I read this in my high-school English class and read it once more (thirty years later) for a book I'm working on. How much I missed in school, and how...moreI read this in my high-school English class and read it once more (thirty years later) for a book I'm working on. How much I missed in school, and how brilliantly and subtly Conrad uses his narrators to diffuse the story in the mists of the Congo river and make it endlessly fascinating, elusive, and complex! I was reminded of how little my class analyzed the historical and racial background and motifs in the book; how much we didn't want to delve into our own imperial legacies. (less)
I hadn't read this book since high school and, for a writing project, decided to read it again. It's an efficient and atmospheric analysis of late Bri...moreI hadn't read this book since high school and, for a writing project, decided to read it again. It's an efficient and atmospheric analysis of late British imperialism and the racism and casual cruelty of the Anglos in a forgotten outpost of the Raj. A mildly satirical tone compensates for the not-particularly-convincing emotional drama of one man's love for a wholly undeserving female. Orwell has no interest in giving us likeable characters—everyone is sordid, jaded, and out for themselves—and his portrayal of women is shallow to non-existent.(less)
My first experience of Eliot's interlinked poems was through an old vinyl recording of Alec Guinness reading them. Although I was all of seventeen, an...moreMy first experience of Eliot's interlinked poems was through an old vinyl recording of Alec Guinness reading them. Although I was all of seventeen, and understood little of what was being said, the impact upon me was huge. I knew that some of the poems were written during the Second World War and that they were steeped in Christian mysticism, and so set out to learn more about them.
I have now lived for thirty years with these poems, committed whole swathes of them to memory, and studied Eliot's writings at university. Now I see read these poems not so much as an attempt to explain (and justify) the via negativa of the Christian mystical tradition (with some Hinduism thrown in), but as reflections on the failures of old age and the evanescence of time as our expectations, hopes, and dreams gutter and die. They feel to me deeply humane and humble, in spite of their occasionally grumpy and frequently magisterial pronouncements on history, eternity, and faith.
I used to love the "I said to my soul be still. . ." excerpt, and even recited "We shall not cease from exploration" at my wedding ceremony. But my favorite passage these days is the second part of "Dry Salvages"—"Where is there an end of it?": a beautiful reflection on the Annunciation artfully constructed alliteration that extends across the stanzas.(less)
This was my second reading of THE WHITE BONE (and it's amazing how much I'd forgotten over a decade, apart from the mournful, even desperate, tone of...moreThis was my second reading of THE WHITE BONE (and it's amazing how much I'd forgotten over a decade, apart from the mournful, even desperate, tone of the book). Like an elephant (I imagine), the book takes its time and you have to be patient as it works its way into your imagination. It's outstanding and impressive how Barbara Gowdy has constructed the interior and exterior worlds of the elephant—from the curse/blessing of their memories and their experiences of musth and estrus; to their ability to read each other's minds and those of other animals; to their enhanced sense of smell and their fatalism, superstitions, and even their spiritual sense (the last of which is the least convincingly depicted). These animals are all individuals, with their quirks and foibles, their passions and their prejudices. Spreading like a stain throughout the book is the random and horrific violence of the two-leggeds (i.e. humans), who decimate the elephant families.
It's evident from how "worked" the text feels, how hard Gowdy has labored not to make what she creates seem mere anthropomorphism. Instead, she has used her considerable sympathetic imagination to consider a sensory world very different from ours, yet one where these animals can grieve, can communicate over long distances, have acute olfactory senses, and possess large brains. All of this is now standard ethological knowledge. What is less thoroughly explored is how these sensory capacities might affect the emotional and, yes, psycho-spiritual worldview of these highly evolved creatures upon whom our greed and mendacity have wreaked such havoc. This is where a novelist of great sensitivity can offer insights—and Barbara Gowdy does just that. THE WHITE BONE may not be "true" or "real," and yet it feels right and illuminating. Highly recommended.(less)
Delightfully written, straightforward chronology from an independent scholar who does a great job distilling the complicated history of a complicated...moreDelightfully written, straightforward chronology from an independent scholar who does a great job distilling the complicated history of a complicated place. (less)
“I woke up one morning about six months ago and felt a strong urge to read some Trollope (Anthony, that is, rather than Joanna). I'm not quite sure wh...more“I woke up one morning about six months ago and felt a strong urge to read some Trollope (Anthony, that is, rather than Joanna). I'm not quite sure what brought on this urge, since I'd managed to live more than four decades on this earth without giving him much thought. I'd managed to make it through English Literature at Oxford without paying him any attention, although given that I got my degree without bothering to read Middlemarch while a friend of mine triumphed in the same subject without ever turning his critical eye to Hamlet, that's not saying much.
