Galdikas, along with Dian Fossey and Jane Goodall. Formed the famed trio of "angels" Louis Leakey encouraged to study great apes in the wild In 1971, she went into the jungle to study orangutans and decades later emerged with a rundown empire crumbling around her. Along the way, as poachers and timber barons slaughtered orangutans by the hundreds, Galdikas evolved into Ibu, the great mother of orphan orangutans, blurring the line between ape and human, tourist and scientist, Eden and everything else. To the orangutans, this was perhaps the cruelest blow of all.
Spalding's quest takes her from the offices of Galdika's foundation in Los Angeles to the crocodile-infested Sekonyer River in Borneo, where she confronts the sad, corrupting failure of a woman trying desperately to mother a species to survival; the dangers and temptations of ecotourism; and the arrogance of the human inclination to alter the things we set out to save.
Here is a book that shows us no paradise is safe from the machinations of man, and no one immune to temptation.
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A Dark Place in the Jungle tells the story of Spalding's "follow" of Galdikas, her attempt to study the scientist as Leakey's angels studied the great apes, observing her at a distance and noting her behavior. She trails Galdikas in the States and travels to Borneo three times in pursuit of the naturalist in her element. Spalding's assessment of her is far from favorable or flattering: Galdikas is portrayed alternately as conflicted, abrupt, arrogant, deceitful, distant, and, ultimately, as having failed drastically in her mission to "save" the orangutan from the press of human greed and indifference in Borneo.
In this way, Dark Place is a troublesome read. As a travelogue, the book is magnificent. Spalding is an observant, perceptive writer; her descriptions are lush, even lyrical, and often insightful, especially the meditations on motherhood and her reunion with her two young daughters, who travel to Borneo with her. Passing judgment on Galdikas's alleged guilt and Spalding's interactions with her is difficult, but Galdikas must certainly address the issues Spalding has raised. --Paul Hughes
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