. . .And Babel

Dear Dog Lady,

Read any good books lately? I’m looking for something juicy with a canine theme but not a simplistic go-to-the-dogs book.

Ben, Rehoboth, MA

Ben, do you have a nodding acquaintance with Big Ben? Your question is timely. Yes, Dog Lady, read a remarkable book this summer with a meaty and complex canine theme. “The Dogs Of Babel” by Carolyn Parkhurst (Little, Brown, $21.95) is a well-written first novel that broke onto the bestseller lists. A dog’s inability to speak serves as the central metaphor for this story of human frailty, love and loss.

The tale concerns a widower, Paul Iverson, who’s bereft when his wife, Lexy, falls out of a tree in the backyard and dies. He was not at home at the time of her death. Only their pet, a Rhodesian Ridgeback named Lorelei, witnessed the cataclysm. And the dog can’t talk.

Paul is determined that he, a linguist, will somehow teach Lorelei to speak and he tirelessly tries training the dog to communicate in human terms. Alas, the language arts elude Lorelei.

Paul may be crazy with grief but he wisely understands the folly of trying to get an animal to talk about a specific incident. He imagines that even if he manages to coax words from his pet, Lorelei would have her own dog-centric discussion points:

“Maybe she wants to tell me about a single moment of summer grass, looking for something to chase, the feel of damp earth on bare paws. That may be what she has to tell me. The joy of muscle and bone working together to run as she chases a car. The wind blowing her ears as she sticks her head out a car window. The loneliness of the door closing, leaving her alone in the house. The patient waiting beneath the table, the smell of dinners not meant for her, the thrill of being in the right place at the right time when human fingers slip and a piece of meat falls to the floor. The drool-inducing terror of pulling up in front of the vet’s office. The sweet sadness of Lexy gone, the constant vigil for her return. Seeing things happen and not knowing why. The smells of other dogs. The softness of sofa cushions. The satisfying give as a pillow rips apart in her teeth. The hunt. The sun. Rolling in the dirt.’’

In this evocative paragraph of sentence fragments, author Parkhurst manages to capture the smallness and universality of a dog's world. If dogs could talk, they might not want to discuss anything but smells, sensations and primal pleasures -- all topics best savored in silence

Posted by Dog Lady at September 2, 2003 08:38 AM