Customer Reviews

Dog Years: A Memoir

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Mark Doty handled the other side of the story that "Marley and Me" didn't touch on. He spoke to us from the dog's point of view and how we think they feel.

With every sentence that I read, I kept thinking to myself, "YES! That's what my dog does!" or "I know that is what my dog is thinking!" He truly spoke to the pet moms and dads and siblings in the voice of the dog.

Mr. Doty explained that dogs are more than just pets to some and sometimes others cannot understand how important they are in our lives. They are there for all major life changes and are affected by them just as much as we are.

This is a wonderful book that dog parents and siblings can relate to - from the beginning with the adoption of his dogs until the last, sad, final day which every pet owner dreads. He captured the way we think dogs think perfectly. This book is sure to be a hit amongst pet owners and pet lovers. It's one you cannot put down until the last page is read.

Those in the sad condition of not already being aware of Mr. Doty's splendid body of work may be tempted to overlook this book. Readers who know Mark Doty's work will already know that they are in for more than just another book about dogs. Last night in Harvard Square, I attended a reading by Mark Doty from this fine book. It turns out to be, of course, a set of meditations on dogs and their relationship with their owners, but also of grief and loss. No one writes about the latter with more grace and wisdom than Mark Doty. Last night, he reminded us, "The agreement to participate in this life is a pact with grief." This book is highly recommended.

Mark Doty in DOG YEARS has written a sometimes sad and always deeply moving beautiful memoir about loss, grief and the comfort that animals, in this instance Beau, a golden retriever, and Arden, a black retriever, bring to the sick and dying and those who remain. Mr. Doty is nothing if not opinionated: sentimentality is a mask for anger; "compassion for animals is an excellent predictor of one's ability to care for one's fellow human beings;" "no death equals another;" "the wounds of loss, the nicks and cuts made by our own sense of powerlessness, must form a sort of carapace, an armor." The kindgom of heaven may be "the realm of paradox, "attachment and detachment," memory and forgetfulness, "everything and nothing." Whether you agree with Mr. Doty's conclusions hardly matters although he is convincing and persuasive. What is just as important is that the reader is swept along by the writer's precise and beautiful language. (We should expect no less from a first rate poet.) So on September 11 the hole in the north twin tower reminds him of "an unfamiliar continent in a school geography book. A version of Australia." New York is a "pierced city." An old woman who runs a kennel in Key West has a voice "shredded by decades of Chesterfields." An old house in Provincetown has "straggly irises" in the yard. Furthermore, Mr. Doty strews gems from the greatest of American poets, Emily Dickinson, throughout his narrative. Just as his canine friends overlook nothing on their daily scavenger hunts, Mr. Doty's reader must use the same care for he skims this book at his peril.

Whether you are a dog lover or not, DOG YEARS is not to be missed. It is in the league of other recent nonfiction books on grief: Elizabeth Edwards' SAVING GRACES: FINDING SOLACE AND STRENGTH FROM FRIENDS AND STRANGERS, Joan Didion's THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING and Calvin Trillin's ABOUT ALICE. It reminded me of another poet Wendell Berry's fine short story "Mike" about the death of a dog and is every bit as good as my favorite nonfiction book by Doty: STILL LIVE WITH OYSTERS AND LEMON; ON OBJECTS AND INTIMACY.

Reading Mr. Doty is always a joy, regardless of his subject matter.

I don't even own a dog and I loved this book. It's about love and loss and finding joy in small moments. Doty is an amazing writer who can bring tears to your eyes and make you laugh out loud, all within the same page. Highly recommended--whether you're a pet owner or not!

DOG YEARS is one of those memorable books that will find a place not on the library shelf of the home, but instead on the bedside table. Mark Doty, one of America's most sophisticated and endearing poets, shares his experiences of his time with his two dogs, Arden and Beau, times of trial, loss, grieving, joy and mutual dependency, and in doing so he offers one of the more sensitive memoirs written.

Doty relates the gradual passing of his beloved Wally who succumbed to AIDS and in doing so introduces us to the manner in which both Arden and Beau became integral parts of the household and indeed participated in the grieving process with Doty. And then after a year's passing Doty speaks of his new life with fellow writer Paul Lisicky and how the two animals integrated into the new family and ultimately died surrounded by the support and love of the two men. If all of this seems like a rather placid or even maudlin story, then the reader has not had the joy of exploring the poetic and writing gifts of Mark Doty. He has a sly wit: 'Me, dramatize? Just a little. I don't mean that I display an overly emotive surface, not that sort of drama. Rather that I am prone to interpretation, and to reading the moment as cosmic evidence, quickly turning things into metaphor'. He understands the human condition: 'Hope is leaven; it makes things rise without effort'. He has experienced grief and bolsters those who have shouldered such experiences; 'Life without an element of despair in it would seem an empty enterprise, a shallow little song-and-dance on the surface of experience. Despair has about it a bracing sense of actuality....'.

But we know of Doty's gifts as an artist. DOG YEARS proves his ability to understand the capacity of dogs to comprehend situations, find strength to share with their masters, demonstrate the meaning of unconditional love, and to provide solace in ways that are beyond human capacity. This extraordinarily beautiful book speaks to all who love animals, all who have experienced death in any form, and all of us who deeply admire great writing. Highly recommended. Grady Harp, April 07

I'm not sure why I picked up this book in the first place...I'm a cat person and as I began to read "Dog Years" I was convinced that this would be a comparison read. But when, early on, author Mark Doty learns how to administer subcutaneous fluids to his beloved Beau, I was flooded with memories of having to do the same. From that point on I was hooked.

