Because of Rowlands’ remarkable respect for his wolf, most of his advice and ideas work well if you replace wolf with child or best friend. I think this is also true of love and friendships, when you read the story as a manifesto for interacting with other creatures you can take a lot from it. One of the important parts of the book is when the author realises very quickly that to do right by Brenin (bought on whim as a cub), he has to make sure that he is with him as much of the time as possible, that he is able to exhaust the wolf daily and that he continually engages with the wolf - lest he get bored and destroy the furniture/air conditioner/curtains again. I particularly like the idea of the wolf attending his lectures and howling from time to time by way of critique. Moreover, there is an entertaining story at the heart of the book: that of one man and his wolf. I definitely learned things from this book. Perhaps there is not much hagiography after all and it is just my prickly reaction to someone living a more exciting life than mine! The book contains valuable insights into the nature of love, the role that death plays in our lives and what it means to care for and respect other living creatures. Faced with writing any book about my past I would do the same (I would have to!). I appreciate that this is probably everything to do with making the book a more entertaining read and it it no way detracts from the strength of his arguments.
Some of what he has to say about his actions seem a little hagiographic, making himself look less controlled and more anarchic in retrospect than perhaps was the case. Rowlands appears often to disparage dogs, though remembering my experiences of our Labradors while growing up did make me nod in agreement quite often. There is also a lot of explanation of the difference between wolves and dogs. As you might expect, the book pays particular attention to our interactions with wolves and dogs. The book addresses different aspects of philosophy including the nature of evil and the interaction between humans and other animals. It is the autobiography of the philosopher Mark Rowlands, specifically the experiences and lessons learned from raising a wolf, Brenin, from cub to maturity and beyond.
I saw that a friend had ‘liked’ this book on Facebook and reading about it on amazon, I was curious enough to give it a go.
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