Cry of the wild: tales of sea, woods and hill

by Charles Foster

A deeply researched work of creative non-fiction, these eight lyrical stories reveal the complexity, beauty and fragility of animal lives in a world dominated by humans - a brilliantly modern twist on classics like Watership Down and Tarka the Otter .

A fox, grown strong on pepperoni pizza from the dustbins of the East End, dances along a railway track towards Essex, the territory of wild foxes and wilder huntsmen.

An orca, mourning the loss of her mother in a valley west of Skye, knows that she must now lead the pod as matriarch. She swims again through her childhood, thinking about the old ways, the old roads, laid down thousands of years ago. But the old roads aren't so easy now.

At moonrise in a West Country river, an otter floats slowly downstream. The tide, though it pushes him landwards when it exhales, seems to pull him out when it inhales. He turns on his back. He can see the stars clearly for the first time and wonders if he can swim to them.

The land has never stopped waiting. It has only ever been in exile, right under our noses, waiting to confound, outrage and re-enchant.

Genres: Nonfiction, Nature, Animals

236 pages, Hardcover

Published May 4, 2023

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.

Reviews

[Beth Ellen · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's not often that a book is able to transform my perspective, but this was definitely one of them. A beautiful, visceral, and almost brutal read - the prose was written in such a way that I felt as if I could taste, see, and feel everything that the characters(?) were feeling. I thought it particularly fascinating how the animals weren't anthropomorphised as we'd expect, but the author retained their unique, raw, and unapologetic ANIMAL nature, in a way that didn't feel the need to fit neatly into our comfortable human narratives and plot devices. I won't lie, this made me despair quite significantly at points, at the carelessness of our human ways of living, the way we've pumped our land full of chemicals and laid claim to things that were never ours. It made me hopeful as well, however. At nature's relentlessness in her survival.

[Ann Hein · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book like no other I've read. There are eight stories, each a biography of an animal whose life is under siege. The eight stories chosen are quite British, but you'll get the point. The writer is graphic, and poetic at other times. I highly recommend.

[Wendelle]

I read this book because last night, I spotted a poor fat skunk who perished in the middle of a neighborhood road as roadkill-- a minute yet profound, avoidable tragedy wrought by the hands of humans, which probably didn't even register in the meter of attention or concerns of the driver. His only dirge was the effusive spray he spread over the landscape, probably in the last period of bewilderment at what was happening. Anyways, this book tries to portray the life cycle of 7 animals from their own point of view, which might come across as a bit anthropomorphizing, but on the other hand gives a voice to those who remain voiceless while the dominant species, humankind, is from their perspective on an incomprehensible warpath of destruction. The book shows the carousel of perils and suffering inflicted by humans on each spotlighted species. Rabbits suffer the destruction of their warrens, the sociopathic abuse and torment of bored suburban youngsters, the spread of viruses and painful disease, the flooding of their homes from property developments, blinding of their eyes from fungicide sprays on the leaves they eat. Foxes suffer deaths from collisions with vehicles that arouse their curiosity, intentionally poisoned food that lead to convulsions, hound chases, reduced prey due to gassing of prey burrows and setts. Orcas suffer from harpoons thrown as leisure into their backs, poisoned environments from effluent runoffs and oil spilloffs, nets that trap, turbines that carve into their fins, sickness of dermatitis and pneumonia from unclean water, dieoffs of prey such as seals and fish. Through the tales featured in the book, we are shown the ramifications of human impact on the natural world, a lot of it composing an ongoing symphony of sorrowful calamity. This is a good book to read that reminded me of my own impact on often unseen, ignored animal life.

[Roger Morgan-Grenville · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful, informed and imaginative. Wildlife writing as you have probably never read it.

[Alex T. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bullet review:
+Resonant themes about the complicated relationship between humans and nature
+A wide array of different animal (and one human) POVs showcasing said relationship and various aspects of it.
+In principle, the stories have got some good stuff going on.
*Just as a warning (and could be seen as a negative), this book gets incredibly brutal. So trigger warning for animal cruelty, animal death, gore and mentions of rape. I get why the author used these aspects to really hammer home the point of the themes, but at the same time it did feel a bit egregious and overkill at times. Especially in the rabbit story.
-The prose didn't exactly have me hooked. I think I appreciate this book more for its message and what it's trying to accomplish, than that I actually got very invested in the stories themselves.

Full review at: https://skybookcorner.blogspot.com/20...

[Jo Swift · Rating 5 out of 5]

Heartbreaking, shocking, wonderful tales of what we are doing to the world, told through 8 creatures. Beautifully written, a book that will stay with mefora long time.

[LAILA · Rating 4 out of 5]

Such heartfelt stories about the lives of 8 species that are suffering the most due human's greed and selfishness and lack of concern towards wildlife. Makes me want to research the species further and find ways to support them and help them. The only reason it's not five stars, is due to the writing style. Although really elaborate and fantastically written, sometimes I lost track of the meaning being conveyed.

[Sophia1 · Rating 4 out of 5]

7/10
overall very enjoyable and well-written with fresh perspectives -- it's not often you get to read the perspective of an eel!
it was quite a hopeless book, not very uplifting and therefore an upsetting book to read and one that I did not look forward too as much as other books.
I would still recommend some stories -- the rabbit story was disturbing and reminded me of Watership Down, the Orca was interesting, and the eel story.

[Jack · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty good! 3.5 but I’m rounding up because it’s so rare to get a new collection of short xenofiction stories like this these days. Kudos to the author for steering in on a non-human perspective which such a unique flair, though I do think some scenes get a bit too melodramatic with such a hard lean on realism as there is most of the time.

[azz · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved the unique approach this book took by constructing personal narratives for each creature. Also a story where a fox and a hound interact in any capacity will instantly intrigue me. My favorites were the fox (duh), orca, and gannet!

[Kirsty Cartin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ever wondered the story of an animal? This book delves into the story of eight animals, not in Disney style but in brutal realism, reflecting the actions and inactions of other living beings surrounding them.

[Amy Cassidy · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s so good, it’s easy to put down and pick back up

[Aiden · Rating 4 out of 5]

Profoundly harrowing look into what impact our humanity has on this world

[Larry Brandhorst · Rating 5 out of 5]

Summarizes the randomness of Nature very well. Shows how stupid acts by humans add to the chaos of nature's demise.

[Lindsey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hard hitting biographies of animals - quite brutal in parts but very well written