Word: dog
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Lessing has always created plausible characters, and those in Memoirs are no exception. Except for Hugo, the semi-anthropomorphic half-dog, half-cat mutation, they are realistic in spite of their bizarre behavior. In order to get past the first page of any fantasy one must suspend disbelief and as long as the characters' emotions are understandable their paws and whiskers don't matter. It's hard to carry fantasy off so well: authors tend either toward the cold creations of science fiction or totally unbelievable little critters with hairy toes. Lessing avoids both extremes. With Hugo as a minor...
...miles passed between her well-tempered hubs before we called our trip quits. But that wasn't til Tuesday morning when all was grey and cold and clammy and out rotting elk head lashed to the front of the van stunk of urine and flung in our grimy, dog-tired faces chunks of what little flesh remained on its fly-picked skull. Friday was wide and sun-strung. We headed for interstate 80. We made good time and crossed the country...
...American Legion to the members only section of the bleachers. Here was the official luncheon spot for the habitues. Surrounding umbrella-shaded tables and a buffet line of noontime snacks such as beel bourgignon was a crescent of international flags. Ah, such tradition. I grabbed a hot dog and a beer from the American Legion and headed back to the horses...
Allen has a book out too. Without Feathers (Random House; $7.95) is a series of sketches that show the author as a gentle practitioner of the short-haired shaggy-dog story. Most of them should be read as experiments rather than as polished pieces of comic ingenuity. One essay, for example, "If the Impressionists Had Been Dentists," imagines that Vincent Van Gogh is a dentist obsessed with bridgework and X rays as art for art's sake...
...thinks everyone is a German spy; the curmudgeonly "Admiral," a half-deaf, near-blind British dowager who always seems to be bellowing for an elevator that never comes; and the defiantly gay Princess Bili, whose frenzied affection is divided between an absent Italian gigolo and an ever-present Sealyham dog that "sings" D'ye Ken John Peel? Waiting upon this odd lot of aging Everymen is an equally bizarre collection of German, Swiss, French and Italian servants who trade ethnic insults and intrigue against (and occasionally fall in love with) one another...