* Derek Ryan, Animal Theory: A Critical Introduction (Edinburgh University Press, 2015)
* Paul Auster, Timbuktu (Faber, 1999)
Cambridge University Library isn’t much of a place for browsing. Its classification system means that books are shelved for size, then for subject, and then by order of acquisition (something like that, anyway). This means that the book you want is rarely next to other books you want. However, some classmarks can produce gold. I can’t actually remember the book I was looking for when I had a little fiesta in 730.4. Lots of cool titles. And Animal Theory was the one I left with.
I picked it up because it has things to offer to an interest of mine: the literary representation of other kinds of consciousness. I’ve touched on it in this blog, in a series of posts about ‘Knowing Worlds’; here’s one, which discusses Virginia Woolf’s biography of a dog, Flush. Curiously enough this book, and the Flush post, speak to another blog-theme, which was, for a while, the language of smell: that sequence started here.
Paul Auster’s novel Timbuktu is discussed by Ryan as an attempt to represent a dog’s world. Mr Bones, the dog in question, has canine senses, and his loving, eccentric owner becomes obsessed with the idea of creating a ‘Symphony of Smells’ for him. Auster doesn’t really get into the dog’s head here (he does this at other times, such as during the dog’s moving final moments) but the episode is nicely evocative of the interesting cognitive gap.
Thus began the lunatic winter of 1988. Mr Bones has never seen Willy so excited, so calm, so filled with steadfast energy. For three and a half months he worked on the project to the exclusion of everything else, scarcely bothering to smoke or drink anymore, sleeping only when absolutely compelled to, all but forgetting to write, read, or pick his nose. He drew up plans, made lists, experimented with smells, traced diagrams, built structures out of wood, canvas, cardboard, and plastic. There were so many calculations to be made, so many tests to be run, so many daunting questions to be answered. What was the ideal sequence of smells? How long should a symphony of smells last, and how many smells should it contain? What was the proper shape of the symphony hall? Should it be constructed as labyrinth, or was a progression of boxes within boxes better suited to a dog’s sensibility? Should the dog do the work alone, or should the dog’s owner be there to guide him from one stage of the performance to the next? Should each symphony revolve around a single subject – food, for example, or female scents – or should various elements be mixed together? (p. 41)
[… and then soon after …]
For the fact was that Mr Bones was a dog, and dogs enjoyed smelling whatever they were given to smell. It was in their nature; it was what they were born to do; it was, as Willy had correctly observed, their calling in life. For once, Mr Bones was glad that he had not been endowed with human speech. If he had, he would have been forced to tell Willy the truth, and that would have caused him much pain. For a dog, he would have said, for a dog, dear master, the fact is that the whole world is a symphony of smells. Every hour, every minute, every second of his waking life is at once a physical and a spiritual experience. There is no difference between the inner and the outer, nothing to separate the high from the low. It’s as if, as if… (p. 43-4)
There’s an interesting mixture of metaphor here: the world of smelled is framed as a soundscape (‘symphony’), and in spatial terms (‘labyrinth’, etc.). And it’s also interesting that the dog’s attempt to explain what the olfactory world is like fades away into parallel and ellipsis (‘as if…’). So we are back in the territory of those earlier posts, with fiction a form in which to see how language might reach after the elusive experience of smell. Perhaps it’s all the more effective because Auster doesn’t dwell ponderously on the moment. The manic enthusiasm of the owner, and the earnest devotion of the dog, propel us through the episode.