I’ve spent decades reading books on the roles animals play in human cultures, but none have ever made me think, and feel, as much as this one. It’s a devastating meditation on our relationship to the natural world. It might be the best book on animals I’ve ever read. It’s also the only one that’s made me laugh out loud ... The formal exuberance of this modern bestiary is exhilarating. In one extraordinary piece, Passarello pleats together the timeline of the history of electricity in America with that of the history of elephants in America, weaving light and darkness, electrocution and executions into a scorching meditation on the violence at the heart of modernity ... Despite her intellectual brilliance, Passarello rejects the dry style of the anthropologist or cultural critic ... Animals Strike Curious Poses speaks of and for the voiceless hordes with whom we share the earth, shows us how we make sense of them and, crucially, how they make sense for us ... the clear analytic coherence running through its wildly disparate essay forms being perhaps this book’s fiercest grace. No matter how long-dead its animal subjects, this is a book with burning current relevance, and not just because we are living through the sixth great extinction ... Animals Strike Curious Poses is as much about our human frailties as it is about animals...It gives one hope that we humans might not be so lonely after all.
Packed with an assortment of facts, myths, and unexpected connections, each of the book’s essays is a deeply researched ride that presents an almost staggering amount of information. But the essays are also highly playful, never taking themselves too seriously ... Throughout, Passarello works as a sort of critical ringmaster, announcing both the sideshow act and our short-sighted desire for it. She entertains as she exhibits our missteps, and points to the ways we project onto—and define ourselves in relation to—animals.
...[a] phenomenal collection of essays ... Passarello treats her subjects with dexterous care, weaving narratives together in a way that investigates, honors, and complicates her subjects ... assarello has created a consistently original, thoroughly researched, altogether fascinating compendium.
