Scan barcode
A review by helpfulsnowman
Dog Years: A Memoir by Mark Doty
3.0
As someone who is not really a dog person, a dog book is a tough sell for me. I don't want to say that I don't give a shit when someone's dog dies. But to be honest, everyone's dog dies. Either the dog dies or the person dies, right? And unless a dog wrote a book about his owner dying (has anyone done that yet? The owner dying from the dog's perspective? Holy shit: Cha-ching!) it's gonna be the dog.
So what makes this one different?
Well, it's not just about these dogs. Yeah, there are two dogs. So extra sad.
Mark Doty and his partner, Wally, had a dog, and they got a second one near the end of Wally's life. The years pass, and soon these dogs are the only thing left of what the two men had together. And although these dogs represent so much more than pets to Doty, that doesn't save them from the indignities and up and down days of a dog nearing the end.
What Mark Doty has done is to write about his dogs, but to me it sure felt like he was still writing about Wally.
In Dog Years, Doty admits that his writing had been about Wally for some time after Wally passed. One critic went so far as to call Doty "a vampire feasting on his lover's body." As an aside, I did some quick googling to see if I could find this critic before deciding to let it rest. Well, not so much rest as to satisfy myself by saying fuck that guy. Seriously. I've said some terrible shit in my time, but to say that, in an allegedly professional capacity, what a shithead.
So maybe part of why this book reads the way it does is that Doty was a little burned when it came to talking about death head-on. But it's obviously a big topic in his life.
Maybe that's part of why this book works for me better than most dog books too. Anyone can write about their dead dog and probably make it sad. Doty is writing about his dogs mostly while they're alive, and he doesn't just throw in a death so we get to see Jennifer Aniston crying. He's not playing a card for effect here.
When the critic said that Doty is acting as a vampire, I think he must have a fundamental misunderstanding of how vampires work. Plus, the guy is a shithead. Did I mention that already?
A vampire takes life from something to continue its own life. Simple as that. What Doty has done is to create, through his work, an on-going eulogy for Wally. Something that he can refine and revisit as he needs to. What he's doing is to help the rest of us understand that the way you feel about a person can change and grow, even after his or her death. Your relationship doesn't ever stop.
So what makes this one different?
Well, it's not just about these dogs. Yeah, there are two dogs. So extra sad.
Mark Doty and his partner, Wally, had a dog, and they got a second one near the end of Wally's life. The years pass, and soon these dogs are the only thing left of what the two men had together. And although these dogs represent so much more than pets to Doty, that doesn't save them from the indignities and up and down days of a dog nearing the end.
What Mark Doty has done is to write about his dogs, but to me it sure felt like he was still writing about Wally.
In Dog Years, Doty admits that his writing had been about Wally for some time after Wally passed. One critic went so far as to call Doty "a vampire feasting on his lover's body." As an aside, I did some quick googling to see if I could find this critic before deciding to let it rest. Well, not so much rest as to satisfy myself by saying fuck that guy. Seriously. I've said some terrible shit in my time, but to say that, in an allegedly professional capacity, what a shithead.
So maybe part of why this book reads the way it does is that Doty was a little burned when it came to talking about death head-on. But it's obviously a big topic in his life.
Maybe that's part of why this book works for me better than most dog books too. Anyone can write about their dead dog and probably make it sad. Doty is writing about his dogs mostly while they're alive, and he doesn't just throw in a death so we get to see Jennifer Aniston crying. He's not playing a card for effect here.
When the critic said that Doty is acting as a vampire, I think he must have a fundamental misunderstanding of how vampires work. Plus, the guy is a shithead. Did I mention that already?
A vampire takes life from something to continue its own life. Simple as that. What Doty has done is to create, through his work, an on-going eulogy for Wally. Something that he can refine and revisit as he needs to. What he's doing is to help the rest of us understand that the way you feel about a person can change and grow, even after his or her death. Your relationship doesn't ever stop.