Dead Dog Talking : Posthumous, Preposthumous, and Preposterous Canine Narration in Charles Siebert’s Angus

Abstract

The section focusing on narrating and narrated animals opens with Mikko Keskinen’s chapter, which probes the narrational peculiarities of posthumous tales told by dogs. The primary target of Keskinen’s analysis is Charles Siebert’s novel Angus (2000), a first-person memoir of a dying Jack Russell terrier. The novel presents its canine protagonist Angus as having an outstanding command of the English language, whereby it is no surprise that his lineage turns out to be particularly literary. Yet there are curious idiosyncrasies in his parlance, which appear to suggest a uniquely cynomorphic language and worldview.

Since Angus the dog resides on the border zone between human and nonhuman spheres of communication and knowledge, he is a hybrid creature: domesticated, yet wildly unfamiliar. A similar hybridity marks Angus the novel and the effects of its narration: backward narration may appear a “natural” analogy to canines’ ability to trail lingering scents, but it also results in unnatural and counterfactual effects and storylines.