Title: The silence of animals : on progress and other modern myths /
Authors: Gray, John, 1948-
Year: 2013
Subjects: Human beings Animal nature; Humanism.; Philosophical anthropology.
Abstract: The powerful, beautiful and chilling sequel to the bestselling Straw Dogs John Gray draws on an extraordinary array of memoirs, poems, fiction and philosophy to make us re-imagine our place in the world. Writers as varied as Ballard, Borges, Freud and Conrad are mesmerised by forms of human extremity - experiences on the outer edge of the possible, or which tip into fantasy and myth. What happens to us when we starve, when we fight, when we are imprisoned? And how do our imaginations leap into worlds way beyond our real experience? The Silence of Animals is consistently fascinating, filled with unforgettable images and a delight in the conundrum of our existence - an existence which we decorate with countless myths and ideas, where we twist and turn to avoid acknowledging that we too are animals, separated from the others perhaps only by our self-conceit. In the Babel we have created for ourselves, it is the silence of animals that both reproaches and bewitches us.
Contents: Machine generated contents note: 1. An Old Chaos -- The call of progress -- Frozen Horses and Deserts of Brick -- Invisible Ink, Flayed Skin and White Ants -- The Emperor's Tomb -- Two Times two Equals Five -- What a tyrant can do for you -- Ichthyophils and Liberals -- Paper clothes, grand pianos and a milliard blades of grass -- The Alchemists of finance -- Humanism and flying saucers -- 2. Beyond the Last Thought -- Freud's cigars and the long way round to Nirvana -- From illusions to fictions -- The supreme fiction -- Happiness, a fiction you can do without -- Jung's Aryan unconscious, or what myths are not -- Myths of the near future -- Tlon and history without two afternoons -- Words and cinders -- Godless mysticism -- 3. Another Sunlight -- The light-drenched prism -- The silence of animals -- A visit to the British Museum -- Infinite cities -- A churchyard cough and a green coat -- A vanishing act -- The stranger in the wings.