Rate this book

Don't Sleep, There Are Snakes: Life And Language In The Amazonian Jungle (2008)

by Daniel L. Everett(Favorite Author)

3.84 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

0375425020 (ISBN13: 9780375425028)

languge

English

genre

Memoir & Autobiography

publisher

Pantheon

review 1: For me, the most interesting parts of this book happened between the lines. Here's an example. The villagers all agree that there's a demon "over there" on the beach. They all see it, but of course the author doesn't. So he ruminates on mass hypnosis and similar ideas, but never asks the critical question: what does a demon look like? No doubt he's picturing a medieval Western notion of a demon, and he doesn't see that. But maybe to these villagers a demon manifests as strange shadows at the edge of the forest, or swirls of sand blowing over the beach. With completely different world views, can two people ever agree on what is true? Is there, really, such a thing as objective reality, when so much of what we know about the world comes from our inherited cultural preconcept... moreions? This is a unique opportunity to try to see the world through eyes untouched by the perspective we have accepted without question.
review 2: From an email to a friend:Just finished a good book called 'Don’t Sleep, There Are Snakes', a little memoir of a Christian missionary in the Amazon who eventually lost his faith as he realized this happy serene tribe had nothing to be saved from. He also turned his career to linguistics as he learned their language in order to translate the bible, and came to understand the influence the culture had on the words and meanings they could or would verbalize. This tribe was wary and mostly unbelieving of anything but first hand accounts of experiences, and didn’t have words to articulate anything but the present – they had no interest in talking about what may happen, or what if, or I should have. So, this little tribe lives in a very zen like way, in the present. I hadn’t thought there would be whole cultures who couldn’t conceive of anything but the present, but what a way to live! Although happy anticipation is pretty awesome too. less

Download links for: Don't Sleep, There are Snakes: Life and Language in the Amazonian Jungle

Advertising