A searching, captivating look at the persistence of myth in our modern world

"By nature volatile and discordant, the human animal looks to silence for relief from being itself while other creatures enjoy silence as their birthright."

In a book by turns chilling and beautiful, John Gray continues the thinking that made his Straw Dogs such a cult classic.

Gray draws on an extraordinary array of memoirs, poems, fiction, and philosophy to re-imagine our place in the world. Writers as varied as Ballard, Borges, Conrad, and Freud have been mesmerized by forms of human extremity--experiences that are on the outer edge of the possible or that tip into fantasy and myth. What happens to us when we starve, when we fight, when we are imprisoned? And how do our imaginations leap into worlds way beyond our real experiences?

The Silence of Animals is consistently fascinating, filled with unforgettable images and a delight in the conundrum of human existence--an existence that we decorate with countless myths and ideas, where we twist and turn to avoid acknowledging that we too are animals, separated from the others perhaps only by our self-conceit. In the Babel we have created for ourselves, it is the silence of animals that both reproaches and bewitches us.

約翰·尼古拉斯·格雷（John Nicholas Gray），生於1948年4月17日。英國當代保守主義政治哲學傢。他在倫敦政治經濟學院任歐洲思想學院教授，於2008年退休。格雷經常為“衛報”，“泰晤士報”和“新政治傢”作齣主要書評。格雷錶示，他認為自己是一個無神論者。格雷寫瞭幾本有影響力的著作，其中包括《假黎明：全球資本主義的妄想》（1998年），認為自由市場全球化是一個目前處於解體過程中的不穩定的啓濛運動項目。《芻狗：對人類和其他動物的思考》（2003） ，攻擊哲學的人文主義，一種格雷認為源於宗教的世界觀。《黑彌撒：啓示宗教與烏托邦的死亡》（2007年），對現代世界的烏托邦思想的批判。格雷將意誌、道德看作一種假象，並把人類描繪為一個從事消滅其他形式的生命的貪婪的物種。格雷寫道：“人類不能摧毀地球，但卻可以輕易地破壞維持它們的環境。”