Unlikely Animals

As the novel’s title indicates, animals—and their relationship with the human world—are central to the novel. The complex relationship between the small town of Everton and Corbin Park, the vast and mysterious yet man-made wilderness bordering the town, is emblematic of the intricate relationship between the human and animal realms.

The animals in Hartnett’s novel are associated, for better or worse, with the natural world. Through the figure of Harold and his “haunting” of Clive, the novel suggests that animals can have a redemptive function, teaching humans how to regain contact with the natural world. There is a simplicity and spontaneity in the behavior of Moses and Rasputin, which contrasts sharply with the emotionally and socially driven behavior of the novel’s human characters. Moses, Rasputin, and The Sprite are portrayed as being capable of boundless joy, which also parallels with the children’s exuberant performance in the musical at the end of the novel. Further, Moses and Rasputin are the dying Clive’s most loyal and effective caregivers. Moses is baffled by the social and economic pressures that remove Ingrid, Auggie, and Emma from the vulnerable Clive. His animal instincts make him absolutely reliable and constant:

Moses had heard the Starlings say several times that Clive was not supposed to be left alone, and yet they all kept leaving him unattended, going out of the house, doing whatever it is people do without their dogs. Moses was not a fancy, trained service dog, but he was a Great Pyrenees mix, a breed whose job was guarding livestock, known to be a trustworthy dog with the defenseless creatures of the world. He was very happy to guard Clive (119).

Moses’s instincts are, to an extent, man-made in that they are characteristics that have been bred into generations of domesticated dogs. The same cannot be said of the more feral Rasputin, and yet he is also found to be “the only one actually doing anything” (285) as he furiously seeks to dig his master out of the hog hole while Auggie, Emma, and the volunteer firefighters stand by helplessly. Indeed, Rasputin’s digging played as much of a role in saving Clive as Emma’s CPR, since the fox prevented him from being deprived from oxygen for too long after he was electrocuted by the fence (291).

However, there are elements of irony in Harold’s portrayal, and the animal world is not portrayed in an uncomplicatedly romantic light. Harold’s attempts at living side by side with wild animals repeatedly end badly, as does Clive’s attempt to coax a deer into his own home (144). The violent deaths of Ulysses the rooster (219) and Mavis Spooner (296) serve as reminders of the brutality of life in the wild. Moses and Rasputin’s attachment to Clive is touching, but motivated to a large extent by the fact that his short-term memory loss means that he is constantly giving them treats:

Rasputin and Moses had gotten used to each other, living in such close quarters, and they shared the common love of the long-haired man who was so generous with the treats. So generous, in fact, it was almost as if he’d forgotten he’d just given you one just a few minutes before. Here was another and another and another (230).

The insurmountable difference between humans and animals and the unfathomable otherness of the animal kingdom is illustrated in the fact, revealed late on in the novel, that there are no animals in the afterlife—or at least not in the earth-bound afterlife depicted in the text. The dead humans remain emotionally connected to temporal events and relationships, while animals, who tend to live in the moment, are less tied down:

We like to think all the animals are waiting for us, somewhere off this earthly plane, once we let go of the rule of Caring for the People of Everton. We can imagine a place beyond Maple Street, but we can’t risk letting go. Not yet (275).

The fact that animals are ultimately a mystery to the humans in the novel means that, at times, they function as a blank canvas onto which the various characters can project their fears and emotions. For Clive, the inexistent/imperceptible ghost of The Sprite comes to symbolize death and his emotions about his own imminent passing (189). The plastic frog which Leanne gifts to Emma concretely embodies her paradoxical and conflicting emotions following Crystal’s disappearance: “There was no name for that mixture of grief and guilt and shame. But here was a name. It was Terry” (244).

In sum, Unlikely Animals is not so much about animals themselves as about the ways in which interaction with animals can help humans understand themselves and their conditions. Animals represent both the best and the worst of human nature while remaining a mystery.