You can find a book about absolutely anything these days.
You want to know about France, but only specifically about France from 1748 to 1787? "The Revolutionary Temper" is for you.
How about a book about why swearing is "shocking, rude and fun?" I can't print the title here, but, trust me, there's a book on that.
And while you're browsing those books, you can pick up a book about where you're shopping: "The Bookshop: A History of American Bookstores."
And you can read all about deer, which exist mostly on the periphery in Northeast Ohio. The growth in deer populations, and the conflict between humans and deer, has become a big story in Northeast Ohio.
When I saw “The Age of Deer: Trouble and Kinship with our Wild Neighbors” by Erika Howsare, I knew it would be a perfect book to profile for a segment on the “Sound of Ideas.” It’s one of the most fascinating books I've read in my time working on the show. (A side note here: One of the benefits of producing the "Sound of Ideas" is that we get to read books on the clock.)
Howsare opens the book discussing the space deer occupy in myths and religious beliefs across the globe. From classic Greek tales to Viking-age lore, Buddhist stories, Native American ceremonies and Christian beliefs.
They loom large in our American mythos. They were integral in the early days of colonial settlements. That importance took on new aesthetics as we moved through the 19th and 20th centuries. Google a of picture of Teddy Roosevelt or Buffalo Bill and you will likely find them triumphantly clad in buckskin. Now, deer are found on corporate logos: Hartford Insurance, John Deere (obviously), the Milwaukee Bucks (also obvious) and Jägermeister.
When I interviewed Howsare for the show, I asked why she thinks deer hold such a prominent place in the myths and beliefs of so many cultures?
Besides how common they are across the globe, she said she thinks their size and shape have something to do with it. When a deer stands erect and faces us, it’s pretty much at eye level with an adult. If you’re a pre-industrial human, out there in the woods hunting deer for sustenance, chances are you’re getting close enough to look that animal right in the eyes before you take its life.
After killing the animal, you're using it for food, using the hide for clothing or shelter, perhaps even using the bones for tools. It's easy to understand the intimacy one might feel.
Writing about deer hunting, Howsare raises some interesting questions. Mainly they're about how we identify ourselves, as supporters or opponents of hunting. She never advocates for one position or the other, but simply stands back as an observer, and writes about who hunts and why.
Surveys have shown that hunting in the U.S. is made up of predominantly white males. And the political beliefs for hunters tend to skew more conservative.
Howsare’s reflections on who is more in tune with nature is are certainly thought-provoking. Who is more connected to the land than someone who engages in harvesting, even harvesting deer, she asks?
Is a backpacker like myself really that dedicated to conservation, when I spend hundreds of dollars on equipment made with synthetic materials, just to fly across the country and hang out in a National Park for a few days?
Or is the hunter, the one who has to look a creature in the eye before pulling the trigger, closer to the land?
The book has made me, and likely the "Sound of Ideas" listeners, think about that.
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