I had an incentive. Trollope is said to have modeled his most famous creation—the town of Barchester—on my home town of Salisbury, England; so I had a foothold on the cliff-face of his imagination. But, although I'd read a good amount of Tripe in my time and had imitated in my own writing his contemporary Codswallop, Trollope was, literally, a closed book to me.
The Way We Live Now, considered Trollope's masterpiece, felt too daunting a read—a typical Victorian triple-decker of a novel. So I started with his novella, The Warden, and have just completed the second in the series, Barchester Towers. The Warden tells the gentlest of tales about a Mr. Harding, who's the warden of an old-person's home called Hiram's Hospital. It turns out that the job pays much more than the work required, and when the rather self-righteous John Bold finds out, he feels it's not right and alerts the press. There's a deal of ecclesiastical brouhaha before all is resolved: John Bold is tamed, not least by marrying the younger of Mr. Harding's daughters, and Mr. Harding's decency and modesty are confirmed. The novel is leisurely and extremely even-tempered; even the religious controversies that were roiling England at the time (the 1840s and 50s) are handled with a certain reactionary amusement. Only when Trollope turns his attention to politicians and the press—in the form of the Jupiter, his satirical take on the London Times—does his prose gain some Dickensian teeth (although Trollope only uses his molars, whereas Dickens will employ his incisors when he needs to).
Barchester Towers is more of the same, except longer. The characters of the ingratiating and ambitious Obadiah Slope; Mrs. Proudie, the battle-axe wife of the henpecked Bishop of Barchester; and Signora Neroni, the beautiful but affected elder daughter of the feckless Stanhope family, add some texture to the novel. But the remaining characters are virtuous and punctilious (even those satirized are generally looked on with benignity by the genial narrator), and the plot—basically about who will get what position in the local church—is uneventful. As in The Warden, Trollope is amiably discursive, addressing the reader at frequent intervals to tell him or her what's happening and not to worry because everyone will get what they deserve. He curtails or willfully avoids the big scenes that Dickens would have spent fifty pages describing, and even anticipates the reader's frustration by lamenting that Mr. Longman, his publisher, hadn't given him another volume so he could satisfy the reader's desire for a rousing conclusion. As it is, the novel still feels attenuated.
None of this is exactly annoying, but it's all a little sleepy—rather as we may say Salisbury is in comparison with London, Dickens' great stage. I think Trollope knows this; at one point, one of his characters returns home to read the final installment of Little Dorrit: a nice variation of the inability topos. To his credit, Trollope does remind you that what happened in the Anglican Church during this period mattered, not merely doctrinally but also because so many middle-class professions depended on preferment within its hierarchy. It's also interesting to read a Victorian novelist whose temperament is conservative and whose politics are Tory, as opposed to the Whiggish and nonconformist Eliot, or the thundering reformer Dickens himself.
