Caesar: The Life Story of a Panda-Leopard - Softcover

O'Brian, Patrick

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0393321827 ISBN 13: 9780393321821

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 2001

Synopsis

"O'Brian was only 15 when [Caesar] was published, but he already possessed an instinct for deft plotting and uncomplicated narrative."―The New York Times

A stark tale encompassing the cruelty and beauty of the natural world, and a clear demonstration of the storytelling gift that would later flower in the Aubrey/Maturin series. When he was fourteen years old and beset by chronic ill health, Patrick O'Brian began creating his first fictional character. "I did it in my bedroom, and a little when I should have been doing my homework," he confessed in a note on the original dust-jacket. Caesar tells the picaresque, enchanting, and quite bloodthirsty story of a creature whose father is a giant panda and whose mother is a snow leopard. Through the eyes and voice of this fabulous creature, we learn of his life as a cub, his first hunting exploits, his first encounters with man, his capture and taming. Caesar was published in 1930, three months after O'Brian's fifteenth birthday, but the dry wit and unsentimental precision O'Brian readers savor in the Aubrey/Maturin series is already in evidence. The book combines Stephen Maturin's fascination and encyclopedic knowledge of natural history with the narrative charm of Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book. It was published in England and the United States, and in translation in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Japan. Reviews hailed the author as the "boy-Thoreau." "We can see here a true storyteller in the making....a gripping narrative, which holds the reader's attention and never flags."―The Spectator

About this title

Review

Acclaimed as the work of a "boy Thoreau," this brief, charming story of a mythical animal was published in 1930 when Patrick O'Brian, who went on to write the celebrated Aubrey/Maturin series of historical sea novels, was just 15. With its detached, authoritative narrative voice, Caesar: The Life Story of a Panda-Leopard reads more like a novel for young adults than a book written by one--though it is hard to imagine a grown-up writer including so many vividly realized hunting scenes, culminating in spurting blood and gore. In the introduction to this reprint of his juvenilia, O'Brian remembers being given a copy of "the Reverend Mr. Wood's Natural History, a mid-nineteenth century edition illustrated with a fair number of engravings." Already something of a naturalist, the boy "devoured the book." It must have spurred his interest in predatory animals, for Caesar demonstrates exceptional knowledge of the environments and habits of leopards and other large hunting cats of India and Asia. O'Brian's odd, matter-of-fact tone also derives from books like the Reverend Mr. Wood's, and provides much of the twisted pleasure to be found in Caesar. After his mother dies in a forest fire, the panda-leopard is forced to teach himself the fine points of hunting. One day he spots a large herd of pigs, strangely unguarded by a boar or sounder pig. He approaches cautiously, then notices a tall creature standing on two legs. Eventually his hunger overcomes him, and he snatches up a small pig, breaking its neck. "Unluckily the pig had time to squeal," writes the young O'Brian,

and this attracted the man who, with a cry, picked up a stone. His arm went back and the stone flew towards me like a bird. It hit me on the nose and hurt me more than the bee sting which I had had when a cub. It hit me on the same tender place which had never quite got better, and it angered me beyond words, and dropping the pig I charged, running low along the ground. Then I sprang straight at him.

With a shriek, the man tries to fend off the panda-leopard with a stick. "We fell together," Caesar recalls, "but his skull was cracked like an egg-shell. It was ridiculously easy to kill him." When he is eventually captured and tamed, Caesar learns to appreciate one or two humans, though his contempt for the species never diminishes. A wonderful read, recalling Kipling's Kim and The Jungle Book. --Regina Marler

From the Publisher

2 1.5-hour cassettes

Edition details

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0393321827
• ISBN 13: 9780393321821
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 94