At first glance, humans, whales, and elephants do not seem to have too much in common, except that they are all mammals. But Elizabeth Rosner has identified a behavior these three share: deep listening. In Third Ear, her second work of nonfiction, Rosner explores how humans, animals, trees, and the environment at large (can) listen to one another. Her book is also a memoir, full of reflection on her life as a writer, a woman, and the daughter of Holocaust survivors.
Third-ear listening, Rosner explains, is an approach developed by Theodor Reik, a close student of Sigmund Freud. It is more than just hearing, or even active listening. Rather, third-ear listening involves perceiving the world in a deeply attuned, intuitive way, beyond what is physically audible. It is listening to the silence; it is tuning into each other. It is a kind of listening that compels reflection, one observed not only in humans (when they want to), but also in elephants, whales, and nature at large.
What drew Elizabeth Rosner to third-ear listening? Growing up as a second-generation survivor, she was shaped by the silences and the voices of her family and community. Because she was raised in a multilingual home in America and faced with spoken and unspoken memories of the Europe that her parents had escaped, Rosner was highly attuned to the words, sounds, and tunes of humans, animals, and the environment. All of this made her want to learn more about listening.
Throughout the book, Rosner intertwines personal memories — such as her disillusionment with Orthodoxy as a result of not being listened to as a Jewish girl and woman — with an inter- and cross-disciplinary exploration of listening. She moves elegantly from childhood recollections to insights gained from conversations with researchers, authors, artists, and therapists. Rosner also discusses research about listening as it relates to psychology and psychoanalysis, veterinary studies, literature, and linguistics. By engaging with studies and memories, she highlights the power and impact of human and nonhuman listening.
Rosner’s book presents listening as a way to understand ourselves, each other, and the world around us. Page by page, it is often a surprise to see what Rosner will write about next: it might be the ecosystem of trees, the impact of COVID on the global and local soundscape, or her parents’ survival during the Holocaust. Rosner’s writing is associative, and her voice, reflective and hopeful. Third Ear is a book that is needed now more than ever. It urges us to live in (and listen to) this very moment.
Katharina Hadassah Wendl (Klein) is a researcher in rabbinic literature at Freie Universität Berlin.
