If Thurber Had Been A Photographer

"When the whole city of Athens were going on board, it afforded a spectacle worthy alike of pity and admiration, to see them thus send away their fathers and children before them, and, unmoved with their cries and tears, passed over into the island. But that which stirred compassion most of all was, that many old men, by reason of their great age, were left behind; and even the tame domestic animals could not be seen without some pity, running about the town and howling, as desirous to be carried along with their masters that had kept them; among which it is reported that Xanthippus, the father of Pericles, had a dog that would not endure to stay behind, but leaped into the sea, and swam along by the galley's side till he came to the island of Salamis, where he fainted away and died, and that spot in the island, which is still called the Dog's Grave, is said to be his. " Plutarch, Life of Themistocles.

James Grover Thurber wrote a series of occasional dog reminiscences, most of them published in The New Yorker. In wry appreciations, Thurber memorialized Rex and Muggs, Christabel and Jeannie, among many others. Thurber, of course, was a genius, whose recollections were affectionately canny. He had a peculiar empathy for his canines, but he was not without the cool detachment of the artist. Thus, he could worry about the peripatetic Jeannie, but he could also watch with the calm of a jaded reporter as the predictable drama of her wanderings played itself out. What has all this to do with the work presently under consideration, you ask? Well, quite frankly, books about dogs almost always are written to appeal to the "Aww-receptor" in dog owners (this is, practically speaking, a force of nature, akin to the gravitational pull of a black hole), and, it is the rare author who can restrain his impulse to indulge that bathetic response. It requires a certain balance, or perhaps that cynical suspicion of one's own emotions, if you will, that manifests itself as humor. Thurber had the ability to look askance at his own experiences, and stand in judgment, as though they were another's. Gene Weingarten has it, too, in his introductory essay "Remembering Harry," a memorial to Harry S Truman, Weingarten's yellow Lab. Which is to say, the best writing in "Old Dogs" stands up to a comparison with the best in the genre.

Take, for instance, Weingarten's description of Harry and his suspicion of electrical cords: "We sometimes called him Tru, which fit his loyalty but was in other ways a misnomer: Harry was a bit of an eccentric, a few bubbles off plumb. Though he had never experienced and electrical shock, whenever he encountered a wire on the floor -- say a power cord leading from a laptop to a wall socket -- Harry would stop and refuse to proceed. To him, this barrier was as impassable as the Himalayas. He'd stand there, waiting for someone to move it."

Not only does this present the reader with an image at once concrete and comical, it plays upon a meaning of "true" drawn from carpentry that gives a slant on Harry's Dutch-angle view of the world.

The pictures by Michael Williamson are the body of the book. Portraiture is a difficult art, for artist and subject often have conflicting aims. Child and animal portraiture are especially challenging, as the primary aim of the subject is often merely to escape sitting still. Distractions and the subject's indifference to the momentous occasion can defeat even the most determined and talented portraitist. Even with a sedentary subject, as many old dogs perforce will be, there is the desire, if not the necessity, to satisfy both the owner as well as the artist's own sensibilities. Primarily, the artist will wish to capture the personality of the subject, while the owner will want a flattering memento. Eliciting a true-to-life picture in such circumstances can require more patience than actual photographic talent. Happily, Michael Williamson had as collaborators his two young daughters, and his own skill produced some excellent pictures. A few are merely cute, concessions to both the reader and the owner, but many discover the life of the animal in affecting tones: Hank, a dog who had been rescued from abuse, sits with sad dignity in a pose that elevates him to a stature reminiscent of the great figures of Yousuf Karsh's portraiture. The portrait of Katie, and her owner's description of her rather contrary -- if not diabolical -- intelligence, is at the other end of the scale, like something out of German Expressionism. The only quibble one can make here is that the size of the page is too small for the pictures, which deserve a larger format.

The accompanying word portraits vary in style. Some are entirely transcriptions of the owner's own words. Others are reportorial. Still others have the manner of a children's book. Indeed, one gets the impression that the idea for this portion of the book was that parents would sit down and read it aloud to their children.

In the final analysis, this is a monument to Harry S. Truman, for the Old Dogs called together in this one place are like the graybeards who are assembled at a funeral: they are there not to be honored but to render honor.