REVIEW: The Companion Species Manifesto: Dogs, People, and Significant Otherness

M2 Best Books, June 16, 2004

M2 BEST BOOKS-(C)2000-2004 M2 COMMUNICATIONS LTD

A feminist manifesto as a study of companionship and companion species containing an alternate 'dog' world. Well that's a book worth reading except 'The Companion Species Manifesto: Dogs, People, and Significant Otherness' isn't, unless you have a degree in something complicated from somewhere which has at one time or another has been used as a backdrop for some academic love story.

'I tell a tale of molecular differences, but one less rooted in Mitochondrial Eve in a neo-colonial 'Out of Africa' and more rooted in those first mitochondrial canine bitches who got in the way of man', just an example of the text contained in Donna Haraway's book. What I thought was going to be an exercise in the old skill of pamphleteering is in fact a whole load of over-wrought, over-complicated ideas combined to create a book that frankly I can make only vague sense of.

Using the 'mans' best friend' analogy to explore the human desire for companionship and our motives for craving certain relationships is, in my eyes, a sensible and logical idea. It could be a fascinating study, but then again 'Greyfriars Bobby' could be called this too and it probably would make a whole lot more sense than Haraway's attempt. Its not so much that the book is complex and uses long words, it's just that it is done so deliberately and in such a blatant manner that you can't help thinking Haraway sat down with a thesaurus and changed every third word.

The subject of the book itself differs slightly from what the title would suggest. It's nothing really to do with dogs and 'mans' best friend' and more to do with how man (as always) has turned, from the beginning of time, women into a companion figure to help out, to procreate and do menial tasks that the man doesn't want to do and will not endanger his position of power if a woman does them. Haraway uses evidence from dog-lovers who claim they hate the way the dog has been turned into a cuddly-dependent, child-like while docile but instantly destroyed if mildly violent because we as humans have forgotten its place in nature. This in itself I agree with. Dogs aren't toys or children and if Haraway had stuck to developing a manifesto about how the relationship between humans and 'companion species' such as dogs should be then I could see an inventive and enlightening tract being built out of her over-elaborate language. Unfortunately putting a feminist twist on the subject smacks of over manipulation and the use of a separate species 'cause' in an attempt to further her own.

Maybe I just don't see what I'm meant to in this book, maybe I'm blinded by my own suspicion of people that have a cause - cynicism can seriously ruin a book - but I found it hard to engage with Haraway's effort. A pamphlet used to be a powerful political tool, written in engaging language and opening eyes to new movements and the faults of the ones that had gone before. Although I cannot doubt Haraway's passionate enthusiasm that pervades throughout 'The Companion Species Manifesto' she failed to engage me, losing her message under the weight of her own language, burying it under over-wrought analogies.

CONCLUSION: Tis is a difficult and challenging book but one that would only preach to the converted and isn't willing to allow others to take it on and maybe believe in what it has to say.

Title: The Companion Manifesto: Dogs, People, and Significant OthernessAuthor: Donna HarawayPublisher: Prickly Paradigm PressISBN: 0 97175758 5Price: USD10.00Reviewer: Matt Stewart