping over a mud house looking for the food?There are numerous other animals explored and problems as well, but the book reads almost like a novel and is delightful in the detail it provides. I would recommend this to anyone with even a mild interest in wild animals or places.

If you read this book you'll surely learn about some weird professions that you'd never even considered before. Such as professional bird scarers. The subject matter of the book is grimly comic on its face; the author really does everything she can to try to punch it up and be funny. It's usually too much. Lots of unnecessary color that, especially in the India chapters, can come off as patronizing. (Wow these roads are so treacherous - and would you believe that my guide doesn't even know what an airbag is?)

I admit it: I'm a sucker for Mary Roach's books. Starting with Bonk and continuing to this, her latest, I can't read her and not laugh out loud: she's a funny woman. And to be able to do it entirely with non-fiction puts her on a par with Ed Regis' Great Mambo Chicken, which is tough to beat.This one points to wild animals either recognizing and abiding by boundaries on the one hand....or either not recognizing them or not caring on the other. The best parallel to that is Tom Robbins' description of sharks as criminals while porpoises as outlaws. Mary shows plenty of both. She's also a lot braver than I am.

This book looks at a serious topic with a unique brand of humor. It's a fascinating read for anyone interested in wildlife conservation, animal behavior, human psychology, urban planning, hunting, outdoor recreation, or any number of other fields. The interviews and ride-alongs with various experts are great. They give a little-seen look into the challenges faced by law enforcement and wildlife officials. The offbeat anecdotes add flavor to what could have been a dry topic. I would highly recommend this book to absolutely anyone and everyone!