Puppy love
No, it’s not my puppy – though I rather wish it were. On Wednesday June 24, in a column in the Washington Post, Michael Gerson declared himself to be in love – with this little guy:
Latte, the Havanese puppy
Gerson confesses himself amazed at this turn of events, since, as he states in his opening sentence, he has never liked dogs. Admittedly, for some of us reading this piece, the thought arose at once: What took you so long?
Never mind – better late than never.
“A Latte To Warm the Heart” goes from sentimental to discursive, then back to sentimental at the end. No matter; Gerson could have interpolated a discussion of particle physics for all I care, so completely delighted am I by his conversion to animal lover.
The article concludes with these words from A Christmas Carol by Dickens:
“Many laughed to see this alteration in him, but he let them laugh and little heeded them. . . . His own heart laughed and that was quite enough for him.
So…how long must we wait before introducing Michael Gerson to the likes of:
Miss (Audrey) Jane Marple
Okay, I admit it – I’m in love…
Bo, the new First Dog
Here’s the scoop – dare I use the word! – in today’s Washington Post.
Two articles of note
With My Dog as My Co-Pilot. Some readers consider pieces featuring pets to be overly cute, but if you love dogs, I think this travelogue by Melanie D.G. Kaplan will bring a smile to your face. It appeared in last Sunday’s Washington Post. (Don’t miss the accompanying slide show.)
The author's beagle, named - what else? - Darwin
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Kudos to Newsweek (March 16) for featuring Death Be Not Allowed By Claire Messud. The thrust of this article is that the subject of death has been all but banned from contemporary fiction. Messud reminds us that the works of Tolstoy exemplify the willingness to stare with unblinking directness at the fact of mortality.
This is nowhere more true than in the stark and harrowing precincts of The Death of Ivan Ilych:
“Ivan Ilych saw that he was dying, and he was in continual despair.
In the depth of his heart he knew he was dying, but not only was he not accustomed to the thought, he simply did not and could not grasp it.
The syllogism he had learnt from Kiesewetter’s Logic: “Caius is a man, men are mortal, therefore Caius is mortal,” had always seemed to him correct as applied to Caius, but certainly not as applied to himself. That Caius — man in the abstract — was mortal, was perfectly correct, but he was not Caius, not an abstract man, but a creature quite, quite separate from all others. He had been little Vanya, with a mamma and a papa, with Mitya and Volodya, with the toys, a coachman and a nurse, afterwards with Katenka and will all the joys, griefs, and delights of childhood, boyhood, and youth. What did Caius know of the smell of that striped leather ball Vanya had been so fond of? Had Caius kissed his mother’s hand like that, and did the silk of her dress rustle so for Caius? Had he rioted like that at school when the pastry was bad? Had Caius been in love like that? Could Caius preside at a session as he did? “Caius really was mortal, and it was right for him to die; but for me, little Vanya, Ivan Ilych, with all my thoughts and emotions, it’s altogether a different matter. It cannot be that I ought to die. That would be too terrible.”
Such was his feeling.
“If I had to die like Caius I would have known it was so. An inner voice would have told me so, but there was nothing of the sort in me and I and all my friends felt that our case was quite different from that of Caius. and now here it is!” he said to himself. “It can’t be. It’s impossible! But here it is. How is this? How is one to understand it?”
He could not understand it, and tried to drive this false, incorrect, morbid thought away and to replace it by other proper and healthy thoughts. But that thought, and not the thought only but the reality itself, seemed to come and confront him.
From her discussion of Tolstoy, Messud proceeds to sing the praises of The Spare Room, a new work by Australian novelist Helen Garner: “It does not seek to instruct or uplift: it seeks, rigorously and unflinchingly, to tell the truth.”
Messud herself is the author of this wry, acerbic, and hugely entertaining novel:
Oh deer! In which Mother Nature makes a welcome visit to the suburbs
Several days ago, I awoke to this delightful sight out our back windows:
The above three photos were taken with a Panasonic FZ-20 digital camera with a 12x zoom lens. The two below were taken with the same camera in the optional wide screen mode. Be sure and click to enlarge; these look beautiful in full resolution.
The other Dear, Miss Marple, sleeping through the excitement, as usual!
All pictures were taken by my husband Ron.
One more good reason to love God’s creatures
This is Sheru, aka Lion Heart, with his caregivers:
This is his story.
First, you see humans doing their worst. Then you see them doing and being their best.
Dr. Michael W. Fox
I’ve long been a fan of Dr. Michael W. Fox’s column, Animal Doctor. Today Dr. Fox addresses a question about grief for a lost pet.
