the most beautiful book yet

book: the bedside book of beasts
author: graeme gibson
completion date: june 10/06/10
method: purchase

i bought this book for school at the beginning of the winter semester. my mum showed it to me and i thought it had to be the best book ever. it is an anthology collected by the author of stories and poems about 'beasts'. i loved this book because it is totally littered with some of the most fabulous animal art... as in art about animals and of animals. i found it so inspiring and beautiful.
i was hoping there would be more fables and myths featured in the book like the just so stories but perhaps gibson wanted to keep the human voice present. it feels that this book is about observing beasts and imitating their behaviors and not stories about them. i was so deeply influenced by so many fables as a child and loved how intensely animals were featured in greek and norse mythology. however i obviously have a very different idea of what i would compile in my animal anthology (currently not in progress.... laaawwl). it felt that gibson was comparing our behaviours to animals and trying to demonstrate that we had lost our connections to nature and the natural order. which i agree with. we have drifted- some further than others.

i found it very facinating as well that a story featured very predominantly in beatrice and virgil is featured in this novel- the particular part that the taxidermist highlighted most vigorously. the tale itself is haunting and uncomfortable. it tells the story of a voracious hunter who slaughters any and all in his sight. up until this story the bedside book of beasts had been very peaceful and soothing. they were all tales of love and remembrance up until the story of this hunter. even though i had already read it, it left me shaken.

gibson mentions that our behaviours are similar to animal, especially hunter animal, behaviours. with this conclusion i would love to see his bedside book of birds if only to see the connection.
xo-ellebee