Cockroach by Marion Copeland, Reaktion Books, 拢12.95, ISBN 186189192X Reviewed by Mike Holderness
A BUNCH of books on beasts arrives: Ant, 鈥 pick Cockroach as the biggest challenge to a populariser. The mere thought of a cockroach turns even vegan pacifists murderous. Ask them about 鈥渞ights for roaches鈥� and you鈥檒l get a squirmish stare. But former English professor Marion Copeland almost manages to make me like them.
Literary roaches help her, from Kafka鈥檚 metamorphosed Gregor Samsa to the lower-case typist of archie and mehitabel. Unlike rats and fleas, Copeland says, roaches have no specific association with disease 鈥� though she skitters over the question of their unspecific treadings. She concludes that coming to terms with cockroaches contributes to an ecofeminist revolution in our relation to the natural world.
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On the way, this gripping little book is crawling with anecdotes. Kafka, she suggests, should be recognised as founder of the genre of 鈥渕agical realism鈥� with his use of the bug to represent the repressed underdog. A library at Yale rid itself of roaches merely by turning the heating off in winter: the 鈥減owerful US pest-control industry鈥� would, apparently, rather you didn鈥檛 know about this.