Such are Gilgamesh and Enkidu Adam, Eve and the Serpent and the accounts of animal worship or reverence that punctuate the narratives of the Old and New Testaments: the Golden Calf, fiery snakes, Beelzebub.

There are animal brides and animal grooms, and they figure not only in remote legends and tales, but in literature central to the development of our civilization. Add the reminder that humans and animals, representative of nature, can form a bond as close as a marriage, that a man may call his sweetheart his pet, and you have the psychological preconditions for the story of the animal marriage. One way of re- establishing the connection is through imagination, storytelling, mythmaking. Yet the concept of 'nature' is not fixed it changes with society and remains largely a mystery, as do the animals within it. The picture that emerges is that mankind in the course of its development separated itself conceptually from nature, but ever after felt the need to return. Having dismissed the 'isms,' Sax asks a number of direct and disarming questions: What is nature? What is animal? What is human? What is gender? What is marriage? He devotes a brief discussion to each. The method is open, eclectic, directed by expert knowledge and common sense like that of Joseph Campbell, but perhaps with fewer preconceptions than even that great guru. This approach is refreshing, rewarding and eminently readable: we are introduced not to pedantic terminology and academic analysis designed to demonstrate the brilliance of the analyst, but rather to a calm and thoughtful voice speaking to us as reasoning and feeling human beings. The author, Boria Sax, begins his exploration by stating that he prefers not to follow any particular school of interpretation his goal is not to reconstruct, deconstruct or ideologically exploit the oft-repeated story of the animal bride, but to find the human meaning in it. This is a beautifully produced and beautifully reasoned book.

Crow by Boria Sax