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A review by yooperann
A Big Little Life: A Memoir of a Joyful Dog by Dean Koontz
1.0
It's hard to imagine that a slight book about a perfectly sweet and charming dog could be so wretched, but Dean Koontz manages to write one. I've got two main objections:
1. The author's ego. No one has ever worked so many hours in every day and every week for so many years. No one. He has to tell us that the hallway in his house is lined with all the editions of his books--more than 5000 total. He has to tell us, repeatedly, how generous he's been to the companion dog program he supports and yet how surprised and yes, humbled, he was when he put up all the money for a lodge and they surprised him by naming it after him.
2. The combative tone. This is someone who sees the world in absolute black and white, to the point where he'll make up a straw man just so he can decisively knock it down. The anti-poverty program he very briefly worked for (and by extension all anti-poverty programs) was corrupt and only made things worse for the poor. Government harasses widows and does nothing about dangerous dogs. Dogs are afraid of mountain lions, which proves that they understand death. Although unspecified people insist that dogs don't remember anything, why, behold, they remember people they've met much later. He even at one point describes people who don't really understand dogs as "liberal elites."
The dog is lovely.
1. The author's ego. No one has ever worked so many hours in every day and every week for so many years. No one. He has to tell us that the hallway in his house is lined with all the editions of his books--more than 5000 total. He has to tell us, repeatedly, how generous he's been to the companion dog program he supports and yet how surprised and yes, humbled, he was when he put up all the money for a lodge and they surprised him by naming it after him.
2. The combative tone. This is someone who sees the world in absolute black and white, to the point where he'll make up a straw man just so he can decisively knock it down. The anti-poverty program he very briefly worked for (and by extension all anti-poverty programs) was corrupt and only made things worse for the poor. Government harasses widows and does nothing about dangerous dogs. Dogs are afraid of mountain lions, which proves that they understand death. Although unspecified people insist that dogs don't remember anything, why, behold, they remember people they've met much later. He even at one point describes people who don't really understand dogs as "liberal elites."
The dog is lovely.