Dog Love by Marjorie Garber

Dog Love Reviews

• 
  Dev Scott Flores

  An author who loves literature, bisexuals/transgendered and dogs - how could you go wrong?
• 
  David Swatling

  Read this back in 1998. Loved it then, love it still!
• 
  Wolf Ostheeren

  Five stars for the original edition, zero for the German translation. That was completely incomprehensible in places
• 
  Michelle Taylor

  Garber’s work is remarkable for its ability to appeal to a general audience—not just a wide variety of scholars, but also the general public. Its approach, then, is somewhat different from that of a more traditional academic monograph. It features short sections on a wide variety of thematically-grouped chapters, which focus on: the ubiquity of canine heroes; “talking dogs” and pet-owner communication; the stigmas attached to childless couples and single women who own dogs; the history of eroticism between dogs and humans; the phenomenon of breeding; laws pertaining to dogs; and “dog loss”/pet mourning. She illustrates her points with literary passages, historical events, pop culture references, and even personal anecdotes. The statements she makes in her introduction are echoed throughout the book, which is best described as a defense of its title, “dog love.” She writes: “It’s not that people feel less, or less strongly, about other people than about their dogs—at least for the most part. It’s rather that the overwhelming dimension of human need sometimes makes the task of reparation seem hopeless. Dog love is local love, passionate, often unmediated, virtually always reciprocated, fulfilling, manageable. Love for humans is harder.” Nevertheless, she insists that “dog love is not evasive or a substitution” (14). The chapters work out the complications of her introductory statement, always demonstrating that dogs reflect human desire at the same time as they are viewed as truly individualized beings by those that love them—and that this second role is in no way inferior to the first. It is this widely-appreciated sentiment, along with its accessible style, that made the book the trade success it was and is.
• 
  Teresa

  eh.