When Men Are Beasts

We are beasts: in our desires, in how we move through the world, in how we relate to our environments and the people around us. I am intrigued by fiction where the line between people and animals is deliberately blurred, where the façade of human civility is eroded. With the Animals by Swiss writer Noëlle Revaz and translated by W. Donald Wilson is one such book where a writer is merciless and unwavering in baring the animal nature of the human race. This is a novel that tells a familiar story — that of a brutal marriage — in a shocking but strangely refreshing manner. You will not find trite melodrama or rehashed themes. With the Animals does not have a traditional sense of plot, diction, or characterization but the story presented is nonetheless fully and brilliantly realized.