In Mongolia, when a dog dies, he is buried high in the hills so people cannot walk on his grave. The dog’s master whispers into the dog’s ear his wishes that the dog will return as a man in his next life. Then his tail is cut off and put beneath his head, and a piece of meat or fat is placed in his mouth to sustain his soul on its journey; before he is reincarnated, the dog’s soul is freed to travel the land, to run across the high desert plains for as long as it would like. I learned that from a program on the National Geographic Channel, so I believe it is true. Not all dogs return as men, they say; only those who are ready. I am ready.Based on seeing a National Geographic special on Mongolia, hearing the poem "The Revenant" (which is told from a dog's point of view) read by its author, his own experience with race car driving, and his friend's domestic troubles, author Garth Stein put everything he knew into The Art of Racing in the Rain, and despite the obvious attempts to pull at my heartstrings, and despite my total lack of interest in race car driving, and despite my impatience with literary devices like telling a story from the point of view of a dog, I couldn't help but be charmed by our narrator Enzo.
Enzo, the lab-terrier mutt, having watched a great deal of television and listened carefully to the monologues of his master, Denny, has developed into a philosopher dog. He is a silent witness to Denny's highs and lows, but that doesn't mean that Enzo doesn't have interesting internal monologues of his own:
Who is Achilles without his tendon? Who is Samson without Delilah? Who is Oedipus without his clubfoot? Mute by design, I have been able to study the art of rhetoric unfettered by ego and self-interest, and so I know the answers to these questions. The true hero is flawed. The true test of a champion is not whether he can triumph, but whether he can overcome obstacles—preferably of his own making—in order to triumph. A hero without a flaw is of no interest to an audience or to the universe, which, after all, is based on conflict and opposition, the irresistible force meeting the unmovable object.I found these philosophical digressions to be amusing, but Stein never forgets that Enzo is a dog, and there are other scenes where the action is processed as a dog might, and I enjoyed these scenes even more:
I grew quickly, and during that first year, Denny and I forged a deep fondness for each other as well as a feeling of trust. Which is why I was surprised when he fell in love with Eve so quickly. He brought her home and she was sweet smelling, like him. Full of fermented drinks that made them both act funny, they were hanging on each other like they had too many clothes between them, and they were pulling at each other, tugging, biting lips and jabbing fingers and yanking at hair, all elbows and toes and saliva. They fell onto the bed and he mounted her and she said, “The field is fertile—beware!” And he said, “I embrace the fertility.” And he plowed the field until it grasped the sheets in its fists, arched its back, and cried out with joy.After finishing this book and looking into its history, I was dismayed to see that the story has been optioned by Hollywood; I just can't see how The Art of Racing in the Rain can be made into a movie. The book's whole charm is Enzo's voice and: 1) I would never watch a grown-up movie with a dog narrator, however a director tries to accomplish it; and 2) Without the dog narrator, this becomes an unspectacular story about a race car driver and his very ordinary domestic troubles. And that's the thing: This plot is entirely unspectacular, with a final scene that undermines the credibility of the whole story. There's a scene that comes late in the book that had me thinking, "This better be a fantasy or a dream sequence" -- and it did turn out to be a dream -- and while I thought, "That's a cheap literary trick", it was also a scene that made me laugh out loud; and I guess that makes a cheap trick okay? And there were many scenes that made me tear up, and even though I knew I was having my heartstrings forcefully manipulated, what else are heartstrings for?
I appreciated the way that Stein used race car driving as a metaphor for life, even if some Zenlike ideas became repetitive ("the car goes where the eyes go" or "that which we manifest is before us"). And I'm a dog person: I listened to this book while walking my own aging mutt, so everything about Enzo totally worked for me (so, perhaps, it might not be as enjoyable for non-dog persons). In the end, I'd make a qualified positive recommendation for this book: Not as literature, and certainly not as a film plot, but as an experience that might yield a few moments of pure emotion; you know, the way a dog might experience the world.
To live everyday as if it has been stolen by death, that is how I would like to live. To feel the joy of life, as Eve felt the joy of life. To separate oneself from the burden, the angst, the anguish that we all encounter every day. To say I am alive, I am wonderful, I am. I am. That is something to aspire to. When I am a person, that is how I will live my life.
At least Enzo isn't a jerk like the doggy narrator that inspired his character:
The Revenant
by Billy Collins
by Billy Collins
I am the dog you put to sleep,
as you like to call the needle of oblivion,
come back to tell you this simple thing:
I never liked you - not one bit.
When I licked your face,
I thought of biting off your nose.
When I watched you toweling yourself dry,
I wanted to leap and unman you with a snap.
I resented the way you moved,
your lack of animal grace,
the way you would sit in a chair and eat,
a napkin on your lap, knife in your hand.
I would have run away,
but I was too weak, a trick you taught me
while I was learning to sit and heel,
and - greatest of insults - shake hands without a hand.
I admit the sight of the leash
would excite me
but only because it meant I was about
to smell things you had never touched.
You do not want to believe this,
but I have no reason to lie.
I hated the car, the rubber toys,
disliked your friends and, worse, your relatives.
The jingling of my tags drove me mad.
You always scratched me in the wrong place.
All I ever wanted from you
was food and fresh water in my metal bowls.
While you slept, I watched you breathe
as the moon rose in the sky.
It took all my strength
not to raise my head and howl.
Now I am free of the collar,
the yellow raincoat, monogrammed sweater,
the absurdity of your lawn,
and that is all you need to know about this place
except what you already supposed
and are glad it did not happen sooner -
that everyone here can read and write,
the dogs in poetry, the cats and the others in prose.
