Cows

Product Information

The Secret Life of Cows is a mixture of musings about ethical farming, things which the owners of Kite's Nest have implemented to better the welfare of their animals, and anecdotes about particular animals. Some of these are amusing, and others quite sweet. For instance, we meet Meg, a calf who learns to climb some very steep steps so that she can spend the night in the granary, 'away from mud and draughts and bullying'. Meg then teaches two of her fellow calves how to climb the stairs too. There is Alice, who is fond of hide and seek. Young writes: 'She would do her best to hide behind a walnut tree but of course she was too big and as soon as she realised I had seen her she would gallop off again and hide behind the next one, and so on until we reached the cow pen.'

First, the good news. The story that Stokoe lays out in Cows is a road map of the development of a hypothetical sociopath murderer. The twisted tale follows the protagonist (if you can really call him that) from his abusive mother, through a metamorphosis of sorts (brought on by more abuse), and beyond. Stokoe’s writing is very good in that it will make the reader privy to the delusions and pressures within the character’s mind while almost making sense of the insane thought processes. Done? Remember learning that in HS or College?? This is satire - this book is one big satire that each person who reads it will come out with a different message from the person next to them. Matthew Stokoel has the ability to create a profound satire mixed in with cannibalism, bestiality, gore, sexual perversion, abuse, self mutilation. I was in awe..... Roxanne : Yeah? And how would you know so much about an obscure avant-garde novelist as all that? Your bluster butters no parsnips with us, buddy boy. We have this! (Five cows simultaneously hold up the photocopied picture.) I’m going to do my best to stay spoiler free, but I wanted to just say – this is a book that if you need any sort of trigger warning, you’ll not make it very far into it. Have you watched 2 Girls 1 Cup? What was your response? If it was anything other than ‘what is the art behind this’ you’ll be best to pass. Things that occur – animal abuse and torture, self mutilation, matricide, infanticide, beastiality, scat play and ingestion and homicide just to name a few. The cows kept coming, and each one took something from him; shavings of sensitivity, perception, care. He was being robbed, violated. One of the few parts of himself he wanted to keep was being cauterised into hard scar tissue."

How to Vote

Stokoe : Okay, okay – look – in Cows, cows are completely symbolic. I mean look, I have them talking – in Cows, cows can talk! Which as you know, in real life, they can’t.

linguistically attempting to highlight the overall message of how individual ALL animals are (if given a chance to develop) and Daisy (a left-leaning cow) : I believe it neatly encapsulates the human male infantile mindset, the fear and loathing of the mother, the horror of the female power of birth, of creation if you will, and the homo-erotic desire to be a man amongst men and to take charge of your manly destiny, all of which it appears has to be achieved by killing the mother figures. It’s all too lamely Freudian for me. Moo! Moo! I say trample him on aesthetic grounds, not on moral grounds. Reading 'Cows' is like running some kind of marathon. Chances are, the most disturbing novel you've ever read is Disney-lite compared to this one. I'd suggest reading it over two or three days like I did. Despite its relatively minor length, reading it in one sitting might have you not leaving your shower for the rest of the day, and spreading it out over a week is kind of like staring at the sun. Do it for too long and you're bound to cause some permanent damage. This is a book about farming. About a family trying to make a living. And even though – as many, many people have repeatedly mentioned here – they accomplish this by “raising cattle just to slaughter them”, they manage to treat the animals with utmost respect. Yes, the cows and calves get slaughtered when their time comes. But that doesn’t influence the fact that, while they were alive, every single person on this farm gave their everything to make the lives of these animals as comfortable as possible.When I grew up there was a bull in the field next to the school all by himself, we were all frightened of it. But here the bulls are different. Baby bulls are killed for beef, but not cows, and not a few breeding bulls. They are always part of a herd, and the herd is led by the biggest, probably oldest, female, never the bull. Baby cows will trot off slowly if you approach them, baby bulls will run, even teenage, pre-abbatoir ones, they are all scaredy cats.