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Article: Rara avis.(Book Review)
- Article from:
- New Criterion
- Article date:
- January 1, 2005
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2005 Foundation for Cultural Review. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Richard Rhodes John James Audubon: The Malting of an American. Knopf, 516 pages, $30
reviewed by Michael J. Lewis
The threads of John James Audubon's achievement--scientific, commercial, and artistic--are coiled so tightly that they can scarcely be separated. Nor should they be, for once disentangled, Audubon's talents unravel into nothingness. The scientist was a precocious amateur with a knack for field work--no more; the businessman was a bungler, the perpetual victim of his own negligence; and even the artist was at best a fluent draftsman, who wisely learned to work within his fairly narrow limits. But once Audubon brought these three diffident ...