Famed primatologist and biologist Frans de Waal has spent his career studying chimpanzee behavior. In his newest book, “Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?,’’ he turns his attention to one of the chimps’ closet relatives — us. De Waal is a professor in Emory University’s psychology department and director of the Living Links Center at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center.
BOOKS: What are you reading currently?
DE WAAL: I recently read “The Invention of Nature,’’ a biography of the 19th-century scientist Alexander von Humboldt by Andrea Wulf. I really enjoyed that. I also read “When Breath Becomes Air,’’ the memoir of Paul Kalanithi, the neurosurgeon who died of cancer. I’ve also read books most people won’t know such as “Wild Life’’ by Robert Trivers, a famous biologist, and Martha C. Nussbaum’s “Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions.’’ Now I am reading a strange book I’m really enjoying, Haruki Murakami’s short-story collection “Men Without Women.’’ I’m reading it in Dutch because he’s Japanese so it doesn’t matter. With American writers, I read their work in English.
BOOKS: Is that the type of fiction you typically read?
DE WAAL: No. I also recently read “The Goldfinch’’ by Donna Tartt. That’s more traditionally written and has fancy language. I like that too.
BOOKS: How often do you read fiction?
DE WAAL: I read it more now because I’ve stopped my research. I am not writing 20 scientific papers a year. I’ve always read a lot of nonfiction in my own profession, biology and animals, but I speed read that, picking out things I find interesting. I’m not reading a whole book on the life of flies.
BOOKS: What did you think of the Humboldt biography?
DE WAAL: That was great. You got a good impression of how persistent this guy was and how active he was until very late in his life. Humboldt really had an impact on how we think about ecology and ecological systems.
BOOKS: What are your favorite biographies or memoirs about scientists?
DE WAAL: Long ago I read and enjoyed “Naturalist,’’ E.O. Wilson’s memoir. Some people have multiple memoirs, like Jane Goodall. One is usually plenty.
BOOKS: Which of Jane Goodall’s books do you like the best?
DE WAAL: The first book, “In the Shadow of Man,’’ which was very influential for me. I had just started looking at chimpanzees and developing my own ideas. Her book was really helpful because she was open-minded and not too scientific.
BOOKS: Are there books on animals you recommend to general readers?
DE WAAL: I like the old books by Konrad Lorenz, but his scientific ideas are not what we support anymore. “King Solomon’s Ring’’ has influenced many people going into the field of animal behavior, but you could easily make a list of 12 things that are indefensible at this point.
BOOKS: What other books have been influential for you?
DE WAAL: I had a book, which was in my mom’s library, of drawings of animals and descriptions of their behavior. You could open a chapter on the salamander, and it would describe how they incubate their eggs. That was a book that touched me though I can’t remember the title and the writer. When I became a student in biology, at 17 or 18, I started reading books in that area. The most famous one at the time was “The Naked Ape’’ by the zoologist Desmond Morris. The only reason I read it is because a professor pompously told our class, “That is the one book that I don’t want anyone to read.’’ Most of us went out to buy it.
BOOKS: Is there a parallel behavior to reading among great apes?
DE WAAL: I have an amusing photo that Robert Yerkes took about 100 years ago of his bonobo. He’s holding a book and turning a leaf. Yerkes said he would steal books out of his library. He would sit like a student reading them but with a puzzled expression on his face as to what people found so interesting.
AMY SUTHERLAND
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