That said, I think my yen for reading Trollope has been satisfied for a few more years.(less)
Wolfe has put together an eclectic anthology on what the subtitle calls (after Derrida) "the question of the animal." Wolfe's excellent introduction a...moreWolfe has put together an eclectic anthology on what the subtitle calls (after Derrida) "the question of the animal." Wolfe's excellent introduction and his long examination of Wittgenstein's famous dictum—"If a lion could talk, we could not understand him"—range much further than simply an analysis of language games and are worth the price of the book in themselves. I look forward to reading Animal Rites immensely. I thought Steve Baker's "Sloughing the Human" about animals and art deserved to be longer and Alphonso Lingis's "Animal Body, Inhuman Face," which I'd read in Animal Others, once more provded fascinating, weird, and very suggestive. I can't say I really "got" Judith Roof's essay on Freud's psychoanalysis of the single-celled organism, and my predisposition not to take psychoanalysis seriously as a science probably colored my response to Derrida's deconstruction of Lacan's Cartesianism in "And Say the Animal Responded?" (Wolfe explains Derrida much better than I think Derrida does!) Ursula Heise's chapter on virtual reality, dinosaurs, and Philip K. Dick's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" was thought-provoking and Charlie LeDuff's investigation inside a racially divided slaughterhouse in North Carolina once more reminded me of how politicized and gendered the killing and consumption of animals is. Indeed, this piece (which comes at the end of the book) highlights that when it comes to animals, it (philosophy, theory, food) can never be only about theory. A well-constructed and provocative volume. (less)
This is the second time I've read John Gray's book, and it's as shockingly clear-eyed and pungent this time around. STRAW DOGS is an evisceration of t...moreThis is the second time I've read John Gray's book, and it's as shockingly clear-eyed and pungent this time around. STRAW DOGS is an evisceration of the complacent Western assumptions about so-called progress and liberal democracy that have marked the post-World War II world. It is also a demolition of ideas of human exceptionalism, our dreams of God, and our faith in science (paradox intended). The book came out in 2002 and a few elements (i.e. Al Qaeda's world-historical role) are dated, but these do not invalidate what is a bracing thesis that forces one to think. This book slaughters an entire herd of sacred cows—and I say that as a vegan! Even the most convinced secular ameliorist will scramble to justify just what it is that makes them believe in their specialness as a humanist and a human. Highly recommended. (less)
This is an exceptional and clear overview of the extensionist (utiltarian, deontological, Aristotelian, and contractarian), postmodern, and ecophiloso...moreThis is an exceptional and clear overview of the extensionist (utiltarian, deontological, Aristotelian, and contractarian), postmodern, and ecophilosophical lines of thinking about our duties toward, and thoughts about, non-human animals. Fellencz lays out the arguments, I believe, fairly and accurately and provides thoughtful critiques that accept the terms of the arguments and show how (in his view) they're flawed. I find myself in sympathy with the trajectory of his book toward dismissing any overarching thesis that can apply to the entirety of the non-human world and cover all the ways we experience non-human life. But I don't buy the author's quasi-mystical belief that hunting animals is the purest way of reckoning with our animality. Nor do I buy that the animals are somehow "calling" us to join them in a true relationship by having us kill them—I assume with a bow and arrow or spear and not a gun. By valorizing the hunter, Fellencz falls prey (as it were) to the same kind of idealism he accuses Kant and others of possessing. Up to that point, Fellencz has been quick to cast a skeptical eye over theories that promise to reveal the "truth" about the core of "the animal" and that offer the "right" way to respond to animals. I think the logic of his argument forces us to accept a radical dislocation that cannot be repaired and that our truest relationship with animals has to be to leave them alone. But, of course, we humans want to be meddling; our restless search for our authentic selves must mean we impose ourselves on others—animals will always be the unwitting victims of our quest to understand why we are here. Nonetheless, I would heartily recommend this thought-provoking and insightful book. (less)
James Carse was my professor at NYU twenty years ago when I was taking a master's degree in religious studies. I found him a very congenial thinker an...moreJames Carse was my professor at NYU twenty years ago when I was taking a master's degree in religious studies. I found him a very congenial thinker and his turns of mind soon became my own. Reading his book again almost twenty years after reading it for the first time, I find myself nostalgic for Carse's paradoxes and how subtle displacements shift the obvious almost unnoticeably into the mystical. I'm also struck by how melancholy a book it is. Carse wrote it in the wake of his wife's death and my time at NYU was shadowed by it. Almost every essay contains a sense of the passing of years, of roads not taken and dreams not fulfilled. Yet Carse's humanity and generosity toward failure and wrong turnings transform them into unexpected rewards and acknowledgments of life's fragility and beauty. I'm willing to forgive the occasional glibness and slick turn of phrase and perhaps an overloading of an insignificant event with too much philosophical weight precisely because of the passing of those years and because Carse (in this book and through his classes) gave me so much to think with and about. (less)
First of all: full disclosure. I could have published THOUGHT at Lantern Books. Jensen's agent sent me the manuscript, and I said that I would publish...moreFirst of all: full disclosure. I could have published THOUGHT at Lantern Books. Jensen's agent sent me the manuscript, and I said that I would publish the text but that the costs associated with publishing a glossy photography book, with all the quality of reproduction that photographers (rightly) expect, would make it too expensive for us. Happily enough, the book found a home with a non-profit publishing concern and the book is handsomely produced. The photographs are attractive, although I didn't find them all that compelling—except in as much as the animals themselves are wondrous to behold, confined and diminished though they are by and in their enclosures.
