Monday's Reviews Today: Lusdan's Stories & de Waal on the Human Animal
-- Publishers Weekly, 6/4/2009 3:27:00 PM
In James Lusdan's story collection, It's Beginning to Hurt, the poet/novelist "packs a devastating punch" in a series featuring "middle-aged, middle-class" characters dealing with everything from bouts with cancer to infidelity. Per our review: "Jewels of resignation and transformative personal disaster, these stories are written so simply and cleanly that the formidable craft looks effortless." And in primatologist Frans de Waal's The Age of Empathy: Nature’s Lesson for a Kinder Society, the author "deflates the human assumption that animals lack the characteristics often referred to as 'humane.'" But de Waal isn't out to prove that animals can think and feel but "that humans are not greedy or belligerent because animals are; such traits are far from organic or inevitable but patently manmade."
It's Beginning to Hurt: Stories
James Lasdun. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $23 (240p) ISBN 978-0-374-29902-6
This accomplished poet, novelist and story writer's collection packs a devastating punch. Lasdun peels back the facades of middle-aged, middle-class types through their run-ins with cancer, infidelity and loss that lead them to deal with unexpectedly large and often ugly recognitions. The title story is less than three full pages, but generates near-boundless futility and regret as a businessman, having just attended the funeral of a long-forgotten former lover, can't help falling back into the old habit of lying to his wife about how he's spent the day. "The Incalculable Life Gesture" builds to a climax of relief as an elementary school principal, feuding with his sister, follows through a series of tests that indicate he has lymphoma—until a specialist reveals the truth of his ailment. In "Peter Kahn's Third Wife," a sales assistant in a jewelry boutique models necklaces for a wealthy wine importer who brings in a series of successive wives-to-be over the years. Jewels of resignation and transformative personal disaster, these stories are written so simply and cleanly that the formidable craft looks effortless. (Aug.)
The Age of Empathy: Nature’s Lesson for a Kinder Society
Frans de Waal. Crown, $25.99 (320p) ISBN 978-0-307-40776-4
De Waal (Chimpanzee Politics), a renowned primatologist, culls an astounding volume of research that deflates the human assumption that animals lack the characteristics often referred to as “humane.” He cites recent animal behavior studies that challenge the “primacy of human logic” and put animals on a closer behavioral footing with humans. Based on the studies of mammals, from primates to mice, de Waal proposes that empathy is an instinctual behavior exhibited by both lab rats and elephants. But de Waal’s aim isn’t merely to show that apes are transactional creatures with a basic understanding of reciprocity—but to reveal that the idea that humans are naturally calculating, competitive and violent is grounded in a falsehood willfully and selfishly perpetuated. Throughout the book, de Waal illustrates how behaving more like our wild mammalian cousins may just save humanity. His contention, colored by philosophical musings and fascinating anecdotes of observed emotional connections between animals, argues persuasively that humans are not greedy or belligerent because animals are; such traits are far from organic or inevitable but patently manmade. (Sept.)
