One With the Tiger
Sublime and Violent Encounters Between Humans and Animals
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
On September 21, 2012, twenty-five year old David Villalobos purchased a pass for the Bronx Zoo and a ticket for a ride on the Bengali Express Monorail. Biding his time, he waited until the monorail was just near the enclosure of a four hundred pound Siberian tiger named Bashuta before leaping into it. They spent ten long minutes together in the tiger’s cage before nature took its course, with one exception: The tiger did not kill him. David’s only response: “It’s a spiritual thing. I wanted to be at one with the tiger.”
One with The Tiger: On Savagery and Intimacy uses David’s story, and other moments of violent encounters between humans and predators, to explore the line between human and animal. Exposing what the author defines as the “shared liminal space between peace and violence,” Church posits that the animal is always encroaching on the civilization —and those seeking its wildness are in fact searching for an ecstatic moment that can define what it means to be human. Using examples from Timothy Treadwell to Mike Tyson, or such television icons as Grizzly Adams and The Incredible Hulk, Church shows how this ecstasy can seep its way into the less natural world of popular culture, proving time and again that each of us can be our own worst predator.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this engaging volume, essayist Church (The Guinness Book of Me) uses the story of David Villalobos's 2012 jump into the Bronx Zoo's tiger cage to launch a broader discussion on the connections people try to forge with animals and the blurry line between humans and beasts. What compelled the man to risk injury or death and criminal prosecution? What thrill had Villalobos been seeking? As Church attempts to make sense of the event, he studies human interest in the behavior of beasts as well as human tendencies toward anger and violence. For example, Church was captivated in the 1970s by television series such as Grizzly Adams about a mountaineer and his bear, Ben and The Incredible Hulk, which he watched religiously. Church finds the dichotomy between "gentle soul, scientist" David Banner (Bruce Banner in the original comic) and the "damaged and dangerous" Hulk intensely fascinating. Another section on boxer Mike Tyson, who in a 1997 fight bit off a piece of Evander Holyfield's ear, is also remarkable, speaking to the sport's inherent savagery and human attraction to the spectacle. Readers expecting a narrow examination of Villalobos's tiger encounter at the zoo will be rewarded instead with Church's insightful exploration of human infatuation with nonhuman animals.
