jankp's Full Review: Joy Adamson - Born Free: A Liones of Two Worlds
The day I finished reading this world-beloved, 1960 book, Born Free, by Joy Adamson, I then read Epinions-loved Hard_to_Please’s posts informing me of his doctor’s discovery that he has advanced cancer. My first thought was to help him by researching how natural food could undermine the control cancer has on his body; my second was to become involved in the upcoming write-off for him hosted by diverpam; and the third was to review, for HTP’s living expenses, Joy’s enthralling book, written by the shore of the Uaso Nyiro River outside of Nairobi, Kenya in East Africa with Elsa, the full-grown lioness she and her husband, Senior Game Warden George Adamson, lying asleep at her feet.
Some of you may have already read this and gone on to watch the 1966 movie version that garnered an Oscar for Best Song, which was written by Don Black and sung by the late John Denver. The part of the song that reverberates most with my soul and should resonate with Mark (HTP) is “Born free, when life is worth living and life is worth living ‘cause you’re born free!”
The song perfectly and simply sums up the joy and passion of Joy’s spellbinder. After George killed Elsa’s mother in self-defense and he and his wife raise her all-female cubs until the strongest two could be sent to a nearby, excellent zoo, they excitedly decided to keep the runt of the pack, Elsa, who needed much more love to survive.
Her very human habit of sucking Joy’s thumb when she was in great emotional duress still, in fact, continued into her adulthood. Yet the Adamsons were able to unselfishly train her to survive in the desert without them, all the more remarkable because Elsa had to learn the hunting game with only natural animal instinct, usually in the cool of the night as her human family drove her around and she didn’t want to leave them or the safety they provided. She was quite happy at first to deny those instincts the way her family had always wanted her to while she grew up
Littered with probably a hundred pictures of Elsa alone or with her family, mostly black and white, but also some in color, Joy’s book proves beyond any doubt that a wild lioness who has been raised “without force or frustration,” but with only nurturing love, can indeed live in two worlds happily. She was just as lovable, curious, polite and emotionally sensitive as a human child would be to the childless Adamson’s perpetual delight. Cutting the umbilical cord, so to speak, was incredibly difficult for all concerned.
Loving Elsa in the end could only mean one thing, though. They had to try to give her the life she was meant to live, so she could remain free in the land she loved and hopefully find happiness with her own pride as nature intended. Would they succeed? What would happen to their relationship with her? Read the 220-page book, which includes George’s Postscripts, or rent the movie to find out!
Final Thoughts
When this first came out in 1960, children were assumed to be its readers, but the publishers couldn’t have been more wrong. It wasn’t long before the book was translated into many different languages and the whole world welcomed the extraordinary tale so beautifully communicated to them by Joy. As you may have noticed, I call her most comfortably by her first name because that’s how close I feel to her after sharing what became the most rewarding experience of her life and most likely any human could experience.
Unfortunately the problem with poachers (people who killed lions for selling) didn’t go away and increased dramatically in the next few years in spite of their efforts and the book’s and movie’s success. Joy and George were murdered by them finally in 1980 after she had written the sequel, Living Free (also made into a movie).
I’m anxious to get started on it, but a bit hesitant, too. I know it will mean a lot more tears for Elsa (yes, I cried alligator tears at a couple points, but you will, too!) and probably haunt me for a long, long time with hatred for poachers.
This joyful book, literally full of Joy and joy, should be a must-read for every person on the planet. There’s no one with a beating heart who wouldn’t understand--or at least come to understand--why the Adamsons rear young Elsa to then let her go free to live as she was born to live.
The world would be a much better place if we were all as loving as Joy, George and their small African staff. We can take instead solace that at least we have the example they gave us right here in the wonderfully-detailed and picturesque pages of Born Free. Hopefully, too, Mark (HTP) will soon be born again, free of his cancer and the negative influences that caused it.
This review and its earnings are for you, my friend.
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