I'm not normally one to preface a review, or even mention in a review, when a book is not appropriate for certain audiences. (I hope to have duped a few of the weak-stomached into reading, say, Peter Sotos or Pan Pantziarka, because they deserve being read). But I'm going to start this one by saying, quite bluntly, Cows is not for everyone. In fact, Cows may not be for anyone. It is scatological, offensive, disgusting, filled to the brim with sex, violence, and sexual violence, and is probably capable of inciting nausea in those who are perfectly capable of sitting through atrocity footage and watch driving school videos for fun. I contract this with the way he views other women, notably the girl who lives above them, and the women he sees on TV. He idolizes them, not for their womanhood or personality, but for the life he feels they can give him. Steven wiles away his days watching his television and dreaming of the life he “should” have had, the life he desperately wants now, the life he’s willing to kill his mother for.

Cows is also visionary, brilliant, amazingly complex, a must on my ten best reads of the year list, and the second full-length piece of fiction I have finished in less than twenty-four hours this year. It's not only so nasty you can't look away, but it is supremely, blindingly great. Steven doesn't know it, but he can't fulfill his dreams of a normal life. He’ll meet a cow that will change his life. he won’t have a normal life, but he’ll be free to be who he, truly is. After reading what I have just written, you are probably wondering, what is so intense about this story. I won't tell you, because I think you have to read this book, knowing as little as possible. While I could write a full academic paper on how I view Cows as a critique on current social structure, not all would agree with me. Look, there is a lot to try and get past in this book. Each person featured in here, and the Guernsey cow, are damaged and mentally destroyed. Stokoe has covered them in a layer of mud that won’t wash off and each character struggles to act ‘normally’ while battling this unseen poison that has infected them. The most obvious example of this is Steven’s love interest. She can feel this ‘thing’ festering under the surface, always growing and grabbing a hold on her insides and the depression it creates, where she understands that one day it’ll kill her, is horrifying to watch. Stokoe does a masterful job of showing various forms of mental health issues and how Steven, while suffering through his own issues, keeps trying to find hope and positivity. That one day, he’ll have a home that is filled with happiness and some aspect of his life will have meaning.The style is an eclectic mix of astute animal observation, gossipy stories about what animal did what when, rather tedious geneology of all the wonderful cows the author has had the pleasure to know and some "All Creatures Great and Small" vibes. The book, though enjoyable in its way, was not what I think of as a good book. I thought too much of the 'secret life' was fanciful and not at all credible. And I speak from a point of view of knowledge. I know cows as cows who are not subject to people at all, I've been observing 'wild' ones for decades, mostly in my garden where they eat what they fancy every now and again. (They like psychedelic magic mushrooms but I've not seen if they get high or not on them). Cows are not farmed in farms here, the farmer lets the gardens of the whole island feed them and they just cull the baby bulls, the cows are free to live out their lives until old age weakens them, then they too go to the abbatoir.

I'm not normally one to preface a review, or even mention in a review, when a book is not appropriate for certain audiences. (I hope to have duped a few of the weak-stomached into reading, say, Peter Sotos or Pan Pantziarka, because they deserve being read). But I'm going to start this one by saying, quite bluntly, Cows is not for everyone. In fact, Cows may not be for anyone. It is scatological, offensive, disgusting, filled to the brim with sex, violence, and sexual violence, and is probably capable of inciting nausea in those who are perfectly capable of sitting through atrocity footage and w

How to Vote

Cam, a lifestyle blogger, has carved a lucrative career on the internet with her frank and unapologetic attitude to sex, sexuality and gender. When she writes about not wanting to have children she finds herself cast as the face of childless women, and she is alternately vilified and celebrated for her honesty. Stokoe : Okay, okay – look – in Cows, cows are completely symbolic. I mean look, I have them talking – in Cows, cows can talk! Which as you know, in real life, they can’t. I had to think, before writing my review. I understand why there is controversy surrounding this book. This book touched me so much, that it took me a while, to put my ideas into place. I loved it!

Scene : A pleasant summer day in the English Peak District. A guy is walking through the breathtaking Derbyshire countryside. The pathway takes him through a field. In the field, a herd of cows.But the political posturing does not come at the expense of humour, which is illustrated in the bovine metaphor that Cam uses when talking about women, individuality and the cultural imperative to procreate. It is such a strong idea that O’Porter uses it for the title of her book, and it neatly sums up her light feminist message: cows needn’t follow the herd. Sara Keating Steven is our protagonist, who is 25 years old and has never left his house except from the roof and after that got too much, then from his television. From watching shows like "The Brady Bunch", "Leave it to Beaver" and other perfect family sitcoms....Steven has built a dream family - but how can he have it if he has been conditioned from birth to be scared of people and crowds from his mother, The Hagbeast. Oh.....just wait till you meet her....... Det er ikke kun køernes intelligens, Young kommer omkring. Det er også deres sociale samvær, deres evne til at knytte bånd og drage omsorg for hinanden. Vi lærer, hvordan de kommunikerer på forskellig vis og om deres evne til at huske og genkende. Hun tilbyder kun få videnskabelige forklaringer, men bruger i stedet egne erfaringer og konkrete eksempler fra livet på gården til at bakke op om hendes teser omkring køers indre liv. De få konkrete fakta rammer dog som en knytnæve, når hun trækker på undersøgelser, der har kunne påvise indskrænkning af køers hjernekapacitet på baggrund af pladsmangel og forkert foder.

Done? Remember learning that in HS or College?? This is satire - this book is one big satire that each person who reads it will come out with a different message from the person next to them. Matthew Stokoel has the ability to create a profound satire mixed in with cannibalism, bestiality, gore, sexual perversion, abuse, self mutilation. I was in awe..... COWS is a way of thinking about that. It is not a good novel by a number of standards. It’s awkwardly constructed; its inner monologues and dialogues are seldom persuasive; it doesn’t respond to the last fifty years of fiction except in glancing allusions to some other extremist authors; and its writing is often mechanical. Stokoe doesn’t seem to have thought about the fragmented consciousness of Naked Lunch, or the ecstatic prejudices and violence of Céline. His rebellion is presented in the mold of simple fictional forms and basic narrative devices. Reading 'Cows' is like running some kind of marathon. Chances are, the most disturbing novel you've ever read is Disney-lite compared to this one. I'd suggest reading it over two or three days like I did. Despite its relatively minor length, reading it in one sitting might have you not leaving your shower for the rest of the day, and spreading it out over a week is kind of like staring at the sun. Do it for too long and you're bound to cause some permanent damage. Please be aware that this article contains triggering subject matter. While key plot points have been omitted, severely disturbing material is alluded to.Unlike other reviewers, I see this not so much as being saccharine cute or attempting to put human mentalities onto non-human animals but rather... Another way to put this would be to say that COWS makes a rum mixture of a large number of important provocations: morality, ethics, sexuality, perversity, nihilism, sadism… nearly every concept I have mentioned in this review, including beauty and harmony, is contested. But that observation is just another form of the puzzle I mentioned at the beginning: why, if a book manages to combine all these, is it not more or less automatically an important book?