The Hunting Wasp

Rating:
Summary: Insects more interesting than people? In this book, yes!
Review: Crompton's books get excellent reviews in the press. That's why I bought "The Hunting Wasp" several years ago. I didn't read it until recently, however, and then only because I found myself without other reading material one evening. I figured that any book on insect life is bound to pall after the first few pages, no matter how great the reviews.

Not true. Crompton's accounts of the lives and loves of hunting wasps are cliff-hangers, filled with blood lust, love gone bad, murder and mayhem, the sacrifices of motherhood, and adventure. I love this book.

It helps that John Crompton is an extraordinarily gifted writer and witty to boot. Describing the courtship of crickets (which are the prey of certain hunting wasps), he writes, "While the cricket sits fiddling, thinking only of his art, a female appears before him. He is disconcerted and shy and she is shy too, but timidly their antennae touch. After that they sit for hours fondling one another and then, after a last caress, the female goes away. But she returns, or he goes to her, and henceforward the affair proceeds with gathering tempo until they find themselves in each others' arms so to speak and the union proceeds. When he has recovered a little from the exhaustion caused by these nuptials, he scrapes a gentle note on the Stradivarius. Alas, the tune that once so thrilled the bride leaves her unmoved now. Indeed, it irritates her, and irritates her so much that she springs at him and smashes his violin. If he is wise he will not prolong the honeymoon. Nothing is more obvious than that his newly wed wife has conceived a violent aversion for him. Her transient love of music too has gone. He has done the only thing that interests her and she has no further use for him. He will get more than his violin broken if he stays."

Wonderful stuff. So good that I've ordered his books on spiders, bees and ants so I can continue reading these spellbinding sagas of the insect world.

Rating:
Summary: Unexpectedly fascinating and witty.
Review: You would never expect that a book about waspscould possibly be interesting, if you think bugsare disgusting little critters for which Raid is the best tool of study. That's what I thought until I happened to leaf through Crompton's little volume. To my amazement, he made the strange world of these beasties fascinating. And he has a wonderfully witty way of describing them in semi-human terms. They're even more disgusting than I thought they were, but he opened my eyes to an extraordinary part of the world around me. A Disney world, it isn't. More like a Stephen King world. But his sense of humor makes it all bearable. Tree-huggers and condo inmates, read Crompton or be stung by ignorance! -- Tom McDonough