THE DRAGON BEHIND THE GLASS

 

WHAT AN INTERESTING READ THIS ONE WAS!

Featherless biped author Emily Voigt -- this story has International Standard Book Number 978-1451678956 -- has written a memoir that discusses how one of her ilk develops a fixation on a particular fish specie.  From there she leads us into a better understanding of how ANY naked ape is drawn into our clutches, whether it's for the purposes of piscatorial romance, reproduction, recruitment, consumption, OR ALL OF THE ABOVE.  

The "dragon" she mentions on the cover is what she THINKS is her quarry, specifically the Super Red Arowana, a subspecies of an ancient, mighty clan of recruiters who have long since deployed themselves AROUND THE GLOBE.  Her memoir is about trying to find one in the wild.  As Voigt found out, however, the Super Red didn't want her as much as some of the other Arowanas out there, and ALL OF THEM wanted primarily to MESS WITH HER HEAD in a way a fish can really only do with a Homo sap.  She spends a lot of this book hiking or boating into one wilderness or other, hoping to get close enough to see a wild Arowana.  

(You haunters of pet stores know this is also spelled Arrowana, Arowanna, Aruana, and Scrod knows what else.) 

Along the way she discovers the natural, bureaucratic, political and emotional boundaries surrounding this particular recruiter, and how her own species, the Shaved Monkeys, both CREATE and VIOLATE these boundaries, leading to all kinds of interesting side-trips into theft, murder, smuggling, questionable research practices, shady identities, gang warfare and, of course, more than a few FISHING TRIPS.

Aquatic operatives will find this book to be a revealing primer on how a Shaved Monkey thinks and HOW TO APPEAL TO THEIR MONKEY INSTINCTS, the most useful instinct for us being their EGOS.  Right at the start of the book the owner of a tropical-fish shop is knifed to death and all his Arowanas stolen.  A canny fish operative will realize IMMEDIATELY that no matter how much money the fish are worth, the thief is primarily feeding his or her EGO, because the daring crime, the successful theft, even the money involved are just badges of EGO to a Shaved Monkey.  Even if you have never set a foot or a lobed fin up on dry land, this book helps make clear how important this is to a human AND HOW EASILY WE MAKE THEM DO WHAT WE WANT, USING THEIR EGOS TO STEER THEM.  Behold how the seemingly disinterested Arowanas travel the world without having to lift a barbel, because having appealed effectively to the EGOS of the human recruits, THE HUMANS DO ALL THE WORK.

One piece of the story that I really loved is that while swimming the channels of human bureaucracy, the Arowana has managed to become, simultaneously, a protected specie on the humans' endangered list AND an invasive pest.  IF THAT'S NOT A SUCCESSFUL RECRUITING TECHNIQUE, WHAT IS?

Read this one, ladies!