User recalls mother's distress over U.S. military abandoning rescue dogs in Vietnam, highlighting coldness of bureaucratic power. Reflects on Kafka's themes and mentions a recent case where a pet squirrel, Peanut, was confiscated and executed by New York authorities. Explores literary representations of squirrels, including works by Nabokov, Yeats, and Fitzgerald, emphasizing their symbolism of freedom, innocence, and human indifference. Ponders how children's literature would address Peanut's tragic fate and the state's decision to end his life despite being cherished.
NY State Executes Beloved Pet Squirrel Confiscation and execution of Peanut prompts review of literature on affection for squirrels. Sun, 03 Nov 2024 19:00:37 GMT https://petermcculloughmd.substack.com/p/ny-state-executes-beloved-pet-squirrel I still remember my mother’s inconsolable distress when when we watched a documentary about the U.S. military’s decision to leave behind U.S. army dogs—dogs that had literally rescued wounded American soldiers—when the U.S. military decided to evacuate Vietnam.
“Why would they abandon those dogs?” mom asked. “Why couldn’t they just bring them along?” Though I couldn’t really comprehend it myself, I suspected that there is something inherently cold-blooded and bloody-minded about the exercise of state bureaucratic power.
The Austro-Hungarian author, Franz Kafka, perceived this alien, disembodied coldness of state power, and he gave hyperbolic expression to it in stories such as The Trial and In the Penal Colony .
Kafka also recorded innumerable random thoughts in his notebooks, including the following reflection on a squirrel that he might have watched in the Vienna Woods near the sanitarium where he spent his last days dying from tuberculosis.
It was a squirrel, it was a squirrel, a wild female nutcracker, a jumper, a climber, and her bushy tail was famous in all the forests. This squirrel, this squirrel was always traveling, always searching, it couldn’t talk about this, not because it lacked the power of speech but because it had absolutely no time.
I thought of Kafka’s reflections when I saw the news that the New York Department of Environmental Conservation has confiscated and executed a beloved pet squirrel named Peanut from its owner, Mark Longo, who runs an animal rescue facility. Mr. Longo had raised Peanut since he was baby, orphaned when his mother was killed by a car.
“L’il Cowboy” Peanut
Kafka wasn’t the only famous author to write about his affection for squirrels. Surveying the literature, I found a great piece in the Guardian that highlighted the following stories.
Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov
As Professor Pnin bumbles about Waindell College, he is often shadowed by a squirrel, which, scholars agree, seems to serve as either psychic doppelganger or phantom of Pnin’s first love, murdered at Buchenwald, Mira Belochkin (whose name is close to the Russian for squirrel).
‘An Appointment’ by WB Yeats
Yeats invoked animals often, and squirrels more than once (see also: “To a Squirrel at Kyle-na-gno”). The observer in this poem admires the freedom of the “proud, wayward squirrel” and takes much satisfaction in the furry maverick’s shrug at human delusions of rank. “No government appointed him.”
The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin by Beatrix Potter
The message of this beloved story is that if you step out of line you’ll pay the consequences. No wonder children squirm with delighted terror over Nutkin’s insouciance and maddening riddles.
Frederick Nietzsche, biographical detail
According to his sister Elizabeth in The Young Nietzsche , the youthful Fritz worshipped a porcelain squirrel he named King Squirrel I and honoured it with musical productions, plays and poetry. Thus Spake Eichhörnchen !
A Diamond as Big as the Ritz by F Scott Fitzgerald
A hunted squirrel leads to the discovery of the massive diamond at the heart of this satirical novella about American excess and materialism – and is never thanked or mentioned again. A telling example of how the agency of the squirrel is simply taken for granted.
‘St Peter’s Day’ by Anton Chekhov
This story of the most foolish and blundering hunting party ever to assemble reaches its climax when one of the louts knocks a large ground squirrel over the head and suggests a dissection. After a swift butchering, the animal is declared to be without a heart. The sacrifice suggests the heartlessness and idiocy of mankind.
This Boy’s Life by Tobias Wolff
A squirrel who is an innocent bystander serves as a scapegoat. In this classic memoir, young Mr Wolff (Jack) has obtained a rifle, and, in the lonely hours after school, pretends to assassinate hapless neighbours from his window. Angry that the fools are failing to recognise the danger they’re in, he instead shoots a squirrel off the telephone wire. Later, concealing from his tender mother that he is the killer (“Poor little thing,” she says), Jack identifies with his victim in helpless sobs.
Small Game by John Blades
In this lost gem, published in the early 1990s, the squirrel is portrayed as a demon figure who creates havoc and discord. An everyman projects his woes on to the squirrels that he must destroy if he is to survive. Blades echoes Carl Jung’s theories of shadow projection and draws on the figure of Ratatoskr, a malicious trickster in Norse mythology.
‘On Pragmatism’ by William James
The squirrel in this case is used as a prop at the dawn of pragmatism and ordinary language philosophy; the anecdote related by Professor James in his famous lecture annoys Veblen, the title character of my novel, no end. He describes a camping trip with a cohort of his brainy friends, where, beneath a large tree in the “unlimited leisure” of the wilderness, the heavy metaphysical question in dispute is this: does the man, in going round the tree, go round the rotating squirrel on the tree – or not? Veblen thinks the Brahmins are splitting hairs about the words “go around”, while a squirrel is taking care not to be roasted on a spit for dinner. Since when is this “unlimited leisure”? According to Veblen, even James, the great empathist, had his blind spots.
Not mentioned in this list is Harold’s Tail , written and illustrated by my old friend John Bemelmans Marciano. To quote the book description on Amazon:
Harold is a squirrel living a happy if sheltered life in his park on New York City's Upper West Side. But when a streetwise rat persuades him to take part in an experiment, Harold suddenly finds himself without his tail fur-and without a home. Mistaken for a rat and forced out on the unfamiliar streets of New York, Harold encounters a cast of unforgettable characters, including a neurotic pigeon, a vain cat, and a tribe of hostile squirrels. But it's not until Harold discovers allies in an unusual trio of rodents that his adventures really begin. . . . By turns funny, poignant, and suspenseful, Harold's Tail will appeal to fans of Stuart Little and The Cricket in Times Square as it celebrates the courage of an unexpected hero and the resilient power of friendship.
I wonder how a children’s book author would tell the story of Peanut . How would parents explain New York State’s decision to execute the harmless and innocent little creature that had given years of joy to his human rescuer?
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