Jensen's text has lost none of the power I remembered when I read it in manuscript. He could have used some editing, but his honesty and focused, withering rage left me steaming at the egregious, outrageous, shockingly bald cruelty and exploitation required for zoos to exist. His argument, righteous and convincing, is that zoos are a function of our boredom, our commercialism, our exploitation of those weaker than ourselves, and our estrangement from (and contempt for) the natural world. The photographs amplify (and yet also, I believe, subtly contradict) his belief that wild animals isolated from their natural environment are not animals at all, because they do not express the aliveness and being-in-the-world that is the animal itself. The photos show us that, for all that we may remove the being from the world in which it has its being, a captive lion's face still captivates us. Something residual (although impoverished) remains to draw us in—if we would just look.
Nonetheless, I highly recommend this book as a wake-up call and call to arms for the natural world. (less)
The book starts out, as you might imagine, as a piece of fun poking fun at academic and literary pretentiousness and a guide to how to get away with s...moreThe book starts out, as you might imagine, as a piece of fun poking fun at academic and literary pretentiousness and a guide to how to get away with sounding smarter than you are. However, because Pierre Bayard is a French philosopher, the discussion soon deepens and what began as a jeu d'esprit becomes a treatise on epistemology, the meaning of reading, and just what it is we expect or imagine books to offer us. In the end, HOW TO TALK ABOUT BOOKS is about the evanescence of memory, the impossibility of ever encompassing the world of knowledge, and how trivial and pathetic are our efforts to grasp anything but a tiny fragment of that universe. Not that the book is depressing: it is learned and witty, and not overburdened with undue weightiness. In its perverse and very knowing way, an ostensibly ephemeral and light-weight book about how nothing is worth knowing and memory's fickleness sticks in the mind long after finishing, and is worth re-reading. Quel surprise!(less)
Complex and densely written—full of the allusive wordplay one expects from continental philosophy and critical theory—this book is deeply suggestive i...moreComplex and densely written—full of the allusive wordplay one expects from continental philosophy and critical theory—this book is deeply suggestive in the best sense of the word: it points to fascinating and fruitful lines of inquiry about our relationships with animals; by which is meant, a relationship with ourselves. Don't look for prescriptions or proscriptions; just allow the mind to explore the range and depth of Derrida's (and Lawlor's) thinking throughout Derrida's corpus. Some lines of thought—particularly on globalization and sovereignty—felt strained in their relation to animals, but in general this is one of those books that continue to grow in the mind and warrant re-reading. (less)
Stanley Cavell, Cora Diamond, John McDowell, Ian Hacking, and Cary Wolfe (all but the last being professors of philosophy) examine a range of issues s...moreStanley Cavell, Cora Diamond, John McDowell, Ian Hacking, and Cary Wolfe (all but the last being professors of philosophy) examine a range of issues surrounding animals—with particular attention being given to J.M. Coetzee's The Lives of Animals. I was struck in reading the book how much writing style matters in framing an argument: Cavell and Diamond are discursive (sometimes annoyingly so) whereas Wolfe is dense and allusive (sometimes bafflingly so). Both Hacking and McDowell bring in their own experiences with ideas in a way that is refreshingly personal. More than anyone, Diamond reminded me of how brilliantly Coetzee fashions the personality of Costello as an exemplum of the limitations of philosophy—forcing us to recognize the pain, inexplicability, and the unsuitability-for-the-academy that the artist must confront (and that the suffering of animals encapsulates). In that regard, this volume is at its core an examination of how philosophical language faces up to/comes face to face with/faces down the language of poetry, fiction, and even photography in attempting to describe (what we know about) animals, and, beyond that, what it is possible to know at all. As I found when I read The Lives of Animals, analytic or moral philosophers tend to circumscribe how they talk about what is going on in The Lives of Animals (and in his work in general)—a point made by a number of folks in this volume—and so fail, I think, to capture Coetzee's subtlety and depth and the perturbation that his writing causes. Diamond comes close and I think Wolfe (the only non-philosopher) does well. But Coetzee is "ahead" of all of us, I think. This book suffers a little from not being edited (the chapters are all collected speeches and could have been tightened and the typos fixed), but it is an intellectually stimulating volume that I recommend.(less)
All I knew about Arthur Ransome before reading this book was that he was the author of SWALLOWS & AMAZONS, the first in a series of books that (un...moreAll I knew about Arthur Ransome before reading this book was that he was the author of SWALLOWS & AMAZONS, the first in a series of books that (unlike many of my contemporaries) I managed to avoid reading when I was a child. I had no idea that he had been a journalist, secret agent, and confidante of Lenin and Trotsky during the Russian Revolution and had been eyewitness to the turmoil that preceded and followed. THE LAST ENGLISHMAN is well-written and painstakingly researched. The reason it only merits three stars is that I'm not sure the subject of the biography deserved so detailed a work: in fact, it's length only points up how minor a figure Ransome seems in the end. Chambers doesn't disguise the fact that Ransome was at times a fellow traveller, willfully naive, and somewhat two-faced as he navigated the very complicated and turbulent waters of Europe during the second half of the second decade of the twentieth century. Frankly, Ransome comes across as self-absorbed, at times almost perversely so; however, his genius for self-preservation and for emerging from the conflict with his reputation still intact is something to behold. I'm not sure the biography compels me to read any of his work; but I did learn more about the Revolution and some of the geopolitical struggle that took place beyond the Western Front. (less)
Disclaimer: Wendy Lee works at my publishing company. I hadn't read her book before I hired her, and I wouldn't have not hired her if the book stunk....moreDisclaimer: Wendy Lee works at my publishing company. I hadn't read her book before I hired her, and I wouldn't have not hired her if the book stunk. Thankfully, HAPPY FAMILY is marvelously well-executed work of fiction. The story is a very quiet one until the last thirty pages where it explodes with a bang all the more forceful and shocking because of the understated and carefully observed narrative of the preceding two hundred pages. One of the distinctive pleasures of the book is how expertly Wendy has framed her sentences and how precisely she writes: no word is wasted and no character is not precisely delineated. The most courageous feature of the book is to pass all observations through a narrator who is not merely unreliable but almost entirely opaque to herself: her motivations and real affections are alien to her, and the reader is forced to supply them (frantically at the end) in order to make sense of a person whose recessiveness mirrors the invisibility she feels in the U.S. Wendy is currently working on a novel with a bigger canvas, which I feel will give her the opportunity to paint with more colors and thicker brushes. As it is, she has mastered the miniature. (less)
Calarco's book is a mercifully clear and thoughtfully compiled series of essays on the ways Heidegger Levinas, Agamben, and Derrida approach "the ques...moreCalarco's book is a mercifully clear and thoughtfully compiled series of essays on the ways Heidegger Levinas, Agamben, and Derrida approach "the question of the animal". I especially appreciated Calarco's thorough and well-considered essay on Derrida, and how he asked the kinds of questions of this and other philosophers that analytic philosophy and those demanding a more obviously directive ethic sometimes feel that such philosophy frustrates: viz.: what do we DO then?! It helps to have a grasp of the lingo, but of the recent books I've read, this one is the clearest. It takes its time to unfurl its arguments and isn't concerned to show you just how clever it is at playing with language. Recommended.(less)
