Reading: Feral Creatures

    I recently got my library card- something I'd been meaning to do and then a pandemic happened and I forgot that I wanted to get a library card until now. I decided to pick up two books on a whim, one a been-meaning to, and the other just something that caught my eye. Kira Jane Buxton's Feral Creatures seemed like a natural choice for me as I always have a soft spot for talking animal stories, especially if they're satirical and aimed at adults. The book cover design is quite pretty too. I've often felt contemporary publishing trends are lackluster so it's always a bonus to see a lovely cover. That old adage about not judging books by their covers can kiss my ass, I love seeing a beautiful illustration or at least some slick stylish design-work to pull me in.

 

 

    The book tells the story of the last human being on earth and the animals taking care of her. A strange plague has swept the world, mutating all human beings into monstrous and lethal abominations that desire only to kill and destroy. Dee, the last human, may be the key to saving what's left of the natural world and restoring its balance. Shit Turd the crow is Dee's guardian and parent, tasked with keeping the last human safe and alive, and desperate to instill in her the knowledge and history of humanity's past.

    Feral Creatures didn't grab me right away. I'll be up front and say that I considered putting the book down due to some humor and style choices that didn't really click with me. The story, mainly driven by the telling of a crow named Shit Turd, is peppered with pop culture references and has some hyperbolic humorous flair that originate somewhere with Douglas Adams but veer dangerously close to a "buckle up fucksticks" tumblr post that's about to "learn you a thing about adulting." I'm saying this from a personally online poisoned decade of consuming or sometimes participating with that kind of humor. Really what's more egregious to me, and what kind of took me out of the story initially is the pop culture references. There's too many of them and they have this feeling of really dating the book in a way that doesn't feel entirely relevant or necessary. I'd say the book is very "here and now", it is overall a reaction to the pandemic, to climate change, to the role technology plays in human lives, but I'm not really sure a crow needs to be referencing Lin-Manuel Miranda or Ellen DeGeneres, even if television played a large role in the animal's life. I've had no problem with other books or media being referential for the sake of capturing a specific time and place to say something meaningful about it- Manhunt for example, which was written specifically as a reaction to the culture we live in now and the implications the internet has had on us (and which persist even into Manhunt's post-internet and post-apoc world). I ran into a similar thing with the film Everything Everywhere All At Once- finding the referential parts of its humor the weakest links, even though I overall enjoyed myself. 

    I will say, the references do serve the purpose of showing us how much a formerly pet crow was ensconced in the human world. Hybridity is a continual theme- both for Shit Turd and Dee. Neither is completely belonging to one world or the other and a fair amount of conflict comes from the push and pull of the natural world and the trappings of the now extinct human world. I maybe just wanted those references toned down a little bit. They fill the function of illustrating S.T.'s love affair with all things human, showing why it's so important to him to save the very last human from extinction, but just from a personal perspective it was a bit much. You may find yourself not at all bothered about it.

    Now, I'm by no means trying to diss this book. After I pushed past my initial misgivings, I was drawn quite fully into the world of animals, mutant monstrous humans, and the last unchanged human on earth. Buxton's style is very evocative, flowery, lyrical, but doesn't get stuffy or too abstract. Shit Turd the crow's perspective is the main story, but some chapters are dedicated to the perspectives of different animals all around the globe, with the writing style, cadence and grammar changing to match whatever creature is speaking. I especially loved the perspective of a baby dolphin- happy and bubbly and musical- and the perspective of a hermit crab- introspective and poetic. The language has a lovely flow and I had a very easy time visually everything in rich and luscious detail. I don't mind more pared down and matter-of-fact writing styles, but it's fun to get lost in a style that is painterly with its descriptions.

    I also liked that not all of the human culture and language referenced is American. While Shit Turd had lived in Seattle and most of his perspective and references are to that area, Dee's people were the Indigenous Yuit in Alaska. Their language and ideas are woven into the story, and in a way it feels kind of apt that the last known human alive is not a settler (but I'm biased lol).

    At its core, Feral Creatures is a love letter to the natural world- where all things are connected and tapped into a shared language, an intricate network of trees and grass and insects and all animal life. Human beings were once connected to it but lost contact long ago. Dee's special gift is her ability to dive into that connection, communing with bees and with moss, and this gift is a pivotal part of her story. Her guardian crow wants her to be human instead of acting in tune with this world- but humans are animals after all and as much a part of this world as insects and birds. 

I'll also note that this book felt well-researched too- full of animal facts, behaviors, ecological systems and interactions. I was the nerdy kid poring over books and documentaries about animals so that's very much my shit. It's nice to read a talking animal story that finds the balance between anthropomorphizing its characters and making them beholden to instinct and animal behavior.

    This book also deals with themes of family and what it means to love someone as family- even when you share no relation by blood or species. The apocalyptic events of the world left animals to care for each other when no one else would. An orangutan named Orange helped rescue pets that were trapped inside human dwellings, elephants guard the remaining members of what was once a zoo, a cassowary protects an enclave of penguins, and a crow together with an eagle and a parliament of owls raised a human baby. Shit Turd the crow talks often and with fondness about his now gone previous family- a human man named Big Jim and a bloodhound named Dennis. 

    Shit Turd is not the perfect parent. As I'd mentioned before, there is a lot of conflict between him and Dee (who he loves more than anything) because of their hybrid nature. ST is also very traumatized and afraid to let Dee carve her own path. He's an over-protective parent who has to learn to let go, always nitpicking and criticizing. In a way, his story is a very forgiving look at parents who may mean well but don't always understand or do the right things for their children. I really loved seeing his growth and development as a character. Dee growing up and becoming her own person with her own whims and needs is difficult for ST, who has such different values for what he thinks she should be. 

    The plague and the mutating humans are definitely an interesting horror that genuinely gave me the creeps. Buxton captures the elements of body horror very well, including the kind of unease that comes from recognizing something familiar in something utterly alien. The mutants grow into crude mockeries of other species, imitating their adaptations, their bodies, mimicking their voices. Some become like giant insects and burrow into trees, hollowing them and killing the network of communication of the natural world. It's all quite unsettling. I'm reminded a lot of how I felt watching Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, and Day of the Dead for the first time as a preteen- that sense of the uncanny in a hostile dead world.

    I'm not sure how I feel about the book's theory (though not confirmation necessarily) that these mutations came from humans accessing technology- though even in their mutant forms the former humans long for screen time. One could certainly view the plague and the mutations as allegory for the way that conspiracy and toxicity breeds online. I was reminded a bit of Pontypool, the film with its own zombie apocalypse where the virus itself is language. That really does feel more and more relevant with each passing day doesn't it?

 Can't help myself, I had to include a link to Laurie Anderson's Language is a Virus (from Outer Space)

    Overall, I'd say Feral Creatures is worth checking out. Give it a read!