The Amazing Adventures of Archibald Esq.
On The Difficulty of Being a Dog
Born in the year 1919, Roger Grenier — author of the delightful collection of meditations and essays entitled The Difficulty of Being a Dog – was presented in 1985 with the Grand Prix for Literature from l’Académie française for his oeuvre. And it is a deserving prize; his output has been tremendous, he worked as editor at a large French publishing house, and when you search him online you’ll find his name connected to many other French notables in all areas of French culture: photographers, artists, authors: Brassai, Picasso, Camus, to name but a few of his friends and acquaintances.
A true humanist, who lived through some very troubled times, he is a man not only of learning and elegance, but also refined moral sensitivity. A two-legged whose ethical sympathies extend beyond the human. And, in my own very prescribed Archibald point of view, it is precisely this going beyond the human that makes him a true humanist.
Après avoir passé son enfance à Pau, Roger Grenier fait ses études de lettres à Clermont-Ferrand et à Bordeaux… Il a vingt ans lorsque la Seconde guerre mondiale débute. Il se rend alors à Paris et, après la Libération, est engagé par Albert Camus dans la revue Combat. Il poursuit sa carrière à France-Soir, puis aux éditions Gallimard. Son premier livre, un essai intitulé ‘Le Rôle d’accusé’, paraît en 1949 chez Gallimard.
Admittedly the point of entry to his work for me was this slender little collections of essays and reminiscences of his dearly deceased dog Ulysses — which I must say was a delight from start to finish!
His reflections on his love for his dog and the doggishness of existence — how the presence and relationships with dogs enhances human life, the spirit of things — are interspersed with a review of the mention of canines in literature both ancient and modern.
But there is nothing twee or trying-for-charm in his work. It is spare and forceful. The affection and companionship are well described.
But he also describes how the relationship between two-leggeds and four-leggeds is sometimes tense and full of misery: the watching for every sign, the hopeful leap to the door when little feet puts socks or shoes on — thinking/hoping we’ll go for a walk when in the end it’s only a sign she’s got cold feet again and no, we won’t be going for a walk. Alas…
Roger Grenier, ‘To The East,’ in The Difficulty of Being a Dog:
In Russia and its satellites, in the days of communism, the companion dog had a bad reputation; it was seen as a superfluous consumer and as a sign of individualism, selfish introversion. Having a dog was like turning one’s back on the collective. I saw this in Czechoslovakia. … When [the communist authorities] nationalised business, they forgot about the trade in dogs, which consequently began to proliferate. The state’s response to this black market was to unleash repressive measures against the canine race. First a heavy fine, then the rounding up of any animal not on a leash. Milan Kundera describes the operation in Farewell Waltz. You see old men, pensioners, with red armbands, carrying long poles equipped with wire loops at the tip, clumsily trying to catch dogs in the public gardens:
..’the old men armed with long poles merged in his mind with prison guards, examining magistrates, and informers who spied on neighbours to see if they talked politics while shopping. What drove such people to their sinsister occupations? Spite? Certainly, but also the desire for order…. The desire for order is the virtuous pretext by which man’s hatred for man justifies its crimes.’ (Kundera)
(Unfortunately, dogs also like order and detest antying that appears abnormal, irregular — which makes them suitable for guarding camps and other police duties.)
As Jakub, one of the characters in Kundera’s book, is trying to save a dog from being caught, a pretty young woman does all she can to prevent its rescue. This hurts even more than the laughter of the old men when they manage to snare an unfortunate mutt… ‘that young woman was his eternal defeat.’ (Kundera)
During the period of this repression against dogs, I was walking mine in the streets of Prague when a young man cried out, ‘Long live the dogs!’ Old people came up to me and explained, in the French they had once learned, that life in the old days in their country was happier for dogs. It was their way of saying what they thought. Dogs were not allowed in restaurants. Still, one night, they let us in. And, even though there wasn’t much to eat, the head waiter brought a plate of meat for Ulysses and set it conspicuously on the ground, right in the middle of the restaurant.
Grenier has such a light touch, sensitive without sentimentality. And his reach, his learning, is vast. He mentions delightful tidbits such as that Napoleon’s beloved Josephine refused to kick her dogs from her bed, so that he slept atumble with both lover and her dogs.
And also notes that Emmanuel Lévinas had remembered in his writings to mention that as a prison of war under the Nazis the men around him no longer treated him like a human being — a man — but that the dogs near the work camp certainly recognised the returning hard labour detainees as men, and barked and wagged their tails when they saw them.
So as you can see, Grenier’s writing is limpid; elegant yet weighty stuff. Well worth a read. Awoof! But there were a few points he raised that jarr, and which I, as a particular dog and thus a representative of dogs in general, feel I ought to redress.
If I could, I would have liked to have done so by writing Grenier a letter of thanks for his wonderful book. A true delight. And yet the book contained a few factual errors. Or if not errors per se, then incomplete and distorted observations.
So while he is right to focus on the importance of the sense of smell for dogs, he is wrong to assume that dogs are only interested in smells that are to humans rancid and foul. As he sadly does when he writes that “Henri Michaux, in Passages, remarks that you never see a dog stopping to smell a rose or a violet. Dogs are the cognescenti of foul odors.”
But here he is wrong. While true that us dogs do enjoy the odd sniff about garbage and other such muck, and yes — occasionally roll about in extraordinarily stinky stuff like fresh green goose poop! (a personal favourite of mine, ripe as it is with notes of fresh digested grass and other bitterwoody touches of early spring) — we also sense the finer smelling things. Freshly laundered beds and blankets. As well as violets and geranium.
I love to nuzzle into the lobelia in the summer, and tap with my schnoz the pink bobbin flowerheads of the sea thrift planted up against the brick border. Sometimes I stand on the edge of the flower beds and stretch up long and high, to sniff the bright pink blossoms of the busy geranium and the lavender.
