How To Attract The Wombat

By Will Cuppy

Here is one of Will Cuppy's three classic “How-To’s,” considering notable birds and animals whose habits (and often existence) seem to have disturbed Cuppy (“Birds Who Can’t Even Fly,” “Optional Insects,” “Octopuses and Those Things”), as well as more mundane creatures like the frog, the gnat, and the moa, who have no visible vices but whose virtues are truly awful. Spanning the breadth of the animal kingdom, Cuppy neatly classes his observations for easy reference: Problem Mammals, Pleasures of Pond Life, Birds Who Can’t Sing and Know It.

Included with 50 shorter pieces are longer meditations like ‘The Poet and the Nautilus,” “Swan-upping, Indeed!” and “How to Swat a Fly,” which codifies the essentials of this simple activity in ten hilarious principles. All this, plus over 100 delightful Nofziger drawings!

But the seat of honor is, of course, occupied by the Wombat, the nocturnal star of three essays. Whether asleep in Rossetti’s silver epergne or tunneling under the lawn, the wombat never fails to fascinate Cuppy, clearly supplying his alter ego for the animal kingdom.

• Language: English
• Publisher: David R. Godine, Publisher
• Release date: Apr 15, 2016
• ISBN: 9781567925753

Will Cuppy

Will Cuppy was a literary critic and humorist, known for his funny and satirical articles and books about nature and history.  He wrote for The New Yorker and other magazines, and his articles have been collected into books that are both amusing and factual.  

Reviews for How To Attract The Wombat

[dinadansfriend · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I am very fond of Cuppy's style, and the prose is of a warm quality. Sadly, a very large number of wild-life films have robbed the book of much shock value. If you want to read the text for what could have been a killer wild-life oddity documentary, or a short TV series, here it is. The book was originally published in 1935.

[harrymacdonald · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

It's tough for me not to heap up rose petals for the sainted Author of THE DECLINE AND FALL OF PRACTICALLY EVERYBODY, but the sad fact is that this book just isn't very funny, or even clever.

[pjsullivan_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is Cuppy's third animal book. It is mostly about mammals, including problem mammals, but also gets into amphibians, birds, insects, swans, Greek poets, and practically everything else. It is rich in empirical science, such as, "A decapitated salamander cannot make quick decisions," and philosophical insights, such as, "Intelligence is the capacity to know what we are doing and instinct is just instinct. The results are about the same." And even aesthetics, "The wart hog is often called the ugliest of all animals, but the rhinoceros is uglier because he is larger and there is more of him to be ugly." One does not need to be a wombat fancier to enjoy this book, which is Cuppy-strength funny. Lavishly and delightfully illustrated by Ed Nofziger.

[sunnydale_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Cuppy's offbeat sense of humor shines through this treatise on the animal world. It's a series of short essays, each about an animal (including, of course, the Wombat). There are tidbits of actual information tucked among the silliness -- not very much of it, but what there is seems to be accurate. All in all it's a delightful read.