The Pig Who Sang to the Moon: The Emotional World of Farm Animals [Hardcover]

Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 4, 2003

Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson’s groundbreaking bestseller, When Elephants Weep, was the first book since Darwin’s time to explore emotions in the animal kingdom, particularly from animals in the wild. Now, he focuses exclusively on the contained world of the farm animal, revealing startling, irrefutable evidence that barnyard creatures have feelings too, even consciousness.

Weaving history, literature, anecdotes, scientific studies, and Masson’s own vivid experiences observing pigs, cows, sheep, goats, and chickens over the course of five years, this important book at last gives voice, meaning, and dignity to these gentle beasts that are bred to be milked, shorn, butchered, and eaten. Can we ever know what makes an animal happy? Many animal behaviorists say no. But Jeffrey Masson has a different view: An animal is happy if it can live according to its own nature. Farm animals suffer greatly in this regard. Chickens, for instance, like to perch in trees at night, to avoid predators and to nestle with friends. The obvious conclusion: They cannot be happy when confined twenty to a cage.

From field and barn, to pen and coop, Masson bears witness to the emotions and intelligence of these remarkable farm animals, each unique with distinct qualities. Curious, intelligent, self-reliant–many will find it hard to believe that these attributes describe a pig. In fact, there is much that humans share with pigs. They dream, know their names, and can see colors. Mother cows mourn the loss of their calves when their babies are taken away to slaughter. Given a choice between food that is nutritious or lacking in minerals, sheep will select the former, balancing their diet and correcting the deficiency. Goats display quite a sense of humor, dignity, and fearlessness (Indian goats have been known to kill leopards). Chickens are naturally sociable–they will gather around a human companion and stand there serenely preening themselves or sit quietly on the ground beside someone they trust.

For far too long farm animals have been denigrated and treated merely as creatures of instinct rather than as sentient beings. Shattering the abhorrent myth of the “dumb animal without feelings,” Jeffrey Masson has written a revolutionary book that is sure to stir human emotions far and wide.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The horrors have been pointed out before-that factory farm chickens are genetically altered, debeaked without anesthesia, and crammed into overcrowded coops; that calves are separated from their mothers and kept in dark crates to become veal. Here Masson (Dogs Never Lie About Love) makes the case that the animals humans eat on a regular basis-pigs, chickens, sheep, cows and ducks-feel, think and suffer. Each animal gets a chapter, in which Masson interweaves folklore, science and literature (he quotes Darwin, Gandhi and the Bible) with his observations of the animals' behaviors. He relates how a pot-bellied pig saved the life of her keeper and visits Dr. Marthe Kiley-Worthington, of Little Ash Eco-Farm in England, whose cow does agility tricks; he also interviews those who raise animals for profit. But there is no subtlety in his sometimes nauseatingly Edenic anecdotes: abused animals always come around and we live happily ever after. The text is pocked with far-fetched hypotheses (e.g., "A woman coming across a young lamb in ancient times might well have nursed the lamb" to explain the domestication of sheep). Arguing that all farming of animals for food is wrong (even eggs), Masson rebuts the fallacy that farm animals would die out without us, but doesn't say how we are to make the transition. His peripatetic style lacks transitions, for example going from cock fighting, which gets only one paragraph, to meditations on why roosters crow at dawn. Despite the holes in his preachy argument, his narrative contains some solid, fascinating information on the emotional life of farm animals.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Masson is a champion of the rights of animals to live their physical and emotional lives to the full, unfettered by human demands. He has written about wild animals (When Elephants Weep, 1 995) and companion animals (The Nine Emotional Lives of Cats, 2002, Dogs Never Lie about Love,1997) and now turns his attention to the animals we raise for food. Domestic animals have been with us for roughly 10,000 years, yet they still retain the behaviors and instincts of their wild ancestors. Masson explores the emotional lives of our most common farm animals, devoting a chapter each to pigs, chickens, sheep and goats, cows, and ducks. Anecdotal stories mix with quotes from scientists, other authors' observations, and philosophical musings on the nature of each species. Masson is passionate in his beliefs, and a strong thread of animal rights runs through his entire narrative. Readers not convinced by his philosophy will learn quite a bit about the animals we mostly take for granted. A good choice for all collections. Nancy Bent
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books; 1 edition (November 4, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 034545281X
• ISBN-13: 978-0345452818
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (35 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #406,929 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #41 in Books > Professional & Technical > Professional Science > Biological Sciences > Zoology > Animal Psychology

More About the Author

Masson has had at least four lives: first as a boy raised to become a "spiritual leader" (see his denunciation of such a life in My Father's Guru). While in the middle of his disillusion, he became a professor of Sanskrit at the University of Toronto. At the same time he trained to become a Freudian analyst. Upon graduation he became Projects Director of the Freud Archives, and was scheduled to move into Freud's house in London when fate intervened: Masson found documents which seemed to show that Freud was right in believing that many women had been sexually abused as children, and that he was wrong to give up this belief, perhaps impelled by societal displeasure at his discoveries. Saying this publicly turned Masson into a psychoanalytic pariah, and he gave up both his professorship and his analytic career to delve into the far more fascinating world of animal emotions. Two of his books, WHEN ELEPHANTS WEEP and DOGS NEVER LIE ABOUT LOVE, were New York Times best-sellers. He became vegetarian as a result of his research, and later, when he looked into the feelings of farm animals, he became even stricter, and no longer eats or uses any animal product (vegan). Harpercollins published his most recent book: THE DOG WHO COULDN'T STOP LOVING: HOW DOGS HAVE CAPTURED OUR HEARTS FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS. He lives on a beach in New Zealand with his two sons, Ilan and Manu, and his German wife, Leila, a pediatrician who works with children on the autistic spectrum (using the bio-medical approach), Benjy, a golden lab, and three cats. They often travel to the States, Europe, and Australia. He is now fascinated in the "us/them" phenomenon, between humans but also between humans and animals.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

83 of 90 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars When Pigs Weep, November 4, 2003

By 

Joseph Connelly (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Pig Who Sang to the Moon: The Emotional World of Farm Animals (Hardcover)

Scholar and prolific author Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson burst on the scene as one of the foremost contemporary writers about animals with the publication of "When Elephants Weep: The Emotional Lives of Animals" in 1995. "Elephants" was groundbreaking, showing that non-humans of all shapes and sizes lead complex emotional lives. The book became a New York Times bestseller.