Drinking rainwater from the empty pots that are scattered around the terrace of the chateau, and surrounded by fragrant plants and flowers — lavender, creeping thyme, mounds of creeping marjoram, chives and rosemary, roses, geranium, voilets and begonia — ah! This is one of my favourite things in the whole world!
And if I’m out on a walk it’s primroses and purple vinca that catch my fancy. Little feet tells me I’m not the only dog to enjoy things horticultural. Her old pooch Sharkey, when he was very old and suffering from ache, would from time to time, when he was feeling better or trying to cheer himself up, would charge like an old warhorse into the thick of the rose bed, and hold himself high, and sniff at the blossoming roses.
Sharkey’s example also illustrates the possible amnesty between dogs and cats. Before Sharkey went to live in the country, little feet felt the need, living alone in the little bungalow with the big garden just off the dirt road near the highway, to have some animal companionship. But she knew somehow that if she got a puppy this would break Sharkey’s heart when he came to live there. So she got herself a kitten. Go figure!
It all worked a dream. The kitten, a kind of stripey taby cat, was part housecat but mainly wild. She moved like a cougar, with rippling shoulders and elegant articulated legs and paws. Brought in partly in service of waging war against the mice in the kitchen, she was eventually named ‘Kali’ after the Hindu goddess of destruction and death. Brought to protect the house, she ended up destroying things — at least for a little while, in her kittenhood. Kali — Destroyer and Protector. Digging up potted palms to use as a personal lavatory. Knocking things off mantlepieces and counters. Generally creating havoc. But also doing away with the mice, before moving on to do away with more colourful characters — such as bright red cardinals and blue/black bluejays. Sometimes there were feathers that were black with white polkadots — signs of the demise of a woodpecker!
Anyway, that’s the business of cats and birds, but as for cats and dogs, Kali — despite her cougar-like temper with all other things — was nothing short of adoring with Sharkey. For Sharkey, old and statesman-like, she acted all Marylyn Monroe — canoodling and cooing. Curling up with him in his dog bed when his bones were achy, to act as a flesh-and-blood bed-warmer. Oh! Kali! Bless her catty paws!
But back to Grenier. All in all — despite this flawed slight to dogs that we only have noses for the putrid and rank — the book is excellent. And could be used as the introduction, the start of a detailed study of dog literature. Like a trail of delectable treats. Each treat leading to a new author, point of view, historical period.
And it is a particular joy of mine that I also came to his work through the webs of love that interweave existence into a life. In a nice kind of Little Prince, St Exupery-kind-of-way the book came about in the reflections of love; we are asked at the end of the little prince to consider, if we loved the precocious little golden-haired prince, to also love the things the prince loved, like his sheep or goat in the box, and his little rose, who was left to fend for herself on his little planet.
Grenier’s book in fact starts with a point very much like the morale of Le Petit Prince, in that the essays open with a preface dedicated to Ulysses — who was his dog — and the connection to Homer’s Ulysses, whose dog was called Argos. Famously, when Ulysses finally arrives back to his home, after the years and years of travels and challenges, it is only his dog Argos who recognises him. Grenier quotes a passage that describes the moment of recognition: Argos had been neglected, and was half starved and covered in dirt in the stables, yet recognised his old master, and brought his tired tail to thump — all of which made Ulysses shed tears.
It is tragic when the things one loves are not so loved by one’s loved-ones. (How’s that for a houndish tongue-twister?)
Is this the law of love? That one love is many loves. Love goes beyond itself. By design. Love is always more love. Or ought to be. Should be. If it is real love, love is generous. That is what the pilot asks of us at the end of the Little Prince. And as far as I can see this must be the foundation place of all ethics. Not some far-away, eternal judgement kind of criteria.
The generosity of affection that we find in the little prince or Grenier’s writing is also reflected in the story of how I came to be acquainted with the book. Yes. It was a boon of generosity! Little feet and I like the stories of McCall Smith, and were fond of the Finer Points of Sausage Dogs in particular. I think little feet might have read everything he’s written pretty much, including Dream Angus and the Right Attitude to Rain. Knowing this, and having read some of the books as well, little feet’s friend — a fellow philosopher — decided to track down a reference to Grenier’s book he had come across in McCall Smith. So he ordered up Grenier’s book whilst working at the British Library… When the book was delivered he found it to be delightful, and set about to order a copy to present to little feet as a gift. Which he did. To her and my absolute delight! We devoured the book! Awoof!
So Bravo to Grenier! The world also owes Ulysses, Grenier’s beloved hound, the greatest of debts that he could have inspired such a wonderful dossier, a delightful assembly of essays and thoughts, historical and literary references, to the life and the soul of hounds. And individually I owe little feet’s very generous friend, as well as owing, in a more oblique way, McCall Smith for citing Grenier in his own works. Awoof! Awoof! Awoof!
Awoof! Archibald
Posted 16 Apr 07
2 Responses to “On The Difficulty of Being a Dog”
Leave a Reply
©2008 Roleta Archibald, Awoof!™
S~
S ~
I much enjoyed this though my dogs were never big on sniffing flowers.See you soon!
take care
all things
l.
Leslie Armour @ 10:40 pm, 16 April 2007
[…] Roger Grenier’s collected memoirs and reflections on The Difficulty of Being a Dog is an absolute delight. Inspired by his dearly departed dog, Ulysses, his meditations range from personal anecdote — it is a very ‘Paris’ piece of writing — to surveys of classical world literature and the place of the dog therein. Wonderful wooferful stuff. Indeed, I can’t recommend it highly enough. Awoof! Archie […]
Archie - Dog tales - The Difficulty of Being a Dog @ 9:01 pm, 09 May 2007