Dr. Michael W. Fox & friends
His response to the query “Can Pets Contact Us From the Great Beyond?” was so deeply eloquent and compassionate that I wanted to be sure that my fellow animal lovers saw it. (Be sure you go to page 2 to get the full text, after which you can watch the Good Doctor tackle the somewhat more prosaic but nevertheless endearing question of whether dogs should eat cheese!)
Have a look at Dr. Fox’s website. It’s a terrific resource, and bears witness to the lifelong commitment of this humane and dedicated veterinary doctor.
Miss Audrey Jane Marple, whom we love truly, madly ,deeply
“A green thought in a green shade” – and two of my favorites from the animal kingdom
On this overcast morning, the entire out of doors seems suffused with the most intense green. You only see this in the early Spring. It made me think of the above line of verse, from Andrew Marvell’s poem:
The Garden, by Andrew Marvell
How vainly men themselves amaze
To win the palm, the oak, or bays ;
And their uncessant labors see
Crowned from some single herb or tree,
Whose short and narrow-vergèd shade
Does prudently their toils upbraid ;
While all the flowers and trees do close
To weave the garlands of repose.Fair Quiet, have I found thee here,
And Innocence, thy sister dear!
Mistaken long, I sought you then
In busy companies of men :
Your sacred plants, if here below,
Only among the plants will grow ;
Society is all but rude,
To this delicious solitude.No white nor red was ever seen
So amorous as this lovely green ;
Fond lovers, cruel as their flame,
Cut in these trees their mistress’ name.
Little, alas, they know or heed,
How far these beauties hers exceed!
Fair trees! wheresoe’er your barks I wound
No name shall but your own be found.When we have run our passion’s heat,
Love hither makes his best retreat :
The gods who mortal beauty chase,
Still in a tree did end their race.
Apollo hunted Daphne so,
Only that she might laurel grow,
And Pan did after Syrinx speed,
Not as a nymph, but for a reed.What wondrous life is this I lead!
Ripe apples drop about my head ;
The luscious clusters of the vine
Upon my mouth do crush their wine ;
The nectarine and curious peach
Into my hands themselves do reach ;
Stumbling on melons as I pass,
Insnared with flowers, I fall on grass.Meanwhile the mind, from pleasure less,
Withdraws into its happiness :
The mind, that ocean where each kind
Does straight its own resemblance find ;
Yet it creates, transcending these,
Far other worlds, and other seas ;
Annihilating all that’s made
To a green thought in a green shade.Here at the fountain’s sliding foot,
Or at some fruit-tree’s mossy root,
Casting the body’s vest aside,
My soul into the boughs does glide :
There like a bird it sits and sings,
Then whets and combs its silver wings ;
And, till prepared for longer flight,
Waves in its plumes the various light.Such was that happy garden-state,
While man there walked without a mate :
After a place so pure and sweet,
What other help could yet be meet!
But ’twas beyond a mortal’s share
To wander solitary there :
Two paradises ’twere in one
To live in Paradise alone.How well the skillful gard’ner drew
Of flowers and herbs this dial new ;
Where from above the milder sun
Does through a fragrant zodiac run ;
And, as it works, th’ industrious bee
Computes its time as well as we.
How could such sweet and wholesome hours
Be reckoned but with herbs and flowers!
[Photos above of Stourhead Gardens, Wiltshire, England]
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Highland cattle – I love them!
Poitou donkey with Annie Pollock, a retired veterinarian who has worked tirelessly on her Hampshire farm to save the breed from extinction.
You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things…
I’ve been trying to avert my gaze from the horrible story of the massive beef recall until this article in today’s Washington Post shoved it in my face. I got on the Humane Society’s site but could only bear to watch the first few seconds of the video that brought about the recall.
In recent years, the Humane Society has bombarded me with tchochkes and trinkets in an effort to solicit contributions. I know they do good, necessary work, but I find this particular fundraising strategy truly irksome. However, in recognition of what they’ve just achieved by sharing that video footage with an appalled public, I opened my heart – and my wallet – this morning and made a donation.
Before I close, I just want to say that is what happens when you treat animals like things. You become a thing yourself – and worse.
This is from Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner, a lesson learned “by his own example:”
Farewell, farewell ! but this I tell
To thee, thou Wedding-Guest !
He prayeth well, who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.
He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small ;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.
[Title of post from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, Act I, Scene 1]
“Living with Geese”… Living – and Dying – with Gorillas
One of the pieces included in the fine anthology Best American Magazine Writing 2007 is by one of my favorite writers, Paul Theroux. “Living with Geese” originally appeared in the Smithsonian Magazine. In it, Theroux describes his ten years’ experiencing breeding and raising these singular creatures. His powers of observation are astute, as anyone who has read his novels and travel narratives can attest. He does, however, expend what seems to be a rather inordinate amount of energy critiquing E.B. White. I didn’t know this, but White also raised geese, but in Maine, rather than in Hawaii, where Theroux lives. White too wrote on this subject, in an essay that’s apparently held in affectionate esteem by many readers. But not – definitely not – by Theroux.
