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July 28, 2021
Nick McDonell's Playlist for His Novel "The Council of Animals"
In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.
Previous contributors include Jesmyn Ward, Lauren Groff, Bret Easton Ellis, Celeste Ng, T.C. Boyle, Dana Spiotta, Amy Bloom, Aimee Bender, Roxane Gay, and many others.
Nick McDonell's novel The Council of Animals is a fable witty, wise, and one that strikes close to home.
NPR Books wrote of the book:
"The voices of the characters range from charmingly colloquial―in an almost Disney sort of way―to nearly Shakespearean in gravity. . . . The echoes of Animal Farm are many, but here, the main target of social critique is far larger than totalitarianism. . . . A story that celebrates storytelling while jabbing the hubris at its core. McDonell makes animals appear more human than the majority of us upright, mostly hairless folks ― and that's both lovely and tragic. As an anthropomorphic folktale, The Council of Animals is concise, clever, and wonderfully conceived. As an allegory of the human condition, it's even better."
In his own words, here is Nick McDonell's Book Notes music playlist for his novel The Council of Animals:
A track list and discussion for The Council of Animals. The novel concerns a handful of animals who convene to vote on whether to kill and eat the last human survivors of a calamity which has wrecked the world. The animals represent their various species, but some have been more democratically chosen than others. Misunderstandings ensue....
"Le Marseillaise" performed by Django Reinhardt
This is one of the songs the animals picked up from their human cousins. In the second half of the book, the dog and cat give a command performance in a moment of inter-species crisis.
"Take Me Out To The Ball Game" and "Auld Lang Syne"
The melody of the cockroach anthem falls somewhere between these two songs. Sung by millions.
"Rich Girl" performed by Nina Simon
The complicated cat loves this song - both for its outraged protest, and because the cat wants to be a rich girl too, sometimes.
"Miserere Mei, Deus" performed by the Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge
This is one of the crow's favorite pieces - he's religious, melodramatic, not quite as good a singer as he'd like to be but that doesn't stop him. An almost unbelievably beautiful piece of music, certainly makes me want to cast my vote in favor of humanity.
"Y Sigues Siendo Tu" performed by Rogelio Martinez
The horse, who lived in Baja, heard this from a radio on the ranch. It has been his favorite human song ever since (though he never heard the original).
"Confessions" performed by Sudan Archives
On a dead phone left behind by the pilot of the smashed helicopter that the animals convene underneath.
"The 1812 Overture" by Tchaikovsky
....can not help but make the martial dog sit up and salute, though he was never fond of the cannon fire at the piece's end.
"My Funny Valentine" performed by Chet Baker
The bear always loved Chet Baker and, over the course of her several doomed love affairs in Hollywood, often turned to his records for solace.
"If I Had A Boat" performed by Lyle Lovett
The baboon, during his captivity, often heard this played by one of the scientists. Though the baboon was inclined to hate all things human, his particular song earned his affection, though he would not readily admit it. Especially the bit about riding the pony on the boat.
Nick McDonell, born in 1984, is a writer of novels, journalism, and political theory. He studied literature at Harvard and international relations at St. Anthony's College, Oxford. His fiction has been published in twenty-two languages and appeared on bestseller lists around the world. A film adaptation of his first novel, Twelve, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2010. His academic work on nomadism--The Civilization of Perpetual Movement--was published in 2016. As a reporter for the London Review of Books, Time, TheNewYorker.com, and Harper's, Nick has embedded with the United States Army and Marines, the Afghan Special Forces, the African Union Mission to Darfur, and the Iraqi Special Forces. Nick's last book, The Bodies in Person: An Account of Civilian Casualties in American Wars, was published in 2018. Nick is a cofounder of the Zomia Center for the Study of Non-State Spaces, which supports scholarly and humanitarian projects around the world.
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