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Animal Series
Duck
The squat, noisy duck occupies a prominent role in the human cultural imagination, as evidenced by everything from the rubber duck of childhood baths to insurance commercials. With Duck , Victoria de Rijke explores the universality of this quacking bird through the course of human culture and history.
From the Eider duck to the Brazilian teal to the familiar mallard, duck species are richly diverse, and de Rijke offers a comprehensive overview of their evolutionary history. She explores the numerous roles that the duck plays in literature, art, and religion—including the Hebrew belief that ducks represent immortality, and the Finnish myth that the universe was hatched from a duck’s egg. The author also highlights the significant role humor has always played in human imaginings of duck life, such as the Topographia Hibernia , a twelfth-century tome contending that ducks originated as growths on tree trunks washed up on a beach. But the book does not neglect the bird’s role in everyday life as well, from food dishes to jokes to beloved animated characters such as Daffy Duck and Donald Duck. Duck is an entertaining account of a bird whose distinctive silhouette is known the world over.
From the Eider duck to the Brazilian teal to the familiar mallard, duck species are richly diverse, and de Rijke offers a comprehensive overview of their evolutionary history. She explores the numerous roles that the duck plays in literature, art, and religion—including the Hebrew belief that ducks represent immortality, and the Finnish myth that the universe was hatched from a duck’s egg. The author also highlights the significant role humor has always played in human imaginings of duck life, such as the Topographia Hibernia , a twelfth-century tome contending that ducks originated as growths on tree trunks washed up on a beach. But the book does not neglect the bird’s role in everyday life as well, from food dishes to jokes to beloved animated characters such as Daffy Duck and Donald Duck. Duck is an entertaining account of a bird whose distinctive silhouette is known the world over.
- GenresNonfictionAnimalsBirds
191 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 2007
86 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
January 19, 2021
This is a charming book in many ways, but it frequently feels belabored--many lists of things ducky, about ducks, related to ducks, but it very rarely gets beyond lists to the heart of either duckness or humanity's long relationship with ducks.
February 29, 2024
I've read around thirty of the usually excellent books in the Animal series from Reaktion Books, but I was disappointed with this one. The flow was choppy and uneven with lots of staccato, short sentences that made sections of the books read like a list or a first draft, waiting to be fleshed out.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews