Without a Tear: Our Tragic Relationship with Animals. M. H. Bernstein. 2004. University of Illinois Press, Champaign. 207 pp. $35 cloth, $25 paperback.

This is perhaps the most difficult book I've read in my whole life. It is certainly the most difficult review. The title, in part, will clue you in as to why this book is such a challenge to read and review. Our Tragic Relationship with Animals is a book with more controversy, baggage, and emotion than most readers of Environmental Practice may have encountered with any other topic. I am reminded of Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Pirsig, you may recall, was institutionalized after he allowed his mind to chase too many rabbits as he pursued a definition of quality in his own version of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. This current book is a bit like a literary maze … trail after trail is explored and each subsequent dead-end encountered in search of common justifications for harm to animals. The book is on a maddening search-and-destroy mission. Working as if in a furious video game, the villainous components of historical and contemporary philosophy are vanquished! The author might declare, “Mission accomplished”; this reviewer would reply, “Not so fast!”