Masson has since published three books about cats or dogs. All were fine works and fun reads, yet, as each focused solely on one species, none captured Masson's affinity to bring the reader onto the printed page as did his first animal book. While his dog and cat books touched your heart, "Elephants" seeped into your soul.

With the publication of "The Pig Who Sang to the Moon: The Emotional Lives of Farm Animals," Masson makes a grand return to his previous lofty accomplishment. Like "Elephants," "Pig" focuses on beings in addition to the chosen one who gets a mention in the title. Sharing with the reader the emotional complexities of many animals is one of Masson's greatest strengths; certainly no writer today is his superior. When he writes, "Farm animals-perhaps because of the fate that invariably awaits them-seem able to feel something I cannot," it makes you wonder if he's being too modest, while questioning whether you, the reader, can feel what he, the author, does.

In "Pig," Masson covers all of the modern-day farmed animals, devoting chapters to pigs, chickens, sheep and goats, cows, and ducks and geese. His research is superb; whether you are a long-time ethical vegan or a committed carnivore you will discover something you did not know about each of these beings. Are you aware that a pig is easier to house train than a dog? Or that chickens always know exactly what time it is? That goats are funny, inventive, and love unconditionally? Masson uncovers these and many more gems, including the elderly New Zealand couple whose two ponds fill up with wild ducks "every year, the night before duck season starts."

Masson also expertly discusses his supposition of farmed animal emotions, foreshadowing the naysayers certain to question his premise. He writes that "not so very long ago, ... people intimately connected to the lives of animals did not care whether animals had feelings or not." He then quotes Frans de Wall, Ph.D., Professor of Primate Behavior from the Yerkes Primate Research Center, who wrote in a 1999 New York Times editorial, "I still remember some surrealistic debates among scientists in the 1970s that dismisses animal suffering as a bleeding-heart issue. Amid stern warnings against anthropomorphism, the then-prevailing view was that animals were robots, devoid of feeling, thoughts, or emotions." Masson concludes: "in the absence of communal signs, such as physical gestures or sounds, humans are simply not equipped to understand animal emotions. This does not mean they are not there."

"Pig" is a book that pulls no punches, yet is "mainstream" enough to reach a wide audience. Masson doesn't shy away from the real issues, stating, in the first chapter, "The position I take in this book is a radical one," and "I think it is wrong to raise animals for food." Later he states "All you need do to make [animal slaughter] unnecessary is to say once and mean it: these deaths are not necessary. I do not have to eat meat."

In his concluding chapter, "On Not Eating Friends," Masson proclaims, "I have to be honest: My research leaves me in no doubt whatsoever, that to prevent animals from suffering unbearable agony, we must become not only vegetarian, but vegan." These are powerful and refreshing words coming from an author whose book is certain to get wide coverage and exposure.

If you wish to give farmed animals the best Holiday season ever, purchase two copies of "The Pig Who Sang to the Moon"-the first for yourself; the other as a gift for one of the future vegetarians on your shopping list.

~ Joseph Connelly ([e-mail]) is founding editor of VegNews (vegnews.com)

34 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Masson's Most Important Book Yet, December 8, 2003

By 

K. vK Bomben "Kristin von Kreisler" (Washington) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Pig Who Sang to the Moon: The Emotional World of Farm Animals (Hardcover)

Jeffrey Masson has done it again: He's marshaled his fine intellect and compassionate heart to write another fascinating book about animal emotions. This one, about farm animals, could make carnivore readers squirm because they might not want to consider the feelings of the cows or pigs they eat. Nevertheless, I would encourage everyone to read what Masson has to say. As with all his books, The Pig Who Sang to the Moon is filled with interesting facts and observations, and Masson's musings are always extremely entertaining.

I especially enjoyed the chapter on ducks because dozens of them come to my lawn every day. Before reading the book, I'd not known that ducks form close friendships and loyally watch after each other. (One duck that Masson mentioned was a seeing-eye duck for a blind friend.) Sadly, I also learned from the book that gangs of male thug ducks sometimes rape females. Masson does not make farm animals out as paragons of virtue, but no one can question his sympathy toward them. And I certainly share that sympathy.

The book is a must read for anyone who loves animals. But, actually, my hope is that the book gets into the hands of people who do not love animals because Masson has a superb ability to enlighten and persuade. Perhaps the book will sensitize people to some of the unspeakably heartless ways that farm animals are treated. With understanding, change can come, and Masson surely wrote the book with that goal in mind. He has done more to promote animal welfare than any writer I know.

25 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Life-Changing Book, May 15, 2004

By 

Wanda Perkins (Morehead,, KY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Pig Who Sang to the Moon: The Emotional World of Farm Animals (Hardcover)

I have been a vegetarian for 11 years, unwilling to eat anything that required "killing" an animal. After reading "The Pig Who Sang to the Moon", I cannot with a good conscience continue to eat the foods produced by animals/birds. The suffering they endure for my benefit cannot be justified. I am now beginning my path toward veganism and the small, but necessary, contribution I can make to alleviate the suffering of animals for the selfishness of man.