ABOUT THIS BOOK

The forty-three lovingly crafted vignettes within The Difficulty of Being a Dog dig elegantly to the center of a long, mysterious, and often intense relationship: that between human beings and dogs. In doing so, Roger Grenier introduces us to dogs real and literary, famous and reviled—from Ulysses's Argos to Freud's Lün to the hundreds of dogs exiled from Constantinople in 1910 and deposited on a desert island—and gives us a sense of what makes our relationships with them so meaningful.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Roger Grenier, an editor at Éditions Gallimard, has published over thirty novels, short storied, and literary essays and is the recipient of numerous prizes, including the Grand Prix de Littéature de l'Académie Française. Alice Kaplan is the author of French Lessons and The Collaborator, both published by the University of Chicago Press. She also translated Gremier's novel Another Novemeber.

REVIEWS

"To call this magnificent work a book about dogs is to shortchange it; it is about a delicate and sensitive relationship between different kinds of living beings—dogs and ourselves. Though it looks like a small book, its appearance is deceiving, because it is in fact huge and multidimensional. It will be my Christmas gift to all my favorite people."

— Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, author of "The Hidden Life of Dogs"

"An alluring book full of philosophical and literary musings. Not since Vicki Hearne's Adam's Task have I found a book about dogs so meaningful to me. I enjoyed it immensely."

— William Wegman

"Literate, light, and lighthearted."

— Richard Bernstein, New York Times

“A very superior commonplace book of canine characteristics, the mixture of Grenier’s own anecdotes with quotations from other intellectuals making it far from the average gift-shop item—as if Roland Barthes had opted for domestic animals rather than for fashion or photography.”

— John Stokes, Times Literary Supplement

“Beautifully written . . . the prose flows like poetry. The market has been flooded with a plethora of popularly written books attempting to explain canines and why people love them, yet this book . . . raises the subject to a higher plane. A gem.”

— Library Journal (starred review)

“With whimsical humor and mordant wit, Grenier applies a broad and deep knowledge of literary dog lovers from Homer to Flaubert. . . . This slim volume will make lovers both of literature and canines sit up and take notice.”

— Publisher Weekly

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface
An Enigma
The Difficulty of Being a Dog
A Reproachful Glance
The World of Odors
Low Life
Dogs' Paradise
A Dog with a Past
Flaubert, from Python to Parrot
The Walk down the Rue du Bac
To Be Loved
A dog, yes, but...
Friends of Animals
Our Great Men
Heroes and Refugees
Larbaud, or Bourgeois Follies
Identification
Vocation
Fantasies, Symbols, Signals
Metaphysics
Voltaire versus Rousseau
First Prize
Animal-Machines
Modestine
Gaston Febus
Two Hunters
The Brutes
To the East
The Island of Oxias
Enemies
Evolution
Questions of Vocabulary
A Dog's Heart
Dreams after Ulysses' Death
Flush
The Fiancèe of Goering's Dog
On Pure Love
Misanthropes
Dog and Cat
The Night in Hendaye
Debtors
Dino, Queneau's Dog
Horse, Goat, Dog
The Dog-Book
Translator's Note

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