Animal Stories by Zambreno, Kate;

Short description:

A curious exploration of mortality, alienation, boredom, surveillance and how we regard ourselves among the animals.

Animal Stories&&&160;begins with Kate Zambreno’s visit to the monkey house at the Jardin des Plantes in Paris, where one stark tree ‘seems to be the stage design for a simian production of Waiting for Godot’. But who are the players and who is the audience, and can they recognise each other?

What follows is a series of reports from the deep strangeness of the zoo, a space that is ‘more often than not deeply sad, an odd choice for regular pilgrimages of fun’. Amid these excursions with their young children, Zambreno turns to Garry Winogrand’s photographs and John Berger’s writings on animals, reshaping the spectator as the subject to decipher our complex ‘zoo feelings’ – what we project, and what we refuse to see. In ‘My Kafka System’, which dovetails with these zoo studies, Zambreno thinks through the notebooks and animal stories of a writer known for playing at the threshold between species, continuing their investigation into the false divide between human and animal.

In writing that is inquisitive and inventive, Zambreno renders visible the enclosures we construct and those we occupy ourselves.

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Long description:

A curious exploration of mortality, alienation, boredom, surveillance and how we regard ourselves among the animals.

‘Few human animals have Zambreno’s baleful honesty, insight, or relish for comedy, when they look at themselves’ Daisy Hildyard, author of&&&160;Hunters in the Snow&&&160;and&&&160;Emergency

Animal Stories&&&160;begins with Kate Zambreno’s visit to the monkey house at the Jardin des Plantes in Paris, where one stark tree ‘seems to be the stage design for a simian production of Waiting for Godot’. But who are the players and who is the audience, and can they recognise each other?

What follows is a series of reports from the deep strangeness of the zoo, a space that is ‘more often than not deeply sad, an odd choice for regular pilgrimages of fun’. Amid these excursions with their young children, Zambreno turns to Garry Winogrand’s photographs and John Berger’s writings on animals, reshaping the spectator as the subject to decipher our complex ‘zoo feelings’ – what we project, and what we refuse to see. In ‘My Kafka System’, which dovetails with these zoo studies, Zambreno thinks through the notebooks and animal stories of a writer known for playing at the threshold between species, continuing their investigation into the false divide between human and animal.

In writing that is inquisitive and inventive, Zambreno renders visible the enclosures we construct and those we occupy ourselves.

Praise for Animal Stories:

‘I loved the precision of Kate Zambreno’s Animal Stories – a literal attention so heightened that it becomes distinct and peculiar. Are we looking at seal or a walrus? Which zoo is in the background of the photograph? At what time of day was Kafka sitting in the Paris cafe, and how many yoghurts did he eat there? This attention made me trust these stories. Few human animals have Zambreno’s baleful honesty, insight, or relish for comedy, when they look at themselves’ Daisy Hildyard, author of Hunters in the Snow and Emergency

&&&39;Zambreno&&&39;s lucid writing and relentless inquisitiveness shine.&&&39; Publishers Weekly

&&&39;Lyrical meditations on the creative imagination and the animal in all of us...[Animal Stories] is a tour of the zoo cages of the writer’s own mind, opened for all of us to gaze on and gasp.&&&39; Kirkus Reviews

&&&39;A searching, charmingly discursive meditation...Zambreno’s reveries flit between criticism, history, and memoir—an approach well-suited to the diffuse melancholy of the zoo.&&&39; Dan Piepenbring, Harper’s

&&&39;A personal, historical, and philosophical reflection on the gap between human and animal perceptions of each other…[Animal Stories] considers the tragicomic implications of our own animal being&&&39; Brian Dillon, 4Columns

&&&39;A view on the world using a deep field of focus that renders details near and far with equal clarity. Ostensibly unrelated figures are thus united within the writer’s rich conceptual frame...Blazingly erudite...Animal Stories reflects [Zambreno’s] vital unboundedness.&&&39; The Brooklyn Rail

&&&39;Zambreno is one of our most inventive and formally daring writers…[Animal Stories] sees them at the height of their powers.&&&39; The Millions

&&&39;Zambreno, a brilliant feminist author whose insights have recontextualized generations of writings by women, visits the monkey house at a Parisian zoo. This window into simian behavior offers Zambreno some astonishing new insights into the whole of human behavior—including how we consider ourselves in relation to other animals.&&&39; The Seattle Times

Praise for Kate Zambreno:

&&&39;Kate Zambreno has invented a new form. It is a kind of absolute present, real life captured in closeup.&&&39; Annie Ernaux, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature

‘Zambreno’s oeuvre is not just a series of books but a body of thought, an uninterrupted exhortation on incompleteness and the intersections of life, death, time, memory, and silence’ Sarah Manguso, The Paris Review
 

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