Cows

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But the political posturing does not come at the expense of humour, which is illustrated in the bovine metaphor that Cam uses when talking about women, individuality and the cultural imperative to procreate.

A short review of this book: Hypocritical author tries to sugarcoat mass-murder, as if we are idiots. The structure of the book is split into small sections, sometimes only a paragraph or two long, rather than into distinct chapters. It is only when they have left the climate controlled atmosphere that they realise quite how big they are. Now having read this myself, I think understand the kind of responses this short novel has received.Matthew Stokoel has the ability to create a profound satire mixed in with cannibalism, bestiality, gore, sexual perversion, abuse, self mutilation. COWS’ has become a cult classic, much in the way ‘A Serbian Tale’ has for the movie watching community. I completely understand the frustrations that the author has regarding mass-farming and I agree, but on the whole I found that the book was more about describing the personalities of particular cows on her farm rather than a more scientific approach which would have discussed cows as a species.

It also makes a very good case for organic farming, and although it is a little odd that Young only briefly touches on the fact that her cows are mostly bred for meat, she does make it clear that that is not what this book is about: rather, it is a portrait of her cows, pigs, sheep and chickens, and a beautiful one at that. I’ve heard others mention Duncan Ralston’s ‘Woom,’ hell, even Duncan has said he’s not read the book but people say it’s similar to ‘Woom,’ but I didn’t fully make that connection. For example, a sweet-natured cow might be prescribed one preparation while a bad-tempered one would be offered something totally unrelated for the same condition.

My daughter has even played music to them and I'm sure they appreciated it as the whole herd stopped to listen. 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. 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. After reading what I have just written, you are probably wondering, what is so intense about this story.

We love dogs and eat cows not because dogs and cows are fundamentally different--cows, like dogs, have feelings, preferences, and consciousness--but because our perception of them is different. From her view cows are emotional creatures with real feelings, that are forced to be used for human 'needs'. Maybe it’s from being a clinician in my real life who deals with amputation and open ulcers frequently, or maybe it’s from having a four year old and a dog and dealing with their messes, I found it was more of a metaphor for the characters lives that Stokoe used those elements. And I put in the original draft “intellectual vanity,” and the editor said, “You’re going to offend too many people. Cows usually in twos or threes will move off if you shout at them and move menacingly towards them as they eat your lettuces, marigolds and everything else.I loved the stories about the cows, and how Rosamund recognises them as individuals with their own personalities. Going back to cows, you point out a lot of unexpected gifts humans have gotten from cows over the years. There’s no pictures of Matthew Stokoe anywhere – remember we were googling on Clara’s laptop the other day, after milking time? There were a few sections I liked but on the whole it felt incoherent and badly put together, the 'plot' or thoughts darting about all over the place. It's not a moralizing book or straight to the point, but it shows that farms need to make the effort to prioritise the well being of these animals.