> Skip to content

Book clubs  •  6 March 2018

 

Only the Animals book club notes

Book clubs will see history from a different perspective in these short stories from Ceridwen Dovey.

In Ceridwen Dovey's Only the Animals, the souls of ten animals caught up in human conflicts over the last century tell their astonishing stories of life and death, sharing their view of humans at our brutal worst and our creative best.
 

Questions and discussion points:
 

  • Consider the way in which each story addresses the quote from Boria Sax that gives the collection its title: ‘What does it mean to be human? Perhaps only the animals can know.’ (page 179)
  • This book incorporates the ideas of a number of writers besides those named in it. Discuss the use of the work of as many of those as you recognise.
  •  ‘The Bones’ draws on several Henry Lawson pieces, along with a true incident, the massacre of blacks at Hospital Creek. When the camel protests his innocence with the comment, ‘I had only arrived a few years ago, how could I have done anything wrong?’ (page 11), does this reflect anything of modern Australia to you?
  • Do any of the other stories set many decades ago encapsulate something essential about modern life, in your opinion?
  • The cat comments of Colette that ‘she and I consider ourselves hybrids of a sort, never quite able to fit within the boundaries of our sex or species, always feeling we’re a smudgy, mongrel character’. (page 26) Discuss the value of this standpoint.
  • In ‘Hundstage’, Himmler expresses a sentiment which the dog-narrator finds very beautiful (page 76, second paragraph). How did you respond on reading this scene? Does the dog’s blind loyalty to its master bring you to any greater empathy for those German people brainwashed during World War II?
  • Discuss the portrayal of the experience of motherhood in this collection: Colette, for example, was ambivalent about it, Plath embraced it as part of her work, the dolphin had her own view. Does motherhood represent something wider in these stories, do you think? Is a parallel implied between the responsibility for life created and life tamed?
  • The bears’ story is the only one told in the third person rather than the first: why do you think this is?
  • Discuss the way in which these stories throw into relief the primal versus the civilised aspects of human beings.
  • Only the Animals deftly avoids anthropomorphising, with two stories being deliberate exceptions to this: the mussel’s, with its characterisation of Kerouc, and the chimpanzee’s, in which the chimps are groomed to behave like humans. Do you think these two have particular points to make about animal–human connections?
  • The dolphin wonders of humans, ‘Why do you sometimes treat other people as humans and sometimes as animals? And why do you sometimes treat creatures as animals and sometimes as humans?’ (page 206) What’s your response to this question?
  • There’s a suggestion that these stories may have been solicited by an unseen curator – the dolphin reveals on page 204 that she was asked to write the story of her death. Did you have a sense of that while reading? If so, what did you make of it, and if not, did you wonder at how the stories came into being?
  • Apart from those mentioned in the book summary above, what other questions do these stories raise for you?
  • Do you think the two stories that bookend the collection, the camel’s and the parrot’s, serve a particular function?

Feature Title

Only the Animals
An animal's-eye view of humans at our brutal worst and our creative best, Only the Animals asks us to believe again in the redemptive power of reading and writing fiction.
Read more

More features

See all
Book clubs
The Sex Lives of Married Women book club questions

A sexy, funny, surprising tale of female friendship to read with your book club.

Book clubs
The Deadly Dispute book club questions

The delightfully entertaining new novel in The Tea Ladies cosy crime series. Perfect for reading with your book club!

Book clubs
The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife book club questions

A heartwarming debut novel to read with your book club about mistaken identity, loneliness, and the quest for belonging.

Book clubs
Half Truth book club questions

A moving drama about family, loss and belonging to read with your book club.

Book clubs
The Mix-up book club questions

A thought-provoking new novel about a mix-up that leaves two children wondering who they really are and where they belong.

Book clubs
Blood pact book club questions

Fiona McIntosh's explosive new Jack Hawksworth thriller, perfect to read with your book club.

Book clubs
Stories from the Otto Bin Empire book club questions

A collection of stories from Judy Nunn about friendship, community and finding family in the unlikeliest of places.

Book clubs
This Kingdom of Dust book club questions

An epic reimagining of the Apollo mission to read with your book club.

Book clubs
Cactus Pear For My Beloved book club questions

A family story from Gaza to read with your book club.

Book clubs
The Fallen Woman book club questions

A heart-stopping historical adventure to read with your book club.

Book clubs
Translations book club questions

A deeply moving novel to read with your book club.

Book clubs
Winter of the Wolf book club questions

A gripping debut that blends history with paranormal and feminist themes, with a moving queer romance at its core.

Looking for more book club notes?

See all book club notes