This is the powerful beautiful & chilling sequel to the bestselling Straw Dogs John Gray draws on an extraordinary array of memoirs poems fiction & philosophy to make us re-imagine our place in the world. Writers as varied as Ballard Borges Freud & Conrad are mesmerised by forms of human extremity
- experiences on the outer edge of the possible or which tip into fantasy & myth. What happens to us when we starve when we fight when we are imprisoned? & how do our imaginations leap into worlds way beyond our real experience? The Silence of Animals is consistently fascinating filled with unforgettable images & a delight in the conundrum of our existence
- an existence which we decorate with countless myths & ideas where we twist & turn to avoid acknowledging that we too are animals separated from the others perhaps only by our self-conceit. In the Babel we have created for ourselves it is the silence of animals that both reproaches & bewitches us. Reviews: The Silence of Animals is a new kind of book from Gray a sort of poetic reverie on the human state on the state that is of the human animal... He blends lyricism with wisdom humour with admonition nay-saying with affirmation making in the process a marvellous statement of what it is to be both an animal & a human in the strange terrifying & exquisite world into which we straw dogs find ourselves thrown". (John Banville Guardian). " Interesting original & memorable... The Silence of Animals is a beautifully written book the product of a strongly questioning mind. It is effectively an anthology with detailed commentary setting out one rich & suggestive episode after another". (Philip Hensher Spectator). About the author: John Gray has been Professor of Politics at Oxford University Visiting Professor at Harvard & Yale & Professor of European Thought at the London School of Economics. He now writes full time. His books include False Dawn: The Delusions of Global Capitalism Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans & Other Animals & The Immortalization Commission: The Strange Quest to Cheat Death. His selected writings Gray's Anatomy was published in 2009."