Eluding the Names We Give Them

The German poet Rainer Maria Rilke once lamented that we kill things with the names we give to them. In several of his most famous poems he tried to see certain creatures – flamingos, a panther in a Paris zoo – as if in some imaginary Eden before Adam affixed labels to the beasts of the field and the birds of the air. And around the same time the American poet Hart Crane, addressing the “moonmoth and grasshopper that flee our page,” dreamed of a day when all beings would stand in innocent anonymity, “struck free and holy in one name always.” This is a beguiling proposition. But can we really see anything on earth without the filtering effect of words? And would we really want to? In fact, certain names not only capture but enhance the mystery that surrounds a thing. Could a wombat by any other name – however sweet it smelled – be truly a wombat?As a child poring over illustrated books of natural history I was as taken by the exotic names of unfamiliar animals as by the plates that depicted them. The boomslang seemed deadlier, the bandicoot more mischievous, the quoll and the hyrax more enigmatic, because of the names they bore. Who would want to inhabit a world in which the kookaburra and the hoatzin clucked and squawked anonymously? Their very names announce them. We know that once there was a speechless time when all things lacked names, but it remains unimaginable to us, and perhaps properly so.Names can be fatal, too, and in ways far worse than Rilke or Crane envisaged. The case of the so-called “Tasmanian devil” provides one alarming instance. Most Americans are aware of this improbable critter under the guise of “Taz,” the chunky and gluttonous whirler of Warner Bros. cartoons. But Taz himself was born, some 53 years ago, out of a casual collision of word and image.The story is told in “Tasmanian Devil: A Unique and Threatened Animal” (Allen & Unwin, 232 pages, $24.95) by David Owen and David Pemberton, a superbly readable account of this bizarre marsupial both in its natural habitat and in the human imagination. The authors provide not only everything you never knew you wanted to know about the Tasmanian devil – with wonderful and sometimes harrowing illustrations – but much else besides, including an account of the dashing Errol Flynn (born in Hobart, Tasmania, and something of a devil himself) and the efforts of Warner Bros. to control the “Taz” brand name.One morning in 1953, Chuck Jones – creator of Bugs Bunny as well as of the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote – was musing over coffee with his brilliant colleague Robert McKimson in Termite Terrace, the building where the famed animation department of Warner Bros. was headquartered. McKimson was puzzling out the daily crossword when he realized that the blanks could be filled only by the term “Tasmanian devil.” McKimson recalled remarking, “About the only thing we haven’t used around here is a Tasmanian devil.” “Taz” was thus born out of his own exotic name.“Tasmanian devil” is of course a misnomer. But scientists haven’t been much more enlightened than cartoonists; its Latin names have ranged from “flesh-eating bear” (“Sarcophilus ursinus”) to “Satanic carnivore” (“Sarcophilus satanicus”). Based on its flamboyant feeding (and excretory) habits, Messrs. Owen and Pemberton suggest renaming it “Gulpemdownus woollyturdii” or, translated into Australian, “pied jumbuck-gobbler.” In fact, despite its immensely powerful jaws and predatory nature, the devil is a rather timid, nocturnal marsupial – part of that ancient fam ily that includes opossums and kangaroos – that prowls the Tasmanian undergrowth and scavenges the highways. Its bad repute arises from its unfettered gusto in turning every shred of roadkill into an occasion for communal, jowl-smacking gorging along with its eerie ability to sing; observers have identified no fewer than 11 distinct modes of “vocalization,” all of them cacophonous when not downright terrifying. Since devils often like to dig burrows under bungalows and give vent to solos in the wee hours, it’s hardly surprising that early Tasmanian settlers believed that Old Nick himself was serenading them from beneath the floorboards.Any animal saddled with the name “devil” faces an uncertain future, and the Tasmanian devil seems fated to follow its compatriot, the Tasmanian tiger (or “thylacine”), into extinction. This is not only because the devil, which eats everything from discarded shoes to kelp maggots to livestock, has been hunted, trapped, and poisoned by Tasmanian farmers since the island was first colonized, but because in recent years the species has fallen prey to a baffling and perhaps unique form of cancer. The illness, known as devil facial tumor disease (DFTD), produces tumors around the animals’ mouths that prevent them from eating and lead to slow starvation over a period of months. This might seem an obscure concern, affecting a remote species on a distant island, unless the disease proves to be caused by a retrovirus that – like HIV or SARS – can cross from hosts in the wild to domestic animals and thence to humans.I’ve never seen one of these lowslung, smelly, wobble-gaited and voracious critters in the wild or in a zoo, nor have I heard their snorting cadenzas, but I feel as though, through this lively and affectionate compendium, with its pungent anecdotes and striking photographs, I’ve gotten about as close as I can get to the animal hidden beneath the misnomer. Tasmanian devils are scruffy, cantankerous, and quite uncuddly; their table manners are unspeakable, their mating habits unprintable. But they overstep the comfort of our categories; they elude the names we pin to their strangeness. Even Rilke couldn’t have asked for more.

Eluding the Names We Give Them

More from the New York Sun

Is John F. Kennedy Having a Comeback?

Moody’s Warns on New York City’s Debt

One War Aim Might Require Boots on the Ground

More from the New York Sun

Is John F. Kennedy Having a Comeback?

Moody’s Warns on New York City’s Debt

One War Aim Might Require Boots on the Ground

Reckoning Ahead for Democrats Over Soaring Energy Costs

‘Insanity’: White House Blasts CBS News for Hiring Former Liz Cheney Staffer for Prestigious Job

Trump Walks Back Welcome After Iran Says It Won’t Play in U.S.-Hosted World Cup

Trump Administration Plans Jones Act Waivers in Effort To Lower Skyrocketing Fuel Costs

Paranormal Podcast Film ‘Undertone’ Upends the Horror Movie Genre, To Creepy Effect