Book Review: Animal Revolution

Image: the cover of the book has a tan background with mostly muted red letters in the foreground. The letters are capitalized and vary in width randomly throughout each word. Between each line of the title is a red line. Across the top is "animal" below that is the first half of "revolution" and below that the second half, below that is the author's name- Ron Broglio. In small black letters underneath is "illustrations by marina zurkow" and below that in red letters again, "afterword by Eugene Thacker. The N in animal, V and U in revolution, R in Ron, G in Broglio are black. The N has a drawing of a bird on top, the V a rabbit in a boat, the U a frog holding a flag, and the R has a narwahl. There is also a boar's face with a radiation symbol on in on the second O in revolution.
 

Ron Broglio and Marina Zurkow's Animal Revolution is a truly strange book. I went into it expecting something similar to Jason Hribal's Fear of the Animal Planet (which I adored,) but ended up with something more creative. The book sort of mixes poetic story telling with factual histories and philosophical analysis. I ended up rereading the back after a while to be reminded of what the blurb was. I had not heard of "speculative nonfiction" before this as I always assumed that the "speculative" in "speculative fiction" was part of what made it fiction. Apparently, there is a whole genre which takes information from real historical facts and imagines or predicts a story. I am still unsure where the line is between the nonfiction and fiction methods of writing (as they sound pretty similar to me.) A good speculative fiction story uses reality is a catalyst for creation. Either way, I understand what the book is going for.

I do wish that Broglio would have fleshed out his understanding of other animals' behavior, consciousness, experiences, and desires just a little bit more before writing this book. There were many times that I was left thinking, "you are almost there." That said, I am coming from a pretty radical place in terms of how I see other-than-human animals (as an ethical, collective liberation style, vegan who believes in reducing or eliminating my harm and exploitation of others as far as is possible and practicable in all areas of my life.) Many other readers may find themselves at a different place, which may make this book a good jumping off point if the writing style works for you.

I found some of the speculative nonfiction to feel more fictional than actual fiction- often to the point of anthropomorphism. I do not use that word the way many people intent on excusing harm towards other animals misuse it (such as claiming any assumption that another animal is anything other than a thoughtless meat machine is "anthropomorphism.") Real anthropomorphism for instance is a barbecue place with a sign depicting a pig in human clothes happily grilling her own dismembered body parts. But, I digress. What I mean is that the way he writes nonhuman animals' stories seems not to take their experiences that we are able to predict and understand into account enough. Along with the speculative nonfiction part, the book moves through different styles which at times are quite academic.

The reason I say that Broglio is "almost there" is that he is obviously excited and fascinated by various accounts of nonhuman animals resisting their exploitation by humans. But, the ideas and ways of expressing them feel unfinished at times. There is a lot of binary language and referring to other animals with objectifying or disparaging words such as "it" or "invasive." These are common mistakes made by people who have not fully integrated their understanding of other animals as more than objects. However, I was left wondering at times if this was intentional. Many of the sections in the book seem to take the reader on an adventure, ultimately having a better respect for or understanding of other animals in the end. We begin with a story about "vermin" and end with a declaration that there are these rad creatures just living life who deserve as much.

The philosophical musings are interesting at times and brought up important points often left out of discourse around the lives and cultures of other animals. Often, in order to persuade people to have respect for them, people will describe animals as "innocent" or "babies" or "just like us," none of which is inherently true. People who seek to exploit animals will use the opposite arguments as their reasoning- that nature is savage or that animals are inferior in x way. Broglio does neither. He acknowledges that there are differences between species that mean there are things that other animals experience that we will never truly understand as we are not them (and vice versa.) But, instead of using this as a way to reduce animals to the few things humans can wrap our heads around, he uses this reality to call attention to the countless things we never could imagine that will often exceed the abilities, sensations, etc that humans are limited to. He acknowledges animal revolution, language, and culture- as those are the best human words we have- and also acknowledges that humans' exploitation and oppression of other animals is a big part of what has prevented these things from being centered or even noticed in human fields of view. Nonetheless, other animals are integral parts of our cultures and story telling. Rather than telling the reader to see other animals differently, he urges us to integrate them and who they truly are (outside of what can be taken from them by us) more into our realities.

Marina Zurkow's illustrations throughout the book were also strange and interesting. Some of them can be seen on the cover above, but there are more inside. Combining her artistic talent with Broglio's creative writing styles makes the book an almost avant-garde art project and I mean that positively. Overall, I don't know if I "love" this book or not. I am still chewing on it. But, I am glad I read it, if only for the experience of something very different. I have read many books on human and other animal liberation and have never read one quite like this.

This was also posted to my goodreads.

Book Review: Boys, Beasts, & Men

Image: The cover of the book is red with monochrome black illustrations of several dogs. There are 4 heads in total shown in a range from the neck forward to only showing half of their face. The dog in the center faces left and has a long, pointed, curvy tongue. Other dogs have several extra eyes on their head or embedded in their bodies. There are also eyes peeking out of the red background and splotches of black all over. Curving in and out of the illustration is the title of the book in large, capital yellow letters, one word on each line. Across the bottom in white is Sam J Miller's name. Below that in small black letters is "author of Blackfish and The Art of Starving."

I was actually introduced to Sam J. Miller via an excellent short story of his that I read in an anthology long ago. Thus, I was excited to learn that his new short story collection, "Boys, Beasts, & Men," was due out this year. Like most collections of stories, I found this to be a bit of a mixed bag. This makes it hard to rate. Overall, though, there are some great stories in here. 

As usual, Miller exhibits a ton of creativity. There are elements of horror and fantasy woven throughout the book in different ways. There are multiple stories where he takes real and major historical events (often from gay history such as the stonewall uprising and the HIV/AIDS plague) and adds supernatural elements to them. There are multiple stories where life is given to nonliving, inanimate objects in bizarre ways. As I hoped, there was regular exploration of gay mens lives and psyches in a variety of ways from the throes of love to the despair of self hatred and fear. There is a story set in the King Kong universe, told from a different perspective than I have ever seen. There is a soviet era story I enjoyed and wondered, as a USAmerican, what Russian readers would think of it. I thought "Calved" was probably the best story, though I have mixed feelings about the ending. "Angel Monster Man," is a very creative way of exploring gay culture, art, and propaganda with a horror element I have never seen before. 

Between each story is a snippet of a larger story tying things together. This was my first experience with this narrative tool. This spooky gay cruising journey was an interesting connecting thread with unexpected turns. I also loved the graphic design of this book. The fantastic illustrations that move beyond the front cover and throughout the pages really added to my reading experience. The end of the book tells us more about how old some of the stories are and even includes notes from Miller on each story, why and how he came up with the ideas, and so on. He also confirmed my nagging suspicion that some of the characters were familiar to me- there were a couple of Easter Egg cameos with characters from Blackfish City and The Blade Between.

The places that I think Miller could have done better were the way he wrote Black characters and his use of the r-slur. He needs to work on the whole show-don't-tell thing regarding Black characters. Any time we met one, it was as if his writing skill went downhill, relying on telling you someone was Black for you to know, but still never making me believe it. I did not have this experience with other characters of his. I also object to his use of the r-slur in multiple stories. I understand that sometimes, ugly words are written to show someone's character or what a disabled character has gone through. But, I found the prevalence of it to be unnecessary and felt that there were other ways he could have gone about it.

I did enjoy this collection overall. Even when I hit a spot in Miller's writing where I didn't exactly love the story, there was always a depth of creative risk-taking that makes me happy that he went for it. It's this sort of thing that brings new and visionary fiction into being.

This was also posted to my goodreads.