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daytonm's review
2.5
This is a hard one to review. For the first 260 pages I was thinking 3.75-4 stars despite certain frustrations, but the last two chapters left me literally nauseous.
The good: Howsare is very effective at exploring the various contradictory ideas (and practices) that contemporary US culture has about deer— we love them, shoot them, feed them, eat them, and more. I learned a lot about the bizarre worlds of deer “management” and hunting, as well as some interesting stuff about deer in history. The writing is engaging, I am glad I read it, and I will definitely use some of this information in future research and writing.
The bad: Howsare is far far more interested in the people who kill deer (whether for food or to control deer populations) than anyone else. On some level this makes sense: we kill a lot of deer, and spending time with the people who do this killing allows her to explore various relevant issues. But I am pretty sure the only anti-hunting/culling activist she directly interviews (definitely the only one in the last half, when she explores culling and hunting in more detail) gets a single paragraph in which she is dismissed as self-righteous without actually exploring her ideas. While Howsare believes the death of a deer is sorrowful, perhaps even a tragedy, she does not meaningfully consider that killing, at least some of it, might be wrong: we get brief allusions to vegetarians from Pythagoras to Jonathan Safron Foer, accounts of controversies over culling, but she is dismissive, even disdainful, without even considering their ideas. She is right that we live in a world where some level of death and killing is inevitable, and probably right that we should face this and grapple with it rather than cling to an impossible purity. But there is still a good argument for reducing the killing we do! To be clear my critique here is not simply that she disagrees with me but that she treats anyone with my perspective as sentimental and unserious, while being very focused on her own sentiments and the sentiments of hunters—it’s not like she’s treating the issues hyper-rationally herself. (Another critique is the whole book is a little structureless, just kind of following her own curiosity in ways that can be interesting but aren’t comprehensive or always satisfying.)
The ugly: The last two chapters she accompanies hunters (including many in her own family) and gets really into the idea that killing animals is really the best way to be intimate with nature. Not to pyschoanalyze but it seems she has some guilt over being a liberal intellectual and really wants to prove she can connect with men who hunt? She marvels over how much a man “loves” a deer who he has just shot in the liver and subjected to a slow painful death. She suggests that hunting deer would be a better way to get our meat then factory farming, ignoring that we don’t actually need meat and if we replaced factory farmed meat with hunted deer I’d guess we’d pretty quickly annihilate deer. She eats lots of venison throughout and romanticizes the chickens she raises on her own land (and makes her husband kill). Again, I think there are interesting questions and ideas to explore with respect to hunting (Emma Marris’ book Wild Souls does a good job even when I disagree), but here Howsare just sort of embraces the vibes of killing animals even though she doesn’t do so herself, in a way that feels gross and, as I said, left me literally nauseous upon finishing the book.
The good: Howsare is very effective at exploring the various contradictory ideas (and practices) that contemporary US culture has about deer— we love them, shoot them, feed them, eat them, and more. I learned a lot about the bizarre worlds of deer “management” and hunting, as well as some interesting stuff about deer in history. The writing is engaging, I am glad I read it, and I will definitely use some of this information in future research and writing.
The bad: Howsare is far far more interested in the people who kill deer (whether for food or to control deer populations) than anyone else. On some level this makes sense: we kill a lot of deer, and spending time with the people who do this killing allows her to explore various relevant issues. But I am pretty sure the only anti-hunting/culling activist she directly interviews (definitely the only one in the last half, when she explores culling and hunting in more detail) gets a single paragraph in which she is dismissed as self-righteous without actually exploring her ideas. While Howsare believes the death of a deer is sorrowful, perhaps even a tragedy, she does not meaningfully consider that killing, at least some of it, might be wrong: we get brief allusions to vegetarians from Pythagoras to Jonathan Safron Foer, accounts of controversies over culling, but she is dismissive, even disdainful, without even considering their ideas. She is right that we live in a world where some level of death and killing is inevitable, and probably right that we should face this and grapple with it rather than cling to an impossible purity. But there is still a good argument for reducing the killing we do! To be clear my critique here is not simply that she disagrees with me but that she treats anyone with my perspective as sentimental and unserious, while being very focused on her own sentiments and the sentiments of hunters—it’s not like she’s treating the issues hyper-rationally herself. (Another critique is the whole book is a little structureless, just kind of following her own curiosity in ways that can be interesting but aren’t comprehensive or always satisfying.)
The ugly: The last two chapters she accompanies hunters (including many in her own family) and gets really into the idea that killing animals is really the best way to be intimate with nature. Not to pyschoanalyze but it seems she has some guilt over being a liberal intellectual and really wants to prove she can connect with men who hunt? She marvels over how much a man “loves” a deer who he has just shot in the liver and subjected to a slow painful death. She suggests that hunting deer would be a better way to get our meat then factory farming, ignoring that we don’t actually need meat and if we replaced factory farmed meat with hunted deer I’d guess we’d pretty quickly annihilate deer. She eats lots of venison throughout and romanticizes the chickens she raises on her own land (and makes her husband kill). Again, I think there are interesting questions and ideas to explore with respect to hunting (Emma Marris’ book Wild Souls does a good job even when I disagree), but here Howsare just sort of embraces the vibes of killing animals even though she doesn’t do so herself, in a way that feels gross and, as I said, left me literally nauseous upon finishing the book.
manorclassics's review against another edition
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
3.0
Not really for me, but covers a lot.
I'm not sure what I expected going into this; more natural history and deer watching I think. This book deals with that, but also with deer in history, art and culture as well as a lot about hunting, both the practice and ethics of it. I'm not really interested in hunting so I found those parts quite dull and I struggled to engage with the author's style. However, it's a very interesting book and although I didn't really like it I think I'm in the minority.
I'd like to thank the publishers and Netgalley for kindly providing me with an advance copy of this book. All opinions are my own.
I'm not sure what I expected going into this; more natural history and deer watching I think. This book deals with that, but also with deer in history, art and culture as well as a lot about hunting, both the practice and ethics of it. I'm not really interested in hunting so I found those parts quite dull and I struggled to engage with the author's style. However, it's a very interesting book and although I didn't really like it I think I'm in the minority.
I'd like to thank the publishers and Netgalley for kindly providing me with an advance copy of this book. All opinions are my own.
courtney_scott1025's review against another edition
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
4.5
Wow. I grew up in the Midwest but in an urbanized area. I saw deer but usually mostly from afar. I wanted to learn more about our history and interaction with them. I love deer now. I want everything to do with deer. The storytelling is fantastic in this book. My only personal gripe is that I wish she went into more of the racism with hunting. It felt very glossed over for the length of the book, but great information.
aclinton13's review against another edition
informative
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
slow-paced
4.25