Angus: A Memoir - Hardcover

Siebert, Charles

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0609604945 ISBN 13: 9780609604946

Publisher: Crown, 2000

Synopsis

"Can you stand, can you even imagine it anymore? Did you ever know it at all: full-fathom fearlessness and the feel of charging away from your own lit windows into the night, charging off on a scent, purely, and the urge that it stirs? Go. Go. And further, and on, with nothing holding you back, no worry, not a second, not even a first thought -- thought that leads to fear and fear to worries and these to clouded thoughts, like the fence-snagged sheep hair of atmosphere that drags tonight in a blue wind about the planet."

A young dog named Angus lies wounded at the edge of a dark wood. In the distance he sees the lights of his owners' cabin. As he starts the long, valiant climb back to them, all the stirring sights, sounds, and scents of his brief but wildly episodic life begin to replay before him.

Born on a farm in Devon called Pollard's Combe, where Charles Siebert and his wife arrive one stormy night to claim him, Angus soon finds himself being whisked off to a multi-sensory array of new destinations: from a small miner's cottage on the Cornish seacoast; to the lighted "room-stacks" of London; to the cargo hold of the "metal bird" that delivers him to Brooklyn; and, finally, to the wild woods of southern Canada, where Angus' irrepressible curiosity and zeal for new experience finally meet their match.

With Angus, Charles Siebert, author of the critically acclaimed memoir Wickerby: An Urban Pastoral, has performed a singular act of literary ventriloquism -- the autobiography of a dog, a book that offers us a wry, poignant, ultimately redemptive view of life and death as perceived through the heightened senses of one very brave, winsome, unforgettable Jack Russell terrier. At once poetic, thoroughly canine, and unsentimental, Angus is a brilliant feat of the imagination that illuminates our often ambiguous relationship with our fellow creatures, while delivering us to a fuller understanding of the forces that make us all one.

About this title

Review:

A sincerely written attempt at creating an "autobiography" for a beloved Jack Russell terrier, Angus is told almost entirely from the dog's perspective. But readers expecting pages filled with "woof" will be disappointed: author Charles Siebert has crafted a delicate tale of a warm and aggressive little pup and his sadly abbreviated life on earth. Anyone familiar with the Jack Russell breed will adore this peek into the inner workings of their curious little minds, symbolized here by the regular "head-tilt" poses that Jack Russells present when especially interested in--or confused by--their humans. Angus names his humans "Sweet-Voice" (presumably Siebert's wife) and "Huge-Head" (presumably Siebert himself, whose head doesn't look that big on the flap photo, but maybe from a dog's perspective...), and although they make up the bulk of his world, other dogs (Angus thinks of them as "me's") also play a part. Lucy, an elderly dog in his new home, is in poor health--and not at all happy about the rambunctious puppy in her space, but Angus likes her and guards her with his life. Angus's takes on events like puppy basic training, an international airplane flight, and his subsequent exploration of Brooklyn are surprisingly poetic; Siebert sets his thoughts to an unusual rhythm that seems part dog and part gruff old poet writing his memoirs.

The narrative ultimately creates a life-flashed-before-my-eyes impression. In the end, Angus tangles with an animal much fiercer than even he could be, and his abrupt loss hits Sweet-Voice and Huge-Head hard. Reading of Angus's tragic, bloody end in the wilds of Canada may be tough going for serious canine lovers or those who have lost a pet in a similarly primitive manner, and the writing may be too fanciful for the more pragmatic dog lovers out there. But Angus will prove an enjoyable read for folks who've wished their own beloved pooch had left a journal behind, and for those who are always wondering what's really going on inside the heads of their faithful companions. --Jill Lightner

From the Back Cover:

"Siebert reveals an uncanny ability to inhabit the mind, heart, and soul of a dog. With enormous sensitivity, he plumbs the depths of the mysterious ties that bind us like no other to an alien species. No one has ever gone so deep inside the canine mind -- reporting back the solution to one of the great puzzles of nature: what do dogs think of us?"        
-- Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, author of Dogs Never Lie About Love

"A remarkable exploration of the understandings and misunderstandings between two people and their dog -- a triumph of canine creative writing."
-- Rupert Sheldrake, author of Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home

"What if The Death of Ivan Ilyich had been written from a dog's point of view? In Angus: A Memoir, Leo Tolstoy meets Jack London, and the result is a contemporary call of the wild, which is by turns heartbreaking and hilarious. Here is a poetic evocation of a Jack Russell terrier's last thoughts, a vivid exploration of the threshold between life and death. Angus is a sort of Rilkean angel, wiser than humankind deserves; and although he inhabited our 'sphere of worry' for only a short while, he left behind a profound meditation on last things -- a sharp-toothed message from the edge of the field in which, sooner or later, we all find ourselves."        
-- Christopher Merrill

About this edition

• Publisher: Crown
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0609604945
• ISBN 13: 9780609604946
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 176