A decade after her arrival in our consciousnesses, I don't think we've plumbed the depths of Elizabeth Costello—the curmudgeonly, exhausted, and elder...moreA decade after her arrival in our consciousnesses, I don't think we've plumbed the depths of Elizabeth Costello—the curmudgeonly, exhausted, and elderly Australian novelist who populates a number of the fictions of J. M. Coetzee. She complicates and ironizes Coetzee's LIVES OF ANIMALS and (naturally) ELIZABETH COSTELLO, and she pops up to excoriate "John" in SLOW MAN. For me, Costello is the welcome voice of literature and unregulated (even inadmissible) feeling in the dry and argumentative discourses of both analytical and Continental philosophies, and Mulhall's is a timely and exhaustive analysis of Elizabeth Costello as device and persona. Mulhall's sentences can be frustratingly opaque and baroque, and I didn't find his excursus into theories of modernism and art to be particularly helpful. Nonetheless, he recognized that Coetzee is challenging philosophical thinking about animals in ways that (many) philosophers seem ill-equipped to respond to, especially given the many shades of irony that tint Costello's characterization and presence within the books.
As an animal activist myself, I see myself in Costello—with all my faults and tics. I recognize her exhaustion, her recognition of her inadequacy and inconsistencies, her shocked irritation that others cannot see what she sees, her envy at their comfort, and her sense that any contribution (whether written or in her life) that she might make is wholly inadequate to the horrors that surround her. That embodiedness cannot be rationalized, which is why the novelist or poet (as Costello might say) is better able to explore our animality than the philosopher.
Mulhall's book is a bit of a slog but well-worth the time and effort and I look forward to reading it again. (less)
Christopher Moore has the uncanny knack of being silly and vulgar at every opportunity and yet getting to the emotional and philosophical heart of thi...moreChristopher Moore has the uncanny knack of being silly and vulgar at every opportunity and yet getting to the emotional and philosophical heart of things. I read LAMB, his riotously amusing and yet sincere exploration of what historians of religion call The Jesus Question, and was impressed that, among the bawdiness and crass humor, Moore gave us a touching and complex portrait of how it might have felt to know a humane and yet remarkable individual whose divinity was somehow understandable while also being incomprehensible. FOOL in as blunt a manner as possible somehow gets at the heart of the mystery of Shakespeare's KING LEAR—the relationships among the daughters, and between the Fool and the king. Yes, there's a lot of clowning (natch) and sex and bawdiness (Moore's attempts to out-Shakespeare Shakespeare), but, as with LAMB, you can see him working through the themes of Shakespeare's play—the meaning of folly, madness, treachery, and fatherhood—with intelligence and sensitivity. At the end, you'll look at LEAR in a different light, and that is a genuine accomplishment. Highly recommended. (less)
As the editor makes clear, this edited volume brings together a wide variety of writings about animals from a loosely continental-philosphical perspec...moreAs the editor makes clear, this edited volume brings together a wide variety of writings about animals from a loosely continental-philosphical perspective. Some of the essays are very specific ("The Role and Status of Animals in Nietzsche's Philosophy") while others are more general ("Bodily Being and Animal World: Toward a Somatology of Cross-Species Community"). You have to have a high degree of tolerance for allusive and technical philosophical language, and sometimes you wonder whether it couldn't have been said more directly and at less length, but many of the articles are provocative and insightful. I found William McNeil's long essay on Heidegger's Freiburg Lectures 1929–1930 particularly useful in unpacking Heidegger's thinking about animals, while Peter Steeves's thoughtful and playful introduction and essay and Alphonso Lignis's meditation threw up many interesting ideas. Definitely worth a read. (less)
What a curious book! Paola Cavalieri composes a Socratic dialogue to argue for a non-speciesist view of animal rights, and four respondents critique (...moreWhat a curious book! Paola Cavalieri composes a Socratic dialogue to argue for a non-speciesist view of animal rights, and four respondents critique (not to say criticize) the dialogue. Cary Wolfe and Matthew Calarco approach from (broadly) the perspective of critical theory and continental philosophy; Harlan Miller is mainly sympathetic to Cavalieri's project; and John (J. M.) Coetzee assails the bloodlessness and lack of realism in any philosophical approach by saying that most people (and animals) crave the physical pleasure that eating meat and killing other animals involve, and we need to get real and stop being so high-minded.
