ONLY THE ANIMALS
Fiction The mussel quotes Kerouac ONLY THE ANIMALS: Stories By Ceridwen Dovey 248 pp. Picador Reviewed by Madison Bush The premise: what can we learn about the nature of human conflict looking through the eyes of animals whose fates are intertwined with writers of the past century? Ten posthumous animal reflections interspersed with obscure cameos by lesser-known writers give us the answer: human conflict is a tragic, foolish waste that causes animal misery via domestication, subjugation, and carelessness. Did we need ten stories to realize that? Probably not, but after a trip through time, beginning at the end of the nineteenth century in Australia, continuing to World War I in France and Germany, World War II in Poland and Hawaii, through the Cold War, and ending with the conflicts of the past twenty years in Mozambique, Bosnia, Iraq, and Lebanon, you will walk away certain of one thing: in the end, the world would be better left to the beasts. Anyone who thinks t...