Playing Possum: How Animals Understand Death
by Susana Monso
The subtitle says it all. There was a six-page synopsis of the book in The New Yorker Magazine.
It piqued my interest in two aspects: animals and death. The author is not an animal behaviorist, nor is she a researcher.
She is a philosopher and committed herself to the examination of a field known as comparative thanatology.
I loved the book and found it fascinating. However, my prediction that it would generate a great deal of meaningful discussion for the book club was incorrect. Very few wanted to talk about the content. The evidence for the author's analyses and conclusions is found in observations of animals, anecdotal evidence, and empirical research conducted by animal behaviorists. The author tries to avoid conjecture and anthropomorphism. She mostly succeeds. However, she cautions the human animal against arrogantly thinking that lower animals cannot possibly have an internal mental or emotional life similar to our own.
The book provided me with a bonus beyond my great interest in animal behavior and the general topic of death. I also love the mental gymnastics of philosophy. I found her theoretical and rational thinking applied to comparative thanatology irresistible. For the most part, this was not the case among my book club colleagues.
~Reviewed by Laurence Lieberman