A. > Recent Status Updates

Getting off the Motorway—don’t mix insurance+ investments
Paying the Help — Fee-only to avoid opportunistic salesmen.

Lots of useful advice about retirement funds and stocks—the Motorway to Dublin—much of which went over my head.

Jeeves and the Impending Doom — great title, scary swans, a Minister. Bingo Little!

Insecurity Complex — meh but there’s a vase that Jeeves smashes.

4% per year of your nest egg

“Black Dog”, Penelope Lively. Enjoyed this one—a wry, sardonic take on a depressed housewife whose family rushes in to fix her problem—a black dog only she can see—rather than listen to her. 9/10.

“My Lord You,” James Salter. More of a mood piece with great sentences than a real narrative. The dog wisely keeps its distance, both from the characters and the plot. 7/10

“Black Dog”, Penelope Lively. Really enjoyed this one—a wry, satirical tone tracking a depressed housewife and a black dog only she can see. As a depression metaphor it’s beautifully handled; the real focus is on the cloying and ignorant attempts of her family to fix her problems instead of, you know, listening to her. 9/10.

“My Lord You”, James Salter. More of a mood piece with great sentences than an actual narrative. Rich people in an enclave dealing with ennui. The dog here keeps its distance and an unlikely bond—at no point truly friendly—forms. Not really a dog story tbh.

“Flight,” Thomas McGuane. A lovely and understated story of two friends on a hunt who speak little but leave nothing unsaid. When one gives detailed dog instructions to the other it takes on a very poignant weight. 8.5/10

“The Story of Two Dogs”, Doris Lessing. A chronicle of the narrator’s colonial childhood, a glorious evocation of the African veldt, and yes: a portrait of the irrepressible kinship between Bill & Jock, a bad dog and a good one who bring out the best in each other. The haunting image of Bill, his mouth bloody as he chews through the wires dug into Jock’s neck. A brutal closing sentence. 10/10

“A Yellow Dog”, Bert Harte. A camping story. No real plot. Touches on the grudging affection between a settlement and a stray. Not a fan of the overelaborate whimsy of the style.

“Barking Man”, Madison Smartt Bell. Almost derailed my finishing this book, it was so bad. Purple prose, poor framing. A boy behaves more and more like a dog, for no discernible reason. Blech.

“Dogs don’t love,” the hypnotist whispered…”They feel, yes, but they don’t love.”

“Sir Henry,” Lydia Millett. A strange, beautifully realized story about a dogwalker and his codes of attachment to the dogs he cares for. It made me gasp with laughter in its careful deployment of David Hasselhoff, but by the end I had a lump in my throat. In his line of work he saw shockingly few people who were fit for their dogs.

“Her Dog,” Tobias Wolff. Kind of like Thurber’s story—a fierce attachment to an otherwise unwanted dog. The centerpiece is an imaginary dog-owner conversation, which isn’t a note I thought Wolff had in him. If he touches my dog I’ll kill him.

“Seeing Eye,” Brad Watson. A seeing-eye dog waits at an intersection. Loved every minute of this—a genuine attempt to convey how dogs make sense of their impressions of the world around them. A neat contrast with Bradbury’s failed attempt. 9/10

“The Oracle of the Dog,” GK Chesterton. So much front-loaded exposition that I found it hard to get too invested. Loved the shrewd Father Brown though. This is actually the opposite of a dog story: ’The dog had everything to do with it,’ said Father Brown, ‘as you’d have found out, if you’d treated the dog as a dog and not as God Almighty, judging the souls of men.’ 5/10

“Kashtanka,” Anton Chekhov. A dog passes from owner to owner but remains true to her old master. Not especially well-realized, especially for Chekhov. 5/10

“Josephine Has Her Day”, James Thurber. A charming story about a couple that rehomes a puppy only to miss her—and rescue her. Don’t really get the title since the focus isn’t really on Josephine, but the fight scene is solid. 8/10

“A Dog’s Tale”, Mark Twain. Probably the most upsetting example of animal cruelty I’ve read so far. The limping dog waiting for the plant of her dead puppy to grow, wasting away without knowing why. Horrifically cruel.

“There I Was, Stuck With Bubsy”, Patricia Highsmith. Terrible title, brilliant story. The Baron has a well-illuminated inner life, and Highsmith handles the human-dog language gap better than anyone else—the Baron can make out certain key words, but is otherwise oblivious. Ties into Highsmith’s other work, all about toxic codependent relationships. 10/10

“The Mixer”, P. G. Wodehouse. Wodehouse doesn’t ever miss. This one is especially deft for Wodehouse’s gift of revealing the burglar’s plot to use without telling us and for the dog’s irrepressible chatterbox greetings. ”The first thing a dog has to learn,” Mother used to say, “is that tge whole world wasn’t created for him to eat.”

“The Emissary”, Ray Bradbury. The cutesy prose style gets old really quick, but the twist at the end—the final rank, necrotic odor which the dog brings in—was shocking, effective and unexpected. 6/10

“Garm — a Hostage”, Rudyard Kipling. Dog-sitting in the British Raj. All the dogs in this story seem to understand English fluently. The narrator is keenly aware that he’s just holding onto Garm temporarily—the devotion between Stanley and Garm, the interconnectedness of their health, is beautifully evoked, and Kipling keeps the story moving besutifully. Contrast to Vixen or the fat retriever. 8/10

'"Ava's Apartment", Jonathan Lethem. In which Perkus Tooth's ennui erodes as he learns to care for Ava. Evokes dogs' boundless hunger for human attention, three-legged or otherwise; much of their dynamic rang true to me. Her vigilance was absolutely placid, yet she seemed to find some purpose in it, and could watch the street below for an hour without nodding. This was her favorite sport, apart from love."

"Memoirs of a Yellow Dog", O. Henry. A charming opener. I admire this dog's aversion to being babied and cuddled; he'd hate being called a doggo. 7/10

Finished the first few stories, including “Jeeves Takes Charge”, the origin story.

Today’s progress. Jealous of Maupin’s brevity. No wasted words.