Reviews

Being a Beast: Adventures Across the Species Divide by Charles Foster

sparky_lurkdragon's review

I thought this would be an otherkin or at least naturalist thing. But it's a snob who doesn't actually seem to like animals, who implies that autistic folk don't have a theory of mind, says that eating worms as a kid will prevent allergies, and borderline abuses his son. 

bookeared's review against another edition

informative inspiring medium-paced

4.25

candyflosscurls's review

1.0

Couldn't finish it. First time I think I've ever walked away from reading a book. Very different from what I expected. Just didn't like the guy, didn't understand the writing and I was falling asleep whilst reading it so it had to go.

boob's review

informative

3.0

This novel was definitely out of my “comfort zone” of what I usually enjoy reading but it was interesting, if odd. 

I think the most “useful” thing that came out of reading this book was the chance to at the world through someone else’s perspective (the author, not the animals). The author goes very in depth into his logic and ways of thinking, so much so that it feels like I am stepping into his mind. It is always interesting to interact with someone quite different from you. 

I also liked how this book was very descriptive and full of imagery. I am an imaginative reader and there is a plethora of descriptions of nature and the author’s experiences in this novel. The author’s description are very vivid and well written.

I feel like I did not have any “major perspective changing” takeaways from this book. 

I do not believe in recommendations because everyone is different. I would hate to deprive someone of a piece of media they may find great joy in simply because I did not like it. Instead, I like to present my takeaways of the style and content of the book so you may draw your own conclusions on if it interests you or not.

The premise of the novel was a little odd. I would not qualify this book as a “wholly non-fiction” book, that is, one of those novels that you may read for pure factual information. 

There is a lot of mental gymnastics, of imagining the perception of an animal but not quite (we are the animal but we cannot be), of almost philosophy and many theories (the origin of consciousness, mind theory, what is animal and human). This means this book is chock-full of the author’s opinions and outlook on things. 

The author is a man that “lay in a backyard in Bow, foodless and drinkless, urinating and defecating where I was” (page 21) in order to mimic the fox. I feel like this line shows the sort of character the author is and the style of the novel. This author is unashamed and not afraid to get dirty to achieve his end goal. 

The author also writes very confidently. He sounds like he knows what he is talking about (though he concedes many times that such is not the case) but this may influence the reader to take his word for granted.

boosterfan2021's review against another edition

3.5

This was a very strange philosophical/practical exploration of our relationship with animals and our identity as humans. I found some sections of it very moving and found some great quotes to ponder on. I did feel that Foster lacked a little bit of direction and the chapters didn't seem to have any system to them. He didn't provide much context and jumped straight into the 'being a beast' sections without much explanation about why he was doing this, how he could go about it or where he was arriving at this desire to understand various philosophical questions. It felt slightly too 'artistic' for my taste without enough grounding in reality. I found his connection to animals and the natural world to be slightly odd. This may have been partly due to the aforementioned lack of context as to his life in relation to the environment. 

However, I did find the exploration of animal identity interesting and I thought he wrapped up his ponderings well in the epilogue. I would want to go back and highlight some of the best quotes in this book because there were many that made me feel really seen.

camilleconstance's review

adventurous informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0

weneed_mobrown's review

2.0

Very interesting book. I thought it would be more about how he went about "becoming" the animals but it was more about his thoughts and feelings on his connection with them and nature. I was hoping for the book to be a bit more scientific, but it was amusing enough to keep reading.

tbonegreg's review

slow-paced

2.5

xiaozhansbooty's review against another edition

1.0

1.5 stars?
Or maybe just 1...
I *really* disliked this book. More specifically, I disliked Foster.
If I weren't studying this for uni, I would not have read past the Author's Note.
The possible extra half star rating is mainly just for some of the points about various environmental crises he made sporadically. I understand, to an extent, some of what Foster was trying to achieve with this book, but in my eyes, he failed in those aims. Ingrained ideas of superiority (both of his species and his social class) are a lot of what biased me against him, as well as his shallow and often contradictory self-awareness.

unhallowed90's review

3.0

Some cool animal facts and an interesting concept. Not sure how successful it was but I'm going to spend my Christmas holidays as a cat.