"Dog Years" is, among other things, about connections...the most intimate kinds, of course. It is also about yin and yang, the pull of life tugged by the presence of death (and the loomingness of the latter). It is about philosophy and reality, poignancy and resignation, humor and grief. There is even Judy Garland mixed with more than a whiff of Joan Didion. Hope crosses with depression, as does love and separation. Yet it is the author's gift for finding just the right words and setting the right tone that makes this book such a glorious memoir.

"Dog Years" is a complex and articulate work. I highly recommend it to anyone who has ever lost a loved companion...it is that good.

I picked up Dog Years for my husband, as he liked the Jon Katz books. Once I started reading I couldn't put it down. I expected a somewhat sentimental eulogy but this memoir is so much more -- it is really a kind of treatise on the inevitability -- and necessity -- of pain in any fully lived life. Further, it is about the limits of language to express experience, and the capabilities that dogs and humans have to communicate without words. Doty moves back and forth between the mundane and the sublime, from poop to poetry (he cites Emily Dickinson's poetry as language that tries to capture the eneffable, the unsayable). Of course he explores his own sadness but he lets us know early on that he had always had a melancholy bent. An important dimension of this memoir is his own journey down and through depression and his recognition that he was in need of help. I was reminded of other writers as I read -- John Updike, Andrew Solomon, Jane Kenyon and Donald Hall. Much more these than -- Jon Katz. Beautifully written, deeply affecting: a book that is an undeniable pleasure to read even while you're close to tears.

Mark Doty has penned an absolute gem of a memoir that touches not only on our umbreakable bonds with our animals, but also with our mates and the many places that we will call "home" throughout our lives - and the grief that we all must embrace and learn from in the loss of all of these. His story of Wally, Arden and Beau is a masterpiece of the heartfelt thoughts and feelings that all dog owners will experience if they are lucky enough to be loved unconditionally by one, or more, beloved human beings and furry angels.
In Chapter 15, after the recent death of his mate, Wally, and one of his dogs, Beau, Doty tells us of an abandoned dog that he befriends on Calle Canal in San Miquel de Allende, a hill town north of Mexico City.
He tries to rescue her and is heartbroken to have to leave her behind, writing, "I am grateful to have felt even this sharp sadness. The dog on Calle Canal awakens me; she shows me that I have come through something now. I write to bless her delicate head, the paw raised in hope. How should we know ourselves, except in the clarifying mirror of some other gaze?"
I finished the book in one day. And if you aren't into full throttle tears by Chapter 16 & 17 (the final chapters), then you have never known the joy and anticipation of there being "someone at home, waiting to go for a walk."

(I read this book and was touched by it enough to write an email to my Dog Loving Friends) Here is what I wrote:

Dear Dog Loving Friends,

Over the past few days I read a book that I checked out of the library called Dog Years written by Mark Doty.

The book moved me so much that I intend to buy a copy for me to keep as my own. (And I never ever buy books to own.)

I recommend it to you (if you will endure the more poetic parts of it and seemingly random diversionary discussions), and I recommend it to Connie's hairdresser given that he owns 14 dogs. Susanne, if you can pass this on to Connie or make mention, I would be grateful.

The book is told in the first person. It is a memoir of sorts - reminds me of a scrapbook in a way - with lots of "photos" (the photos being stories) of dogs, but other "momentoes" stuck in the book such as random musings on poetry and sidebar discussions on such non-dog related topics as Judy Garland, the difference between dispair and depression....and boy does he nail it when he decribes depression. I am not quoting directly but something like: "Depression moves in heavily and sits in the sink as the dirty dishes from yesterday" ....

As strange as all the pieces were, it comes together quite lovely. Like a meal or a recipe in which I would have NEVER thought to combine all those ingredients, but it worked beautifully.

This book all made sense to me (except for some of the poetry..ok, ok, so I admidt I am missing the Emily Dickenson gene along with the cooking gene, but I will go back and carefully re-read some of the poetry.) I especially liked the poem on the wind. See that is the great thing about this book. I just finished it and already I am eager to read it again.

The book starts slowly and gets much better after a few chapters. I was momentarily confused between a dog named Wally and a man named Wally, and I was mildly irritated that the author used the word "fierce" or a very similar word 3 times on the same page. jeeze, picky, picky.

But then on the other hand, I rather LIKED this "flaw" because I felt like he was not a honed pretentious writer following all those rules we learn in English and writing classes, but instead he was really writing from the heart. And I myself, of course, cannot even write one smidgen as well as Doty.

Doty, an artistic insightful angst ridden gay man, recollects his past and how important his dogs were to him. He brilliantly perceptively and precisely captures what I think we see and love in our dogs. I was constantly saying "YES, YES, YES!" outloud to myself while reading. I wept copiously at the end.

The manner in which he desribes his dogs "resonates" with me (I hate to use that overused word, but it really fits here).

Because Doty is a poet, he sees his dogs through poetic artistic eyes.

The book will make you laugh and cry. I hope you take time to read it. See the reader reviews in the link below. (and I copied in the link to Amazon for my friends to click to).

- later -

Anyone who has had a dog and especially nursed one through the end of its life will savor this book. I defy you to refrain from reaching for the Kleenex!

Dogs occupy a special place and special relationships in our lives. Their shorter life spans guarantee that the relationship will ultimately end up in grief over their passing. You feel half-ashamed grieving over "just a dog," but this memoir legitimizes the depths of those bonds and those feelings.