How to Be a Good Creature: A Memoir in Thirteen Animals
Written and Narrated By: Sy Montgomery
Length: 3 hrs and 42 mins
“When the student is ready, the teacher will come”
So quotes Sy Montgomery in this wonder of a book.
I dunno, but the passing of loved ones has been greatly on my mind; the mortality of those I love is gnawing on it too. Cuz let’s face it: It hurts to love. Pretty danged bad. Thus, How to Be a Good Creature was the perfect listen for this, the most imperfect of moods.
I have in my Library Soul of an Octopus, and was it just me, or was Ms. Montgomery’s narration of her own work there aTROcious? It must’ve just been my mood at the time or something, as her narration here is quite good. Another reviewer said s/he felt the narration was overdramatic and s/he felt it was manipulative, designed to elicit emotion where the writing was lacking. Or something vaguely akin to that. But I thought it was pretty well spot-on. There are sections of the book where you can hear the obvious emotion she’s still feeling when she gets to painful parts of the stories, mostly of beloved animals sick, beloved animals dying. Quite frankly, her discussion of the depths of the depression she felt after two pets, a pig and a dog, passed within such a short timeframe of each other, dang near moved me to tears. It’s such a familiar feeling.
This book chronicles thirteen animals/creatures who came into her life and made a difference. There are stories of emus, of a tarantula, of an octopus who would’ve done ANYthing to save her “offspring” and of dogs and a pig, all pets. The pig’s story can be found in her audiobook called The Good, Good Pig (Which I happen to have in my Library also! So yes to a review to come!), and it’s narrated by Xe Sands, one of my favorite narrators. I hear tell that some of Chris’s shenanigans in …Good Creature are in The Good, Good Pig also, but I look forward to hearing about them in greater detail. Chris, after all, was the runtiest runt of the litter (And I have a thing for runts… esPECially if they have crooked tails: I’m looking at YOU, Serena!), and I did so enjoy hearing about how Sy and her husband came to adore him.
While there’s a lot of respect in this book, a lot of love, there’s sooo much more just plain adoration. I’d say Ms. Montgomery is fearless in her willingness to bond so deeply with animals (After all, I have to be dragged kicking and screaming with each homeless cat who wanders my way), but the writing here bears out the pain, the agony, she feels with each fresh loss. To her at such times? Well, as she says: She can always commit suicide. And it’s an option to the point where she contemplates and even plots her own demise. In her compromised state of grief, she doesn’t quite grasp what new fresh hell a suicide would put her loved ones through.
But even through all of this, she offers lessons she learned. New experiences are so helpful to push grief out of the Number One spot in your heart. And bringing a new creature to love is the absolute TOPS (Tho’ she too, by the end, can’t quite understand how she manages to say yes on each occasion, feeling ever so grateful the whole time).
The book is chockfull of tales of habitats, instincts, behaviors, and the like. But don’t expect a scientific treatise or anything. And please be aware that this is truly a story about her and about how these creatures expanded her world, expanded her heart and soul. It’s about creatures teaching her how to love fully, live fully. Yes, it’s about the thirteen creatures who shaped her, but mostly, yes, it’s about one woman coming to grips with Nature and the world as it is.
So where am I after listening to it? Welllll, after losing three dear friends within a couple of years of each other, of losing one homeless friend and worrying about two more, I can’t say that opening my heart and my home (EsPECially not a place with a two pet maximum!) is an option. I mean, honest to gosh: I’m THAT scared of loss. But hearing Sy’s stories, and listening to all Midnight Inspired Listens, has got me thinking:
When it happens, it’ll happen. And thank GOD.
And why the hell not?!!
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