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THE REALM OF THE GREEN BUDDHA by Ludwig Koch-Isenburg Kirkus Star

THE REALM OF THE GREEN BUDDHA

By

Pub Date: Jan. 10th, 1962
Publisher: Viking

Report repeated from the August 15th bulletin, when scheduled for fall publication, as follows: ""This is a lively and colorful account of an expedition to Thailand, undertaken by a noted German zoologist and botanist whose curiosity had been sparked by a pet gibbon named Koko. His stories of adventures capturing birds and animals for private and public zoos are interspersed with a miscellany of information on fauna and flora encountered en route. (He stayed for a time in Burma and spent two weeks in Ceylon on the voyage out.) Dr. Koch-Isenburg had a black panther order from a Rangoon zoo; a botanist friend craved a rare tree-dwelling rhododendron; a childless friend yearned for a tiny pig-tailed monkey; and a tiger he captured wound up in a California private zoo. He describes his hosts, the Thais, an exquisitely courteous people, who regarded white as a sacred color since Buddha's mother, by tradition, received her son in the form of a white elephant from heaven. He has a gift of communicating excitement and pleasure equally, as evidenced by his recounting adventures in mountainous northern Thailand, the ""King Cobra"" country, and his frightening experience when Mogul, the tiger, escaped from his cage on the homeward voyage. One can forgive occasional excesses of superlatives and highly colored images, for the smooth translation provided by Richard and Clara Winston. This is for animal lovers and armchair travelers.