Being a Beast: Adventures Across the Species Divide

by Charles Foster

Overview

Charles Foster set out to know the ultimate other: the non-humans, the beasts. And to do that, he tried to be like them, choosing a badger, an otter, a fox, a deer, and a swift. He lived alongside badgers for weeks, eating earthworms and learning to sense the landscape by smell rather than sight. He tried to catch fish in his teeth while swimming like an otter, rooted through London garbage cans as an urban fox, was hunted by bloodhounds as a red deer, nearly dying in the snow. And he followed the swifts on their migration route over the Strait of Gibraltar, discovering himself to be strangely connected to the birds.

A lyrical, joyful, and completely radical look at the life of animals—human and other—Being a Beast mingles neuroscience and psychology, nature writing and memoir to cross the boundaries separating the species.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250132215
Publisher:	Picador
Publication date:	07/03/2017
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	256
Sales rank:	603,274
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

CHARLES FOSTER is a Fellow of Green Templeton College at the University of Oxford. He is a qualified veterinarian, teaches medical law and ethics, and is a practicing barrister. Much of his life has been spent on expeditions: he has run a 150-mile race in the Sahara, skied to the North Pole, and suffered injuries in many desolate and beautiful landscapes. He has written on travel, evolutionary biology, natural history, anthropology, and philosophy. His books include Tracking the Ark of the Covenant and The Sacred Journey.

Table of Contents

Prologue 1

1 Becoming a Beast 1

2 Earth 1: Badger 29

3 Water: Otter 79

4 Fire: Fox 115

5 Earth 2: Red Deer 151

6 Air: Swift 185

Epilogue 212

Acknowledgments and Bibliography 219

Index 227

Editorial Reviews

"Intensely strange and terrifically vivid . . . An eccentric modern classic of nature writing." —Dwight Garner, The New York Times

"Spectacularly unconventional . . . A meditative romp that leaves you laughing out loud (and occasionally cursing in anger), even as you soak up the spray of science . . . Steeped in scholarship yet directed by his own quirky mysticism, Foster brilliantly takes on questions of animal consciousness, cognition, emotion, and theory of mind." —The New York Times Book Review

"A tour de force of modern nature writing . . . that shows us how to better love the world beyond ourselves." —The Guardian (London)

"A blend of memoir, neuroscience and nature writing . . . that pushes zoological obsession to even greater heights—and depths." —The Wall Street Journal

"Gonzo nature writing . . . Extremely entertaining." —The New York Review of Books

"An embed with the animals . . . Foster's quirky book shows how emulating animals not only helps our understanding of them—it makes us more human." —People

"Foster wants to be the wild thing, living as wild things live. In Being a Beast, he nearly convinces us that such shape-shifting is possible in the way he lyrically tells his stories—uncensored, intensely descriptive and often hysterical." —Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

"Extraordinary, hair-raising, and deliberately funny . . . Atrophied senses limit our lived experiences. Be a beast, says Foster, to become a better human." —Maclean’s

"A splendid, vivid contribution to the literature of nature . . . Daringly imaginative . . . There's not an ounce of sentimentality in any of it, but instead good science and hard-nosed thought. Furthermore, Foster has the gift of poetry." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"A fascinating exploration . . . His attempts to actually be a beast make this a different sort of wildlife book. . . . Ultimately, Foster found reciprocity in his unusual and daring immersion in nature, feeling that he now knows the essence of animals' lives and is somehow newly known in return." —Booklist (starred review)

"Woven through the lyrical narrative are neuroscience, facts about the creatures, and philosophy. . . . This book's fascinating premise, with its unique perspective of how animals perceive their surroundings, will be of interest to scientists, naturalists, and those who enjoy reading about natural history." —Library Journal

"An extraordinary account . . . In lesser hands this could come off as trite or patronizing, but Foster is quick to acknowledge his shortcomings and errors in perspective regarding his project, and he projects a healthy sense of humor. . . . This approach, along with his willingness to address and avoid the temptation for anthropomorphism, makes his book interesting and informative." —Publishers Weekly

"When it comes to wilderness porn, it's going to be very hard to beat Being a Beast." —London Evening Standard

"Being a Beast is a strange kind of masterpiece: the song of a satyr, perhaps, or nature writing as extreme sport. Foster marks out the distance between us and the beasts in a way that helps sharpen their boundaries and ours—and ours are not always where we think." —Financial Times

"This year's H is for Hawk, the book leaves you feeling that perhaps Helen MacDonald's bestseller might have been improved if she had only tried to fly." —World Travel Guide

"An extraordinary book." —Sunday Times (UK)

"Living like an animal in order to write about it sounds like a gimmick. It isn't. Groundbreaking? Definitely." —The Scotsman

"A highly original attempt to break free from the anthropocentrism that often characterizes nature writing . . . A rich, joyful, and inspiring book." —The Independent (UK)

From the Publisher

…a meditative romp that leaves you laughing out loud…even as you soak up the spray of science…Steeped in scholarship, yet directed by his own quirky mysticism, Foster brilliantly takes on questions of animal consciousness, cognition, emotion and theory of mind…All the while, Foster celebrates the earthiness of animal life. He's like a learned naturalist who has swallowed a fistful of magic mushrooms, providing febrile clarity and doing for science what Technicolor did for the Bible.

