Difficulty of Being a Dog
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The forty-three lovingly crafted vignettes within The Difficulty of Being a Dog dig elegantly to the center of a long, mysterious, and often intense relationship: that between human beings and dogs. In doing so, Roger Grenier introduces us to dogs real and literary, famous and reviled—from Ulysses's Argos to Freud's Lün to the hundreds of dogs exiled from Constantinople in 1910 and deposited on a desert island—and gives us a sense of what makes our relationships with them so meaningful.Publishers WeeklyWhat is a dog? In the hands of French fiction writer, essayist and quintessential dog lover Grenier (Another November), the canine emerges over the course of its all too brief life as a faithful and loving companion, a protection against loneliness and life's insults, a connoisseur of foul odors and a playmate always ready to join its owner in cavorting like a fool. In this collection of several dozen delightful and poignant anecdotal pieces, he ranges over our 12,000-year relationship with dogs, from those who appeared in Greek and Roman mythology--like the three-headed Cerberus, who guarded the gates of Hell--to the dogs that appear in our dreams (in this case, Grenier's dreams of his own old dog, Ulysses). Probing the dark side of the human-dog bond, Grenier sensitively observes how, at times, we humans have been less than faithful to our canine friends, giving rise to such sayings as, "'He died like a dog.'" With whimsical humor and mordant wit, he applies a broad and deep knowledge of literary dog lovers from Homer to Flaubert and Faulkner, elaborating not only on their insights into dog-love and hate but also on what these writers' revelations tell us about ourselves. (Dec.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.
Preface An Enigma The Difficulty of Being a Dog A Reproachful Glance The World of Odors Low Life Dogs' Paradise A Dog with a Past Flaubert, from Python to Parrot The Walk down the Rue du Bac To Be Loved A dog, yes, but...Friends of Animals Our Great Men Heroes and Refugees Larbaud, or Bourgeois Follies Identification Vocation Fantasies, Symbols, Signals Metaphysics Voltaire versus Rousseau First Prize Animal-Machines Modestine Gaston Febus Two Hunters The Brutes To the East The Island of Oxias Enemies Evolution Questions of Vocabulary A Dog's Heart Dreams after Ulysses' Death Flush The Fiancèe of Goering's Dog On Pure Love Misanthropes Dog and Cat The Night in Hendaye Debtors Dino, Queneau's Dog Horse, Goat, Dog The Dog-BookTranslator's Note
