Only a Little While Here

What a lovely little meditation on nature. Only a Little While Here is a series of vignettes, each centered on one of five animals: two dogs, a bird, a porcupine, and a June bug. Each story follows a period in an animal’s life, observing its interactions with the natural world, the changing environment, and the effects of human activity.

I especially appreciated the way the animals’ perspectives were handled. The stories are told by an omniscient narrator who can observe the animals’ movements and behaviors without pretending to actually know what they are thinking. So rather than anthropomorphizing the animals, the narration lets us draw our own conclusions based on what we can observe and understand about them. I thought this was an effective way to promote empathy while preserving some of the unknowns of animal life.

I thought the book also did a good job exploring the relationship between humans and animals without becoming overly sentimental. The sections involving the dogs were by far the most emotional, but even these kept a pretty restrained, matter-of-fact tone.

Overall, I found Only a Little While Here very sweet and thoughtful. I don’t have any specific criticisms of it, but I am also kind of struggling to express any notable amount of enthusiasm about it. It’s a lovely little book, even if it didn’t leave a particularly lasting impression on me.

Book author: María Ospina