He complains that”…E.B. White patronizes his geese, invents feelings for them and obfuscates things.” This incessant tendency to anthropomorphize, Theroux contends, gets in the way of understanding the true nature of the animal in question. I can agree with him there. But then he goes on: “E.B. White is never happier that when he is able to depict an animal by humanizing it as a friend. Yet what lies behind the animal’s expression of friendship? It is an eagerness for easy food.”
I sighed deeply upon reading this. Whenever folks want to denigrate us doting pet owners, they trot out this argument. Well, okay, “easy food” is a major benefit for dogs and cats who share their dwelling space with humans. But if you’ve lived with these wonderful creatures for any length of time, it becomes increasingly evident that, at least to some extent, your affection for them is reciprocated in kind. Many little gestures on their part serve to reinforce this conviction. And naturally, at this point, I just have to slip in a picture of a certain cat…
[ Miss Audrey Jane Marple, irrepressible sidekick and beloved friend]
Theroux makes one assertion in this essay that I find even more troubling: “Animal lovers often tend to be misanthropes or loners, and so they transfer their affection to the creature in their control.” The examples he cites are Joy Adamson of Born Free fame,Timothy Treadwell, who was the subject of the documentary film Grizzly Man, and Dian Fossey, who did groundbreaking research on the mountain gorillas of Central Africa. Fossey, Theroux states, was “a drinker and a recluse.”
I remember reading articles about Dian Fossey in the 1980’s, both before and after she was killed in Rwanda in 1985. I did not recall reading that she had a problem with alcohol. Theroux’s remarks brought to mind “The Woman Who Loved Gorillas” by Alex Shoumatoff. This piece first appeared in Vanity Fair, but I read it in African Madness, a collection of four long essays by this author.
I read this book when it came out in 1988. As luck would have it, there are still two copies owned by my beloved Central Library! I brought one home because I was looking for a particular passage that I did recall. Here it is:
“In general, people who are drawn to nature and become animal lovers fall into two groups, which might be described as the Shakespearians and the Thoreauvians. The Shakespearians consider man and his works to be part of nature; while loving animals, they have warm, positive feelings toward people, too. The animal love of the Thoreauvians, however, is inversely proportionate to their compassion for their own kind.”
(The description of the Shakespearians put me in mind of these lines from Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage by Lord Byron:
There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep Sea, and music in its roar;
I love not Man the less, but Nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the Universe, and feel
What I can ne’er express, yet cannot all conceal. )
Shoumatoff goes on to theorize that Throeauvians, who often have “extraordinary empathy with animals,” are often the product of a lonely, isolated upbringing. Such indeed was the case with Dian Fossey.
Although I obtained a copy of African Madness so that I could find that passage, I found myself reading “The Woman Who Loved Gorillas” in its entirety. Once again, I was riveted by this sad, compelling story. Fossey was a difficult, complicated woman; as the years passed, her relations with the students at Karisoke, the research station she had established, became increasingly strained. Relations with the native population went from bad to worse. She became a fanatic where poaching was concerned, and some of the actions she took against those she suspected of this crime are, in retrospect, pretty shocking. One gets the picture of a woman going off the rails. And yes, she was drinking.
But, as with so many complicated situations involving complex personalities, ambition, and bruised egos, there is more to this story. There is Dian Fossey’s tremendous contribution to our knowledge and understanding of those magnificent creatures, the mountain gorillas. There was her Herculean effort to preserve their habitat and their lives, work which one desperately hopes will not prove to be all for nought.
The government of Rwanda eventually charged the man who discovered Dian’s body, American primatologist Wayne McGuire, with her murder. Most observers considered the charge baseless. Although McGuire needed more time to collect data for his doctoral thesis, he left Rwanda on the advice of the American consul. The murder has never been solved.
Shoumatoff’s piece concludes with a visit to Dian’s grave in Africa. She is buried at Karisoke, near her cabin, among the gorillas who died before her.
“Hers was a pure, selfless love, forged in the pain of loneliness, like an artist’s love, which doesn’t feed or heal your soul, and takes a lot out of you. A damaged, driven person, herself a victim of unlove, she had this extraordinary love, without which there would probably be no gorillas in the Virungas. It was her love that she will be remembered for.” 
Oh – and by the way, “Living with Geese” concludes with Theroux moving Heaven and Earth to aid and comfort an aging gander in his flock. Having in recent memory endured the pain – always so much greater than you think it will be – of losing an animal companion, I understood why he was going to such lengths. When his efforts proved successful, I was happy for him.
