Considerations on the Death of a Dog If you have a dog you will likely outlive it to get a dog is to open yourself to profound joy and prospectively to equally profound sadness Marjorie Garber William R Kennan Jr Professor of English a
If you have a dog you will likely outlive it to get a dog is to open yourself to profound joy and prospectively, to equally profound sadness Marjorie Garber, William R Kennan Jr Professor of English and Visual and Environmental Studies, Harvard UniversityTurtle Point Press is pleased to announce the publication of the first English translation of Jean Grenier s book If you have a dog you will likely outlive it to get a dog is to open yourself to profound joy and prospectively, to equally profound sadness Marjorie Garber, William R Kennan Jr Professor of English and Visual and Environmental Studies, Harvard UniversityTurtle Point Press is pleased to announce the publication of the first English translation of Jean Grenier s book of meditations on the death of his beloved dog Originally published by Gallimard in 1957 as Sur la mort d un chien, Considerations on the Death of a Dog is a series of ninety diary like observations in which Grenier summons strength and understanding from his profound love of his dog, Taiaut He calls on his deep philosophical and spiritual resources, his quietist version of Christianity and his immersion in Taoist principles as a way of contemplating and coping with his sadness and grief.These intensely personal, wistful and occasionally whimsical aphoristic entries, followed by several pages entitled, A Note on the Relationship Between Animals and Men, are a fitting memorial to a dog who, in the words of Elizabeth Von Arnim, loved steadily and unchangingly until its last breath.
Some selections, because I'm still a little too incoherent to review otherwise: Even now I would prefer to be disturbed by him, here in this room where I'm writing, and be invited to go for a walk in that imperative manner animals have. It's true that there would have been no need to write this—writing is so much the opposite of living—nor would I have been disturbed, because I would no longer have this page before me waiting to be filled.And, from the Prayer of the Dog:Because you inspire i [...]