An astonishing collection of essays that looks at how people think about, relate to, and use animals—as comfort, entertainment, and symbol. Diski describes the London Zoo and the rise of nature programming as settings of colonial power. She characterizes the anthropomorphic animals of childhood tales as a confidants for children in the uncertain adult world. Diski also spends a great deal of time on philosophical questions of animal realities, the kind of questions that I often think, and that led me to this book. 

Though she has shared her home with cats for much of her life, Diski acknowledges the opacity of a pet’s mind, of really knowing them or even conceiving of the way in which they think, perceive, and know anything. We cannot to imagine a bat as a bat would, only as a human trying to (humanly) be a bat. The well-presented truth of this not knowing is the grand structure of this book, and one that becomes as much a comfort as a discouragement. 

Chapter 7, “Under the Skin,” was an uncomfortable read for me. Diski describes a paranoia around parasites that she had for some time, and later brings up the phenomenon of animal hoarding. She writes that the presence of too many animals in a human space bothers people, which I agree with—but I also think there’s a fear of lack of control, and it’s more the uneasy thought of losing yourself than of being overtaken by animals. 

There are parts of this book that I’d like to have spent more time with, and I’m definitely interested in reading more by Jenny Diski!