The New York Times Book Review - Vicki Constantine Croke

…intensely strange and terrifically vivid…Being a Beast reads like what you might get if you took a writer like Julian Barnes or Anthony Lane and dropped him into the woods with only a granola bar and a pointy stick…Mr. Foster builds a case that it is important and, indeed, oddly humanizing to try to get close to nature. You may find yourself in agreement while being glad it's him out there, not you…this is not a typical nature book. Mr. Foster will go far out of his way to make a stray point, or especially to make a joke. He takes his topic seriously enough to hazard not being taken seriously at all…Being a Beast strikes me as an eccentric modern classic of nature writing. It is packed with wriggling pleasures.

The New York Times - Dwight Garner

05/16/2016
"Nature writing has generally been about humans striding colonially around," writes Foster, a qualified veterinarian and research fellow at Oxford University. He instead opts for the four-legged approach, writing about nature through his experience mimicking the lifestyles of badgers, otters, foxes, red deer, and swifts. His book is an extraordinary account of his time spent traversing the forest near his home, digging into the earth to build an underground sett to live in as a badger (which also involved eating lots of earthworms), enlisting six children to help replicate the otter's use of dung to mark territory (and the otter's extraordinary metabolic rate), and substituting himself in lieu of a deer being hunted by hounds. In lesser hands this could come off as trite or patronizing, but Foster is quick to acknowledge his shortcomings and errors in perspective regarding his project, and he projects a healthy sense of humor; his account of encountering a police officer while attempting to recreate a fox's experience by sleeping next to a busy road is particularly rich. This approach, along with his willingness to address and avoid the temptation for anthropomorphism, makes his book interesting and informative. (June)

Publishers Weekly

05/15/2016
While myriad scientists and naturalists have penned books about animals after studying them in their natural habitats, Foster (medical law & ethics, Oxford Univ.) writes from their points of view after attempting to approximate their lives in the wild. He believes people cannot truly know animals by watching them, but that we must see the world as they do. The author lived as a badger in a makeshift den, eating worms and observing the environment by scent; swam as an otter, trying to catch fish with his mouth; adopted the habits of an urban fox, hiding in backyards, then foraging for food in the garbage; and followed the migrations of swifts and imagined how it must feel to live in the air. Woven through the lyrical narrative are neuroscience, facts about the creatures, and philosophy. VERDICT This book's fascinating premise, with its unique perspective of how animals perceive their surroundings, will be of interest to scientists, naturalists, and those who enjoy reading about natural history.—Sue O'Brien, Downers Grove P.L., IL

Library Journal

Consciousness hasn't been proven in animals, but Charles Foster has tried to approximate it with his immersive experiences in wildness. He's sampled the lives of badgers, otters, foxes, red deer, and swifts and here shares his thoughts. Foster's narration is often amusing, delivered with self-mockery in his British accent. For example, he likens the tastes of worms that make up most of a badger's diet to wines and recalls being sneered at by a vole while attempting fox-like behavior. At other times, he waxes philosophical on the way animals "inhabit the instant" and on the unfair methods hunters use to kill deer. Listeners may not get a full understanding of being a beast, as the title promises, but the author’s insights are entertaining and thoughtful. J.A.S. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine

JULY 2016 - AudioFile

Consciousness hasn't been proven in animals, but Charles Foster has tried to approximate it with his immersive experiences in wildness. He's sampled the lives of badgers, otters, foxes, red deer, and swifts and here shares his thoughts. Foster's narration is often amusing, delivered with self-mockery in his British accent. For example, he likens the tastes of worms that make up most of a badger's diet to wines and recalls being sneered at by a vole while attempting fox-like behavior. At other times, he waxes philosophical on the way animals "inhabit the instant" and on the unfair methods hunters use to kill deer. Listeners may not get a full understanding of being a beast, as the title promises, but the author’s insights are entertaining and thoughtful. J.A.S. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine

JULY 2016 - AudioFile

★ 2016-04-19
In which an English author, tired of the high street, takes to the fens and burrows to learn how animals live.What does an otter do? One imagines a life of lolling in a sparkling tidal pool, nibbling on salmon. Is there more to it? Indeed, writes Oxford ethicist and veterinarian Foster. For one thing, there's a matter of negotiating rivers down to the sea, "Ruskin on acid; all hanging greenery; soft focus from the spray—it's too much." Clearly, this isn't your grandmother's Ring of Bright Water but instead a daringly imaginative project to see the world from the viewpoints of various animals that wouldn't be out of place in The Wind in the Willows: badger, otter, swift, fox, red deer. Their world is fraught with danger, not least because of the too-insistent, too-impingent presence of our kind. The project is daring precisely because it courts the two sins of nature writing, anthropomorphism and anthropocentrism, the latter describing the world as it appears to humans, "perhaps commercially shrewd," Foster grumps, but "rather dull," and the former depicting the animal world as being a mirror of the human. It is not: Foster, in inhabiting that world, attempts to get at its essential alien nature, whether routing through badger tunnels whose geography is determined by where the bones of badgers past and passed-away lie or racing against dogs in the guise of a vulpine: "Apart from swifts, foxes were the most obviously alive things I knew." There's not an ounce of sentimentality in any of it, but instead good science and hard-nosed thought. Furthermore, Foster has the gift of poetry, and he closes with a meditation on what knowing about the animal orders and the natural world can mean to humans: "If we live in a wood," he writes, "we acquire the accents of the trees." A splendid, vivid contribution to the literature of nature.

Kirkus Reviews