Cavalieri's somewhat peevish response to Wolfe and Calarco is to complain that continental philosophy essentially has its head up its arse and doesn't deal with reality that laws and rights matter. Calarco and Wolfe in turn tell her that she misunderstands such continental philosophers as Derrida and Levinas and that they (and Calarco and Wolfe) are interested in going beyond the anthropocentric and perfectionist boundaries that define the languages of rights and laws. Coetzee claims he was misunderstood and that, sure, thinking is as important as having sex and fun, but, he states, we need to employ more than just the brain in persuading people to change their habits. Calarco, Wolfe, and Miller come back in the end to wonder in their various ways and with differing degrees of intensity whether the spat between continental and analytical philosophy isn't all beside the point, given the vast horrors of industrialized animal abuse, but I'm not sure that the harmony is that convincing. Wolfe wonders whether they're all just talking past each other—which, by the end, I also felt.
I find myself in sympathy with Wolfe and Calarco, and to a degree with Coetzee—although the last could have been a little less chilly in his championing of the quest for la dolce vita. On the other hand, I find myself wondering, perhaps along with Cavalieri, just what, therefore, we're expected to "do" when confronted with animal abuse. I'm also frankly irked (like Cavalieri) by Derrida's non-vegetarianism and Levinas's failure to acknowledge the animal's "face"—and no amount of fancy talk can convince me otherwise than it's some kind of failure of nerve. Nonetheless, whether you're analytic or continental, this is an intriguing book, not least as a curiosity. How Cavalieri must feel to write something and then have, within the pages of the same book, her effort taken to task so strongly, I can't imagine!(less)
Disclaimer: I have visited and given money to the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, and so should you. Daphne Sheldrick has made a major contribution to...moreDisclaimer: I have visited and given money to the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, and so should you. Daphne Sheldrick has made a major contribution to wildlife conservation and her work is to be applauded. Her memoir is a somewhat conventional "Out of Africa" story: hardy pioneers, gauzy sunsets, magnificent vistas, and lots of lots of stories about the animals who have come her way. She was obviously deeply in love with David, and yet he strangely remains a somewhat remote character. He is defined by his deeds, as he and other rangers carve out Kenya's wildlife parks and reserves and heroically try to stop the decimation of the wildlife caused by our insatiable demand for trinkets made from ivory and potions made from rhino horn.
It's hard to criticize a book for what it does NOT say, but, having worked for over ten years with another Kenyan conservationist, Wangari Maathai, I have a very different perspective on the history of Kenya that Dame Daphne covers. (If you haven't read Maathai's memoir, Unbowed, I would recommend it.) What struck me most noticeably in Dame Daphne's story was the almost complete absence of black Kenyans. Nearly all of the main characters are white and of British stock. The Mau Mau rebellion is treated as an affront against white settlers. Daphne's daughter studies in South Africa, and some of her relatives retire there to live, but there is only one reference to Apartheid. We get no sense of the conservation movement in the context of Kenya as an independent country. We do not hear from black Kenyan political figures or the press or, indeed, from the poachers. We never learn the biographies of the black attendants who look after and even live with the animals. Tribes are mentioned in connection with their hunting practices, but these Africans are rarely individualized. It's almost as if they're simply background for the white people's attempts to save the animals.
