Animal(iterature): From ungulates to two-legged animals

The Mammal Guide of Southern Africa by Burger Cillié

Tattered, battered and well thumbed, Cillié’s guide to mammals (from herbivores to carnivores to “very large” ones) has been a must-pack on my holiday reading list since I was six. Given to me by my mum — who did ask if I’d like to exchange it for an Afrikaans copy (I was oddly resistant) — the guide nourished my deep interest in mammals, taught me how to pronounce “ungulates” (I initially took some, ahem, liberties) and stood me in good stead at a trivia night in Melville, where I (casual flex) was the only participant to know that a leopard’s scientific name is Panthera pardus. Well spotted or what?! 

The Owl and the Pussy-Cat by Edward Lear

A nonsense poem which left me wishing that I could join the elegant fowl and beautiful pussy (“you are, you are! A beautiful pussy you are!”) as they go to sea in a pea-green boat, sailing away - for a year and a day - to the land where the Bong Tree grows, getting married (for too long they have tarried!), by a Piggy-wig with a ring at the end of his nose, dining on mince and slices of quince, eaten by a runcible spoon, followed by dancing in the moon. Swoon, swoon...

Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George

This fictional  account of Alaska’s barren North Slope region, its wolf population and the threats these animals face from human interference and the harsh climate is told through the eyes of a young, orphaned Inuk girl, Julie/Miyax. Struggling to reconcile Inuit traditions with an increasingly modernised Alaska, Julie finds herself lost in the wild after fleeing from a foster family whose teenage son (who has an unnamed intellectual disability) sexually assaults her. She establishes a relationship with a wolf pack in the merciless Arctic. As a preteen, I found Julie’s journey offered a fascinating, empathetic glimpse into a world so unlike my own (as well as instilling an irrelevant fear of rabid wolves).

Animal Farm by George Orwell 

My earliest memory of sociopolitical and economical ideologies was my parents’ maxim, “commercials propagate the capitalist agenda”, spoken whenever my sister and I asked them why they raised us in a TV-free household. Fast-forward to 2009, when I — then 15 — first read Orwell’s satirical, allegorical critique of communism under Stalin's totalitarian regime. And was left thinking, “cogent point, cogent point, cogent point”. A beast fable, Orwell’s anthropomorphic animals are the antithesis of cute Disney creatures. From forceful to menacing, rebellious to optimistic, cowardly to wily — these plaasdiere’s refrain of “four legs good, two legs bad” will remain long after you’ve finished reading it (if only to quote it, ad nauseam, in Animal Farm-related grade 11 English exams).

We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler

A novel that also employs anthropomorphism, yet — unlike Orwell — Fowler doesn't take a satirical approach to attaching human characteristics to non-human animals, but employs this notion via science. Narrated by protagonist Rosemary — raised alongside a chimpanzee named Fern as part of a “twin-sisterhood” animal-human experiment, conducted by her psychologist father — We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves is an analyses of interpersonal and interspecies relationships. Ranging from scientific experiments, to Homo sapiens' tendency to anthropomorphise chimps, to Rosemary questioning her identity when not near Fern, Fowler's novel takes the reader on a scintillating journey of simians and siblinghood. 

Animal by Lisa Taddeo 

Taddeo’s feverishly hypnotic debut novel is an unforgiving exploration of the cruelty men are capable of inflicting upon women, and the societal constraints women are subjected to in patriarchal societies. The protagonist Joan’s rejection of enforced oppression is tangible as she takes the reader into her past, which is permeated by violence, loss, disappointment and persecution. Animal is as much an examination of women defying repression as a harrowing look at family and belonging. A relentless read.