Book review: An engaging, if chastising, judgement on the foolishnesses we indulge

Anthony Gardner's satire may not be a cure all, but it is a wonderfully enjoyable tonic for our current reality

'Instinctivism' is the movement in Gardner's satirical book which champions legislation that would allow cows be company directors. File photo

• All God’s Creatures 
• Anthony Gardner 
• Lightning, €20

It takes real courage to choose satire while an orange and incoherent narcissist provokes No King protests right across what was once the land of the free, the home of the brave. Satire would be too stretched to amplify, to rattle our reality.

At a moment when a man who seems desperately in need of psychiatric care is leading America’s health services, choosing humour as a sword to slay rampaging dragons seems almost pacificism lite.

Those fears are wonderfully confounded by Anthony Gardner, who delivers what once upon a time would have been described as a splendid romp. He has written an uplifting, hilarious, smart, and edgy dissection of our bizarre capacity to imagine passing fashions as cornerstone philosophies to live by.

Gardner, an Irish author based in London, contrives a movement dedicated to changing the place our culture offers animals. “Instinctivism” is the movement, one that sweeps Britain, and suggests that humanity must, in a new interpretation of God’s order, play second fiddle to animals. It champions legislation that would allow cows be company directors.

One of its vanguard heroes, a vapid, rabid empty bucket, has achieved her doctoral status by studying cats’ dreams at an indulgent American university. She does not reveal how she became familiar with the push and pull of the moggies’ fantasies. What a pity. 

The movement gathers such momentum that it is proposed to renovate some of the London churches designed by Sir Christopher Wren to make them more animal-friendly. The Christmas crib is purged of people leaving only animals. More byres, fewer pews.

The lunacy assumes such a lemming velocity that the prime minister’s image makers insist that he get a Jack Russell terrier and Bert — named for philosopher Bertrand Russell — is installed as prop Number 1 at Number 10.

That Bert’s political career ends abruptly and that he joins a sad clown’s circus act is all too symptomatic of the times we live in. Any instinct to sneer should be curbed, after all, we routinely call pups fur babies and offer hip transplants to Bert’s cousins. Immorality masked by uneasy laughter.

Books like this offer a side amusement by giving the reader a chance to play cliché bingo. Gardner does not disappoint as he tips his cap to nearly all the imperatives of our age — greed, the intrusions of AI, Russian plotting, and mendacity, vegetarianism, religious extremism, shameless ambition, political cynicism, curators, art as a bookie’s dockets, and so much more.

He is also one of those wonderful writers who hints at events that lie ahead, allowing the reader to try to imagine how the strands might eventually come together.

All God’s Creatures will not win a Booker, neither will Spielberg buy the film rights — though Guy Ritchie might — but despite that, it is a wonderfully entertaining and engaging, if chastising, judgement on so many of the foolishnesses we indulge and imagine as essential lifestyle choices. 

It may not be a cure all, but it is a wonderfully enjoyable tonic.