By Mark Oppenheimer
Published: July 12, 2010, New York Times
THE DIVINE LIFE OF ANIMALS
One Man’s Quest to Discover Whether the Souls of Animals Live On
By Ptolemy Tompkins
243 pages. Crown Publishers. $22.99.
At their worst animal lovers are an embarrassment — especially to the animals they adore. The cat is not dignified by the owner who keeps a dozen other cats; no dog wants to submit to a team of hair stylists just to have a shot at Best in Show. In the relationship between humans and the animals over whom, the Bible tells us, we have dominion, Homo sapiens is the besotted fool.
For evidence that around animals, especially pets, we come undone, there is “The Divine Life of Animals,” Ptolemy Tompkins’s well-meaning but credulous investigation of whether there is an afterlife for his dog, your pet rabbit, Black Beauty or maybe Ch Roundtown Mercedes Of Maryscot, the Scottish terrier who won this year’s Westminster Kennel Club show, to pick just a few.
Of course, a man who wonders if animals have souls is a man with a foregone conclusion. It is no surprise that Mr. Tompkins asks, near the end of his book, “Do animals go to heaven?” and responds, “I am convinced that they do.” Mr. Tompkins is looking not for an answer, but a tradition to back it up. Like his father, the co-writer of the 1970s cult favorite “The Secret Life of Plants,” which hypothesized that plants may be sentient, Mr. Tompkins has an affinity for odd, in-your-face challenges to rationalism, which he has pursued in several previous books.
“The Divine Life of Animals” is a memoir of Mr. Tompkins’s journey through books: scholarly works of archaeology, history and theology. Leading us by the hand through his reading, with occasional anecdotes about animals he has known, he assembles a survey of how religions of the past 10,000 years or so have regarded the spiritual status of animals.
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