Why We Love Reading About Animals by Barbara J. King

Why do we love to read about animals? The answer seems quite simple, the library cat Dewey of Vicki Myron's surprise bestseller, the wild snail of Elisabeth Tova Bailey's memoir, or John Grogan's dog Marley each offers more charming and inspiring company than the average critter.

I couldn't imagine a life without animals. My life involves the science of observing moody monkeys and apes, a tendency to get slimed rather than sublime in the company of snails, and the herding of a horde of seven fractious cats at home. So, to read an engaging animal book for me is to escape from the litterbox-and-hairball detail for a while.  

But the anthropologist in me knows there's more to it. Our connection to animals is ancient. At the dawn of the human lineage, our ancestors were prey rather than predators; our senses evolved as we observed--and only sometimes evaded--big cats and raptors. Later, when we became hunters, keen tracking of animals' habits and movements allowed us to spear mammoths and thus gain meat and fat for fuel, skins for clothes, and bones for shelter construction.   

Our evolving link with animals went beyond mere survival. When our Neanderthal cousins began to bury their dead, they placed bear bones in the grave. Early Homo sapiens painted their cave walls with colorful, exquisitely realistic lions and horses--and mysterious images of hybrid animal-people (a bird-headed man, a buffalo-woman). Later on, when life in settled villages took off and animals were first domesticated, people were sometimes buried together with a lamb, a dog, or a cat. All these clues point to an emotional resonance that we've long felt for animals.

Through observation and experience, we humans came to know that animals feel their lives. Yes, they arouse with fear when fleeing a carnivore on their heels, or express excitement when stumbling upon a fruit-laden tree, but it's more than that. Think of what modern science tells us: When a loved one dies, chimpanzees--in Africa as well as in zoos--surround the body in a ritual expression of grief. Elephants, separated for decades, trumpet with joyful recognition when at last reunited. Our pets--dogs, cats and birds-- become acutely attuned to the moods of those they live with (including us), and respond to those moods with thoughtful behavioral choices of their own.

Okay, maybe the wild snail is an exception: an emotional mollusk is probably a stretch. Still, so many animals play through infancy and adolescence, grow wise in adulthood, and meet the end of their lives in ways that resonate with us. They appear as immersed in their day-to-day concerns as we are in ours. 

Our species evolved alongside, and because of, other animals, and we're not the only thinking, feeling beings on this planet. It's this deep intuitive knowledge that makes reading about animals so compelling.



Barbara J. King is Chancellor Professor of Anthropology at the College of William and Mary and the author of Being With Animals: Why We Are Obsessed with the Furry, Scaly, Feathered Creatures Who Populate Our World. She has studied monkeys in Kenya and great apes in various captive settings. She writes essays on anthropology-related themes for bookslut.com and the Times Literary Supplement (London). Together with her husband, she cares for and arranges to spay and neuter homeless cats in Virginia.  Visit her at www.barbarajking.com