What I'm Reading Now -- The Art of Racing in the Rain

Remember how I said I was reading this? Well, I never started it. Instead I was inundated with magazines, so I needed to catch up on those. Our mail lady is a little bit unreliable, and it's unfortunate. I subscribe to a few magazines, and sometimes I won't get them for a couple weeks, and then I'll get two or three weeks' worth at once. That happened last week, so I needed to catch up on those before starting a new book.

By the time I finished all the magazines, The Art of Racing in the Rain had come in at the library. I've been wanting to read it for some time, and it just got lost in the pile. Finally, I'm getting to it, and it's great.

The story is told from the point of view of a dog named Enzo, and Enzo is awesome. As evidence, witness some of his awesome dog observances:

Page 17-20: "Monkeys have thumbs. Practically the dumbest species on the planet, next tot he duck-billed platypus, who make their dens underwater even though they breathe the air. The platypus is horribly stupid, but is only slightly dumber than a monkey. Yet monkeys have thumbs. Those monkey-thumbs were meant for dogs. Give my my thumbs, you fucking monkeys! (I love the Al Pacino remake of Scarface, very much, though it doesn't compare to the Godfather movies, which are excellent.) . . . I'll give you my theory: Man's closest relative is not the chimpanzee, as the TV people believe, but is, in fact, the dog. Witness my logic: . . . Case-in-Point #2: The Werewolf. The full moon rises. The fog clings to the lowest branches of the spruce trees. The man steps out of the darkest corner of the forest and finds himself transformed into...A monkey? I think not."

Page 24: "I admire the female sex. The life makers. It must be amazing to have a body that can carry an entire creature inside. (I mean, other than a tapeworm, which I've had. That doesn't count as another life, really. That's a parasite that should never have been there in the first place.)"

Page 34: "'I didn't know you were a television dog,' he said. 'I can leave it on for you during the day, if you want.' I want! I want! 'But you have to limit yourself,' he said. 'I don't want to catch you watching TV all day long. I'm counting on you to be responsible.' I am responsible!

Page 43: "But my thoughts turned to what he had just taught me. Such a simple concept, yet so true: that which we manifest is before us; we are the creators of our own destiny. Be it through intention or ignorance, our successes and our failures have been brought on by none other than ourselves."

Page 61: "I laid my head on his leg and looked up at him. 'Sometimes I think you actually understand me,' he said. 'It's like there's a person inside there. Like you know everything.' I do, I said to myself. I do."

Page 62: "The intense and arbitrary nature of Eve's affliction was far beyond Denny's grasp. The wailings, the dramatic screaming fits, the falling on the floor in fits of anguish. These are things that only dogs and women understand because we tap into the pain directly, we connect to the pain directly from its source, and so it is at once brilliant and brutal and clear, like white-hot metal spraying out of a fire hose, we can appreciate the aesthetic while taking the worst of it straight in the face."

Page 63-64: "It's frustrating for me to be unable to speak. To feel that I have so much to say, so many ways I can help, but I'm locked in a soundproof box, a game show isolation booth from which I can see out and I can hear what's going on, but they never let me out. It might drive a person mad. It certainly has driven many a dog mad. . . . Myself, I have found ways around the madness. I work at my human gait, for instance. I practice chewing my food slowly like people do. I study the television for clues on behavior and to learn how to react in certain situations. In my next life, when I am born again as a person, I will practically be an adult the moment I am plucked from the womb, with all the preparation I have done."

Page 78: "I couldn't read their body language because I couldn't see them, but there are some things a dog can sense. Tension. Fear. Anxiety. These states of being are the result of a chemical release inside the human body. They are totally physiological, in other words. Involuntary. People like to think they have evolved beyond instinct, but in fact, they still have fight-or-flight responses to stimuli. And when their bodies respond, I can smell the chemical release from their pituitary glands. For instance, adrenaline has a very specific odor, which is not so much smelled but tasted. I know a person can't understand that concept, but that's the best way to describe it: the taste of an alkaline on the back of my tongue. From my position on the kitchen floor, I could taste Eve's adrenaline. Clearly, she had steeled herself for Denny's racing absences; she was not prepared for his impromptu practices in Sonoma, and she was angry and afraid."

I guess maybe the old adage proves true: everything I need to know, I learned from my dog. But I think I've given you enough of the book to read (practically a whole chapter!).