Only the Animals

The short stories in Ceridwen Dovey’s collection, Only the Animals (2014), are concerned animals who have been directly affected by human actions, and what human war and conflict mean for them. Receiving overwhelmingly positive reviews, the book won both the 2014 Queensland Literary Award and the 2014 Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction. Dovey is a bestselling writer who studied at Harvard University. Critics praise her ability to write across various mediums. The US National Book Foundation nominated Dovey for their distinguished “5 Under 35” award based on her debut novel, Blood Kin.

Only the Animals contains ten interlinked short stories, each narrated by a different animal. The animals were all killed, directly or indirectly, by human conflict. Each narrator speaks about an author who wrote positively about animals during his or her lifetime—for example, Woolf and Tolstoy. Dovey uses animal narrators to say the things we don’t normally say.

There are no talking animals in Only the Animals. Though the narrators can’t communicate with humans, they don’t lack feelings or emotions. They feel pain acutely, which is why we should consider them when we start wars and destroy habitats. Despite our inconsiderate actions, each narrator attempts to empathize with humans. They want to understand why we fight and struggle. The narrators hope that, by sharing their insights with humans, they will encourage us to treat every living thing with more compassion and respect.



In the first story, “The Bones, Soul of Camel, Died 1892, Australia,” people sit around a campfire as the camel dozes beside them. The camel laments how no one talks to him anymore. All they do is give him commands. His original handler, Zeriph, looked after him and treated him well. His new handler thinks he is insignificant—so insignificant that he shoots the camel.

In “Pigeons, a Pony, the Tomcat and I, Soul of Cat, Died 1915, France,” the famous French novelist Colette owns a pretty cat. What Colette does not know is that the cat is a lesbian. The cat loves Colette so much that she will go wherever Colette goes. When Colette heads to the WWII trenches, the cat follows her, and she dies during combat. An animal’s love for her human knows no bounds.

A man called Red Peter wants to marry Hazel, a female ape in “Red Peter’s Little Lady, Soul of Chimpanzee, Died 1917, Germany.” Hazel later discovers that Red Peter loves Frau Oberndorff, a human woman. Red Peter wants to turn Hazel into Frau Oberndorff because she is married, and he cannot have the real woman.



The main characters in “Hundstage, Soul of Dog, Died 1941, Poland” are Heinrich Himmler, a prominent Nazi officer, and his German shepherd. Although Himmler treats the dog well, he treats humans appallingly. The dog loves Himmler and never leaves his side, but one day, Himmler kicks him out. The dog cannot understand what happened; he dies of starvation in nearby woodlands without finding out.

Two small mussels float through the ocean in “Somewhere Along the Line the Pearl Would be Handed to Me, Soul of Mussel, Died 1941, USA.” The mussels don’t know where they are going as they search for the meaning of life. They stumble into Pearl Harbor and die underfoot.

In “Plautus: A Memoir of My Years on Earth and Last Days in Space, Soul of Tortoise, Died 1968, Space,” a lonely tortoise floats through space. A Russian research animal, he won’t make it home. Although he enjoys solitude, he also wants companionship. Reading books makes him feel alive before he ultimately dies.



A small elephant herd fights to stay alive during the Mozambique Civil War in  “I, the Elephant, Wrote This, Soul of Elephant, Died 1987, Mozambique.” If the herd dies, its matriarchal legacy dies with it—which is exactly what happens. Just like humans, animals have their own history and hierarchy.

“Telling of Fairytales, Soul of Bear, Died 1992, Bosnia and Herzegovina” centers on two bears and a witch who hide from the atrocities occurring outside their sanctuary. The problem is that, no matter how deep in the woods they hide, war finds them. War always finds the innocent.

A dolphin talks about all the good things that dolphins do for humans in “A Letter to Sylvia Plath, Soul of Dolphin, Died 2003, Iraq.” This includes swimming with children, protecting people from sharks, and making humans smile. The dolphin, like the other narrators, dies a meaningless death during the conflict.



In the final story, “Psittacophile, Soul of Parrot, Died 2006, Lebanon,” a parrot spends his final days locked in a Beirut apartment with his owner during a conflict. They venture outside during a ceasefire. The owner puts the parrot into a pet store because she cannot look after it anymore. The parrot dies alone in the abandoned pet store.