Book review: The Philosopher and the Wolf

During the course of our lives, if we are lucky – or unlucky depending on your own view – we will undergo a number of life-changing experiences. That the details of these experiences and their impact on us are unique to us and us only is not in dispute. What is curious about these personally seismic events, though, is the strange phenomenon that we are only able to recognise the full implications of such experiences long after they have happened; when we have shaken the dust from our allegorical feet and thrown a backwards glance over our metaphorical shoulder.

As it is with all of us, so it was for Mark Rowlands. When he picked up that local newspaper on a hot summer day in Alabama and decided, on impulse, to buy a six week old wolf cub, I’m pretty sure that he had no concept that the consequences of his actions were going to change the rest of his life. His only worry was whether he had enough money in his bank account to pay for it. And so begins a remarkable story of how this young British professor of philosophy came to share the next eleven years with Brenin the wolf.

At one level, The Philosopher and The Wolf is a highly amusing and deeply moving memoir of the life and times of one man and his wolf. As both grow and mature and change - jobs, homes, continents, girlfriends - they provide, for each other, the only constants in each other’s lives. We watch Brenin as he grows from fluffy cub into 150lb adult; we observe his training and his interactions with dogs and other people; we prowl with the wolf as he hunts rabbits and chases birds as much as we see his human companion hunt jobs and chase girls.

If The Philosopher and the Wolf were just a memoir of a man’s life with a wolf, it would still be a great book. But what raises it to brilliance is what it shows us about what it is to be human. Or as Mark Rowlands describes it, the “certain thoughts that can only emerge in the space between a wolf and a man”. The philosopher holds a mirror up to himself and sees the reflection of the avaricious, deceitful ape standing beside the raw and honourable furry embodiment of the natural world. The author does not try to dodge the unflattering bullets of this comparison and never strays into the territory of anthropomorphism; indeed, I believe Mark would regard that as an unforgivable and insulting betrayal to the fundamental nature of what Brenin is. So the book is also uncomfortable at times in what it tells us about what we are; our own, very human, nature does not always look good in this glaring spotlight that misses no detail of our defects.

It is a rare book that keeps me compelled to keep on reading until the dawn chorus reminds me that it’s morning. Rarer still, perhaps, is a book on philosophy that delights, entertains, amuses and educates in such a way. If this book’s grand theme is that of evolution and how we came to be what we are, it is also a road map of one man’s personal evolution from what he was then and how he became what he is now. All the lessons that Mark learned about love, death and happiness were taught to him by his wolf, and I don’t mind admitting that I was in tears for most of the last quarter of the book. Ultimately, this book has moved me beyond measure; reading it really has been a life changing experience.

If you are examining any of the big questions in your own life, if you are looking to take a peep around the curtains at the machinery that lies behind why we act as we do, if you have a deep and non-sentimental regard for nature and creatures, this book could change your life too.

The Philosopher and the Wolf: Lessons from the Wild on Love, Death and Happiness is published by Granta (2009)

Mark Rowlands is now professor of philosophy at the University of Miami. His website is

www.markrowlandsauthor.com