Reading: Chris Offutt Day 2

As the book went on, I liked less and less him writing about his present with his pregnant wife but realize that it is the only way to get out the good bits of interesting thoughts he has on things. For example, without the story for backing, this quote would seem silly and not necessary.

If childbearing were left to men, our species would have moldered because males could never accommodate the pain. We can barely get through hangovers and football games. (pg 75)

I couldn't help but laugh and agree with this quote.
As the story continued, it became extremely apparent not only his lack of belief in Christianity but strong disbelief.

Mother Earth became Papa Sun. Jesus performed the dream of many men--he broke the hymen from the inside out and took up with a hooker. (pg 75)

As I am reading this book, I am also reading another book from the same time period, another memoir of sorts by Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine: Last Chance to See. In this book, Douglas mentions, "It's so bloody hard not to anthromorphise...I tried to imagine instead how [the gorilla] saw us, but of course that's almost impossible to do, because the assumptions you end up making as you try to bridge the imaginative gap are, of course, your own, and the most misleading assumptions are the ones you don't even know you're making." (pg 81). And this is exactly what Chris Offutt and the rest of the Animal Taming crew in the circus do. They antromorphize Gabe, the circus gorilla, assuming it feels and shows emotion the same way we do, and reacting due to these assumptions. "He glanced at us with an expression of terrible humiliation, then hid his face." (pg 101)
My favorite quote from this section is another from his present tense writings.

Taking life is as biologically grounded as giving life. Every animal kills to live. Eating fruit, vegetables, and grain is no escape; plants are living things. They have gender and home, suffer when hurt, and attempt to heal themselves. (pg 89)

It is a very interesting concept to believe the plants suffer when hurt, though he may mean suffer differently then the way animals do. When an animal loses a finger, (s)he will suffer with pain, while a plant will suffer with the loss of energy contributed by what ever is injured or torn apart. "I believe that like an amputee whose missing limb aches, the tree knows when a branch is gone." The tree notices the missing source of energy, the missing piece of the whole, regardless of how small.

-Mark