To test the limits of our ability to inhabit lives that are not our own, Charles Foster set out to know the ultimate other: the nonhumans. To do that, he chose five animals and lived alongside them, sleeping as they slept, eating what they ate, learning to sense the landscape through the senses they used. In this lyrical, intimate, and completely radical look at the lives of animals, Charles Foster mingles neuroscience and psychology, nature writing and memoir, and ultimately presents an inquiry into the human experience in our world, carried out by exploring the full range of the life around us.
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I wouldn't dissuade others from reading this book, but I wouldn't recommend it either. I wasn't sure what I expected from a book detailing a man's efforts to live like animals, but I found this to be a rather underwhelming read. The writing itself was respectable, but I just didn't get sucked into the material like I'd like to. I was constantly rolling my eyes and waiting for the book to end. Foster is constantly using odd metaphors to describe his experiences, and I sort of get lost in figuring out what he's trying to say. He gets really preachy about the way humans live and, while I agree with certain points he makes, he puts off a holier-than-thou vibe that I don't really appreciate. It seems like his goal is less education, and more bragging about his own state of mind while criticizing others. He's also very biased in his views of certain animals. For instance, he mentions more than once how he wishes foxes would eat cats. This is relevant, how? This book felt more like a chance for him to ramble on about himself and why he's superior than any sort of actual learning experience. I mean, to be fair I did learn a few things, but for the most part I was just trying to push through everything. Also: who brings their eight-year-old into a hole in the ground to eat earthworms for weeks? Maybe that's just me, but whatever.
I picked this up after hearing a segment about it on This American Life. I was expecting a weird/funny story like the one about the goat guy who tried to digest grass. This is similar, but also very different. It's really an extended meditation on qualia, on to what extent it is possible to truly understand the subjective life experience of any other. It's absolutely one of the strangest things I've read, but it was also charming and very engagingly written.
