A review of Animal People by Charlotte Wood

I want to begin with a rant. I am really concerned by the rising importance of animals in our society; the way that pets have become little humans in status and treatment. I started being concerned ten years ago with the emergence of gourmet pet food lines (does the animal really care?), but it has gone out of control. We have a lady in our street who talks to us through our dog, and her pet/child is referred to as a “fur-person” and has an annual outing to watch the Christmas lights. The other day I drove through Terrigal and saw a pet resort that is 5-star! Your little dear can have a holiday while you do, including use of a lap pool, a doggy commando course, day spa and room service!!

This seems to me to be an obscene way of treating animals (not honouring their ‘animalness’), when at the same time in our society children are abused or neglected or homeless, but I admit I cannot control how people spend their money or treat their pets.

Perhaps more controversially, I do not think we should have stopped an Australian live meat export industry because of the animal-slaying practises of another country; while certainly any issues of apparent torturing of animals needed to be investigated. It seemed to me that in that situation we put the rights of animals over the rights of humans: both the people wanting to buy fresh meat, and the farmers in Australia who had their livelihood impacted. Also, ridiculously, even the animals were not spared suffering, since hundreds of cattle were kept in narrow pens for weeks awaiting shipment or repatriation.

I do want to reassure you that I am not in favour of cruelty to animals, and I do buy free-range eggs.

In Animal People, Charlotte Wood touches on some of these issues. It is a novel where all the action happens in just 12 hours in the life of our anti-hero Stephen, a bit of a no-hoper who works in a hot-food kiosk at Taronga Zoo.

He makes sarcastic comments about the way the signs at the zoo treat the animals as if they are humans, and expresses amazement at the (real-life) celebration of a bomb detection dog in Afghanistan which won a medal for bravery in spite of the obvious fact that the poor dog had no choice about what he was doing or where he was.

At the same time Stephen notices that the human beings around him (including himself) treat each other worse than they treat animals. He accidently hits a spaced out woman when she runs in front of his car. Everyone criticises him for taking her to receive medical treatment and trying to follow-up on her wellbeing (“are you mad, she will sue you” “she’s a druggie, she’s not worth helping”).

Around Stephen, people gossip and judge and mock and hurt and pamper and criticise each other.

By creatively using the weather – a typical Sydney hot and humid Summer’s day – and Stephen’s growing frustration and anxiety, Wood builds the tension through the narrative until you know it is all going to end in tears.

It is a thought-provoking novel from an accomplished Australian author. I really enjoyed Wood’s The Submerged Cathedral, and note that Stephen is actually a character from her acclaimed novel The Children. However, it is not necessary to have read that book to enjoy Animal People.

Wood has some controversial material in this book. It seems that as a society we need to be sure of our understanding of persons, and their importance, especially in relation to animals. Animals are different to humans, and humans are more important than animals. The danger is that there will be a growing pressure to extend our already-stretched resources to animals, when we cannot even care sufficiently for the people around us. One friend pointed out to me that animals are easier to love than people: they are never cruel, difficult or challenging! While pondering these issues, the beautiful prose and interesting characters are other great reasons to read this book.