Jim Corbett book

[Pablo]

Just got through reading No Beast So Fierce, a well written book about the maneating Champawat tiger and Jim Corbett’s reckoning with her. It is a very detailed book, and really goes in depth about the historical and environmental factors that created this cat and others after her. It delves into Corbett’s childhood and early manhood, and deals specifically with this tiger and not the rest of the tigers and leopards he shot. He claimed there were 436 victims over a decade, which is absolutely incredible.

 

[Cohle]

I haven’t read this, but you’re probably better off reading the actual works of Jim Corbett.

 

[schmijar]

I haven't read this book but I can see the value in reading something not told by Corbett himself.
It seems to me, based on things I've read about him, not by him, that in his writings he is almost supernaturally modest. Extremely understating the danger and his physical suffering in a very British stiff upper lip kind of way.
This is not a criticism, I absolutely love the Corbett books, I'm only saying that one may get a whole additional picture of the man and his accomplishments from an outside source.

 

[baxterb]

I haven't read this book but I can see the value in reading something not told by Corbett himself.
It seems to me, based on things I've read about him, not by him, that in his writings he is almost supernaturally modest. Extremely understating the danger and his physical suffering in a very British stiff upper lip kind of way.
This is not a criticism, I absolutely love the Corbett books, I'm only saying that one may get a whole additional picture of the man and his accomplishments from an outside source.

He is indeed modest and probably couldn’t even pronounce the word “bravado.” One might easily dismiss his modesty as false, as a way to underplay what is remarkable, but when he admits fear as often as he does, the mistakes he makes, and how he regards the people with which he lived and experienced the events, i can’t help but find him purely authentic. And if one reads his work closely they’ll see that the things he had to do, such as chaining the body of a small victim as to bait a leopard so it wasn’t carried off, would take an enormous about of tact and sympathy on the part of Corbett, and a great deal of trust by the victims family. After all they would want to give the victim a proper burial and they couldn’t do that if the leopard took the body elsewhere where it could not be found.

Hucklebridge’s book is OK. I think he enjoyed the social/environmental justice a bit too much. But it’s worth a read.

 

[Pablo]

He is indeed modest and probably couldn’t even pronounce the word “bravado.” One might easily dismiss his modesty as false, as a way to underplay what is remarkable, but when he admits fear as often as he does, the mistakes he makes, and how he regards the people with which he lived and experienced the events, i can’t help but find him purely authentic. And if one reads his work closely they’ll see that the things he had to do, such as chaining the body of a small victim as to bait a leopard so it wasn’t carried off, would take an enormous about of tact and sympathy on the part of Corbett, and a great deal of trust by the victims family. After all they would want to give the victim a proper burial and they couldn’t do that if the leopard took the body elsewhere where it could not be found.

Hucklebridge’s book is OK. I think he enjoyed the social/environmental justice a bit too much. But it’s worth a read.

Agreed. It took me awhile to get into it because of the social history stuff.

 

[Hunter-Habib]

My inspiration & childhood hero.

 

[Cohle]

I first read Corbett when I was in junior high school, not that many years after his death in 1955. In the ensuing 60 or so years I don’t think I’ve read of, or encountered, a more kind, caring, professional and determined individual than Col Corbett. The time he spent, the risks he took, the horrors he saw and lived, JUST TO BE HELPFUL, is probably only surpassed in combat and a few rescue attempts.
So if I was flippant about a summation and interpretation of his heroic efforts in Champawat, I suppose I should apologize.

 

[pilar]

Carpet Shahib is a excellent biography of Jim Corbett, from his childhood to his self exile to Kenya after independence of India