Okay, so, as Sophia would say in the Golden Girls, "Picture this..." A few years ago, I would say about four summers ago, Chai, my first girlfriend, and I decided to go to Northhampton, MA, the location of her alma mater, Smith, to spend some time together. I remember lots of images from that trip, me in my hot little Ralph Lauren dress, Chai with her camera taking pictures of me sitting on the dock putting my feet in the disgusting water of the pond(cause I could), finding the mental institution where Susanna Kaysen, James Taylor and Sylvia Plath had been, also the same place where they supposedly filmed The Cider House Rules(great book AND movie). I remember loving her, and feeling so comfortable in that space, because she was. She was unafraid to be seen in the company of another woman who at night was her lover, because Smith is so lesbian-friendly, and it was a nice feeling to have her be okay with us...for once. Sigh. I also remember visiting the house where Margaret Mitchell stayed while going to Smith, and there was this little museum with an exhibit about Virginia Woolf...I have said before and will say again...I think I like the "idea" of Virginia Woolf, but I've read three of her books, and have decided that I'm not crazy about her work. However, when I was there looking at the exhibit, I discovered a book of hers that I had never heard about before(and NO! I didn't buy it!), called Flush...it's a biography of the Brownings(Robert and Elizabeth Barrett, both excellent poets) from their dog's point of view. I remember thinking about what a cool idea that was to me, also pretty wacky(fitting for Woolf), but it would be something I would read, despite my ambivalence towards Virginia Woolf...everyone who I've met who goes on and on about her, I'm like "Have you actually read her stuff? I mean, Faulkner's pretty tough, but Woolf, geez..." Unless you're a total book freak like me, I'm not sure I'll believe you if you say you like her...but that's just me. Okay, enough about Woolf, let me get back to the subject at hand. A little under 50 years after Virginia Woolf wrote Flush Leon Rooke did something very similar(perhaps he read Woolf's "bio" of the Brownings, which would surprise me, since most men don't read Virginia Woolf unless under duress...wow look at me! I'm really snippy today)...Rooke wrote a book called Shakespeare's Dog, which is all about Shakespeare from his dog Hooker's point of view. It won the GG in 1983. Let me say right here: Canadians give prizes to strange and unique books...Marian Engel's Bear won in 1976 and that's about a woman who has a sexual awakening by having a bear eat her out, amongst other things...Weird, yet interesting, especially from a feminist(which sometimes I put that hat on, however briefly) point of view. Shakespeare's Dog is also weird but interesting...I don't think I've ever read a "literary" novel told so wholeheartedly from a dog's point of view...and it's a neat take on Shakespeare, too, especially since I know little of his biographical history(only what was spoonfed to us in school). Hooker is loyal to and loves his master, who is always scribbling, or fucking his wife "The Hathaway," who most of the time just beats Hooker and frustrates him, the children are strange creatures to him, whom he usually just observes in an off-hand way...There are others of Shakespeare's family living in the house, and they are in the peripheral, as well as other dogs on the land that Hooker has daily dealings with. He is a very insightful dog, full of memory(about Shakespeare and his own young life), and views the world in a unique way. He is unreliable as a narrator, just like many humans, for we discover that he embellishes or lies(depending on how you look at it), but even human narrators in novels are almost always flawed. He does spend a couple pages at least on his bodily functions...two pages are where he gets sick, smells his own vomit and decides that it's actually pretty good eating...yuck. Now this book is not just full of his observances, it also has dialogue; Shakespeare makes some great comments, like "'You underestimate the clankings of history,' Will told me. 'There's much to be said for looting the past'" (Rooke 144). But, one of the best quotes in the book comes from Hooker's thoughts: "Aye, indeed. I'd think, for what worth was a scribbler if his weight was not put in with the long march of impugned humanity? Soul endured the ravages of fate; soul was immortal. Soul gets by by hook and crook, by quill and by quiver; it seeks out all manner of things, showing its plume in flower bed or grass or animal or even a limestone field. It will enter anything except hedgehog. Hedgehog will fight its own shadow, thus keeping soul out. Maybe. I'm not hard by my rule, and the hedgehog to his credit would affirm nay--and nay again--to this. The Avon's fish has soul, though we eat them anyhow. But eating's not the test. The soul's plume lays the grandeur over all of life, which is why the witch Moll Braxton, even with her deadly sins, should be spared the mob's high flames. Though she cackles with her sisters around their pot, she influences no injury over you and me. The stars, I'm willing to think, might be another matter. What's stelliferous is beyond dog's howl, though up there is something ever pushing and turning it. For howl never climbs so high as dog would have it go, and many's the time I've heard it crackle and give out and plunge like a sob into the green sea. 'And does the plague have soul?' I'd sometimes ask of myself. To which I'd reply that it was a stinking maggoty world in some regard, but that the true war was one with time. If the Spaniards didn't blow us all up with their cannonballs and Rome didn't tilt over with stored gold and England didn't kill us with its queenly farts, then mercy would out and the soul's plume endure. Thus spake Hooker, mad as a sea captain, pushing the eternal wheel of dog's lore" (Rooke 36-37). Whew. What brilliance, from man's best friend. And this rant, ironically enough, is right after Shakespeare says "'Your lesson's stern, but I've learnt it. I'm a redeemed scholar, thanks to dog'" (Rooke 36). Well, so am I. It's amazing how things come full circle. That summer when I went to Smith, I bought two things, souvenirs you might say...One was a pack of cloves, that I guiltily smoked because Chai kept telling me it was okay, she didn't mind...I felt like a 16 year old again...and a Tori Amos cd that was a bootleg of a live recording of a concert of hers at the Orpheum in Vancouver(it has a great cover of Joni Mitchell's "A Case of You" which is a song that reminds me of one ex in particular and all my exes all at once), and of course I have the memories of the desire to read a biography of famous writers from a dog's point of view(amongst other memories of course)...As I enter my third summer in Seattle, Chai is coming to work here for 10 weeks, I still have a pack of cloves somewhere in my house(though not that one...I think it got smoked forever ago), next week I'm going to Vancouver for a few days to actually see a show at the Orpheum(not Tori Amos, though, Natalie McMaster, the great Cape Breton fiddlist), and I just finished a book about a writer from his dog's point of view, that may or may not have been inspired by Virginia Woolf...hmm. Well, off to work, argh...GG's 20. Who Hoo! Pulitzers-15.