None of this, I'm sure, is done deliberately. Dame Daphne speaks Swahili and has lived in Africa all her life. Many of the white people she worked with were born in Africa. Yet she considers herself British first and foremost and she appears to share the bitterness of the settlers in southern Africa who felt sold out by British government as it retreated from Empire in the fifties and sixties. The animals she has spent her life rescuing have personalities and biographies, and her life with them is fondly and deeply remembered. It's a pity that all those black Africans who helped her all those years couldn't have been afforded the same attention.(less)
I'm a marathon runner and I'm a vegan, so I've a soft spot for Scott Jurek. I've seen him speak twice in person and he seems like a nice guy, and his...moreI'm a marathon runner and I'm a vegan, so I've a soft spot for Scott Jurek. I've seen him speak twice in person and he seems like a nice guy, and his memoir hasn't changed my opinion of him. He's made an enormous contribution to distance running, and shown that you can be a world champion on a vegan diet! He doesn't shy away from the "v" word, but he doesn't talk much about animal welfare (he initially became a vegan for health and environmental reasons).
I hadn't realized that Scott had grown up in such difficult circumstances. His family was not wealthy, his mother got multiple sclerosis very young, and his father was obviously not able to cope with it and lashed out at everyone. I would have liked to have heard more about the father, but the relationship has obviously broken down completely. Scott was a good boy, got great grades, and took to skiing and then running well. The book describes his runs and the challenges he faced in training and accomplishing his record-breaking feats. He's clearly very competitive and tough (it's clear that you have to be to weather the physical challenges of running 100+ mile races over forbidding terrain), but he's also a quester, humbled by the natural world, and in love with the brother- (and sisterhood) of ultramarathoners.
Thankfully, the book is free of the dudish, macho tone that marred Born to Run for me—a function of the fact that Scott clearly doesn't feel the need to puff his chest out over his achievements. Born to Run had more science than Eat and Run; Eat and Run has more recipes, and thankfully less of the tough-guy posturing that unfortunately seems to dominate the language of ultrarunning, in spite of the oft-stated quests for transcendence! Yes, Scott has an assholish friend called Dusty who seems to act as his alter ego and shadow side and spurs Scott onto greatness, but he doesn't overwhelm the book. I, for one, could have used less of the puking and bodily malfunctions (why are readers interested in this?) and more attempts to answer the rhetorical questions that litter Eat and Run: particularly, what these runners are trying to prove and what drives them on. (less)
I should acknowledge that I know and like Jenny Brown, have contributed money to the Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary (WFAS), am thanked in the acknowl...moreI should acknowledge that I know and like Jenny Brown, have contributed money to the Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary (WFAS), am thanked in the acknowledgments, and consider myself a vegan animal rights activist—so perhaps I may not be considered a disinterested critic. Jenny and co-author Gretchen Primack have done an excellent job in giving a face to, and providing information about, the horrors of factory farming, as they intersperse stories about the rescues at WFAS with Jenny's life story (including her losing half a leg to cancer at a young age and her undercover work for PETA and Farm Sanctuary). The voice is authentically Jenny's—by turns folksy, direct, witty, and unvarnished—and readers will get a real feeling for her commitment to the humane treatment of farmed animals. I would have liked a little more in the book on the challenges faced in raising money for a sanctuary and perhaps some acknowledgement of some of the tougher questions that surround opening and maintaining such sanctuaries: the ethical questions that arise when animals become sick and deformed because they were bred to die young; the funds that these animals consume; the challenges of zoning in Woodstock; more on changing attitudes in society and yet the resistance some people have to change (wanting to eat "happy meat" rather than go vegan). As it is, the book contains moments of great power and is a passionate and well-argued rallying cry for not eating animals. (less)
Loading...
