The relationship between Man and Animal

Both of this week’s choices deal with the animal kingdom and man’s relationship to it. I have to profess I’m no animal lover; I eat them with slavish regularity, nor was I brought up with much feeling for them: the closest I came to a family pet was a Tamagotchi that died frequently in my arms. It is therefore somewhat of a surprise that I have found myself entranced by two stories that deal with man's love for animals.

I buried it in the bottom of my garden.

The first is Helen Macdonald’s, H is for Hawk, a memoir that chronicles the author’s relationship with goshawk, Mabel. I picked up the book off the back of a plethora of plaudits, the most significant being The Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction. Previously, the only thing I knew about falconry was gleaned from watching Kes. In that film Billy, the central character, bruised by humanity finds salvation in a kestrel; Macdonald’s work is not dissimilar: hurting from her father’s death, she finds purpose in training a goshawk. The two differ in that Kes’ title is a misnomer: the film’s focus is Billy - the kestrel plays a supporting role; H is for Hawk, however is more instructive, informing us of the ancient pastime, lifting the hood on its mystery, giving us a vantage on these enigmatic creatures.

Don’t be deterred into thinking Hawk is an instruction manual with adjectives though; it is far more than that: reading as it does like a Frankenstein thriller- a power struggle between man and beast- the book is a psychologist’s dream. For deep in grief, Macdonald comes to envy the bird she is meant to possess: she wants the trade places with it, so she can live a life unencumbered by human emotion, in the here and now, paralysed not by memory but free through flight.

Macdonald and Mabel

Her ability to write lucidly on the esoteric subject of falconry and descriptively on the chasm of grief is a real achievement. With a background in poetry, Macdonald has previous in capturing big ideas in tight formation; this experience means she manages to tame the big theme of good and evil in magical prose. In fact her language is much like the bird she trains: at times the thing soars, skirting and skimming the page with ethereal elegance; at other times its claws dig in and the horror of her descriptions peck grimly away at you. A passage that illuminates this beauty and beast dichotomy is when she muses on her own humanity, and whether the bird has vanquished it:

I don’t have sides. I only have wildness. And I don’t need wildness any more. I’m not stifled by domesticity. I have none. There is no need, right now, to feel close to a fetch of dark northern woods, a creature with baleful eyes and death in her foot. Human hands are for holding other hands. Human arms are for holding other humans close. They’re not for breaking the necks of rabbits, pulling loops of viscera out onto leaf-litter while the hawks dips her head to drink blood from her quarry’s chest cavity.

I love how the gorgeous romanticism of handholding melds with the cold stark gruesomeness of neck breaking to show the disparity between man and nature. The above passage shows how the goshawk provided a placebo for the soul; the true elixir though was realising grief could only be overcome through accepting love and compassion. As someone who isn't an animal lover, I found this message optimistic: embracing the isolation of nature offers only temporary succour but embracing another is where rehabilitation truly starts.

War Horse is the theatrical adaptation of Michael Morpurgo’s 1982 novel. Like Hawk, it is about the bond between man and beast, in this case Albert, a farmer’s son, and his horse Joey. I first became familiar with the story on reading it with a school book group. I, along with the students, enjoyed the tale of the horse’s dispossession from the Devonshire countryside to the battlefields of France. It reminded us all of the sacrifice made by man and animal in the diplomatic failure that was World War One. Like the classic Black Beauty, the story is told from the horse’s perspective, which generates greater pathos when we witness the thoroughbred’s experience in battle. For all of that though, the story for me isn’t as good as Morpurgo’s Private Peaceful, another war story, centred on brothers in battle and the cost of fraternal loyalty. Both films were released two years ago with War Horse getting the Hollywood treatment, and Peaceful getting the British Film Council one. Peaceful again was the better of the two, but Britain’s reputation as a nation of feckless gamblers was corroborated by the box office receipts that proved they backed the wrong horse.

Spielberg: I prefer his earlier work.

The reason why War Horse became big box office cinema was because director Steven Spielberg had seen the theatrical adaptation of the book and wanted to transpose the joy he experienced watching it into a Hollywood re-telling of it. Spielberg's adaptation was too by-the-book though, something that could never be accused of The National Theatre's offering. Of the three mediums, the play is without a doubt the best incarnation of the story. To create a moving play about a horse is a brief only a fool would accept and fortunately Britain’s West End had the kind of creative idiots who can make it possible.

The horses are controlled by three puppeteers, two at the body and one at the head.

With Morpurgo’s novel adapted, co-directors Marianne Elliot and Tom Morris set about gathering the best puppeteers in the business to shape this equine adventure story. Despite the production being lauded as a British triumph, it is a South African success story, as it is their puppeteers who shape-shift into Blue Fairies to bring these Pinocchio puppets to life. In creating realistic foals and thoroughbreds through a combination of levers, pulleys and rods, the ‘Handspring Puppet Company’ of South Africa are the true heroes of the production.

Another bewitching element to the production is the artist’s Rae Smith’s drawings. Appreciating that the action of War Horse shifts too rapidly for stage changes, Smith was hired to create the backdrops for the fluid action. When the play begins in Devon these illustrations are fairly standard renderings of the countryside, however when the action shifts to the fields of battle the images become more abstract with lines and smudges projected to delineate the nightmare of battle.

'Explosion' by Rae Smith.

Given I’m more of a fan of drama than action, the first half of the play appealed to me more than the second. The second half has the spectacle – gunfire that makes you jump; blackouts that exacerbate tension and a tank puppet that beggars belief – but it lacks the cohesion of the first. The first has more story with the fraternal rivalry of Albert’s father and uncle contrasted nicely with the co-operation between Albert and his horse; the second half has Joey taken off Albert and sent to be a war horse, and with this bond between man and animal broken the poignancy of the horse’s travails lose their potency. For all of that though, doing a play about a horse is a dare no one should have accepted. The fact that is delivered with such aplomb is a testament to the people who work within our wonderful Arts industry.

Enjoying both Hawk and Horse has made me feel maybe I'm missing something in not having a pet. With that in mind I'm off to my mum and dad's to dig up my Tamagotchi. Hopefully the battery still works.