A slim novel at just
over 100 pages, this book by Virginia Woolf is about a dog named Flush, its owner
an invalid involved in one of the most romantic love stories of all
time, Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
That's her picture on the cover from a
sketch by her brother, Alfred. Woolf's inspiration for the
book came from two poems that Barrett Browning wrote about Flush.
The dog is a
spaniel, a gift from friend and fellow writer, Mary Mitford. The
bond between Flush and his new master is strong. "He could read
signs that nobody else could even see." But the bond is tested
when he notices a change in her behaviour after she starts exchanging
letters with someone. He could see "how strangely his mistress
was agitated as she wrote, what contrary desires shook her." A
hooded man arrives, a usurper whom Flush savagely bites, not once,
but twice.
At this juncture in
Flush's life, an epochal event occurs. He is stolen by a gang of
thieves and held for ransom. This gives Woolf the opportunity to
describe a London slum through the eyes of a dog, which she does with
as much skill as Dickens. Flush is returned at last, only to face a
greater crisis. He and his mistress steal out of the house and
undertake a great journey.
They arrive in Italy
where life is quite different from London. Barrett Browning's health
improves, and even Flush becomes used to the change. His
snobbishness wears off. He goes out on his own for hours without a
leash and "speaks Italian to the little dogs." He eats
grapes and macaroni, and is afflicted with fleas.
More great events
follow. His mistress becomes "two people," and when the
entire family returns to London, his chief desire is to leave. Back
in Italy he and Barrett Browning grow old together.
Notes
Flush is accompanied
by eight pages Woolf's notes, the longest of which concerns Barrett
Browning's devoted maid. Woolf writes, "The life of Lily Wilson
is extremely obscure and thus cries aloud for the services of a
biographer." She married an Italian and remained in Italy after
Barrett Browning died. "She was typical of the great army of
her kind -- the inscrutable, the all-but-silent, the
all-but-invisible servant maids of history."
This edition
includes a five-page biographical note about Woolf, and a useful
introduction which talks about Woolf's lifelong interest in animals, "real, imaginary, and metaphorical." Her nephew, Quentin
Bell, is quoted as saying, "Flush is not so much a book by a dog
lover as a book by a someone who would love to be a dog."
The
novel also has a more serious side, for example in the parallel
between walking a dog on a leash, and women's subjugation to "the
confining social laws of patrimony."
Other Doggy Treats
Other Doggy Treats
I enjoyed Flush because it was unusual, intelligent, and not afflicted with sappy sentiment. Here are some others that I've enjoyed.
Dog Boy by Eva Hornung. An abandoned four-year-old in Moscow is raised by feral dogs.
The Heart of a Dog by Mikhail Bulgakov. A Russian surgeon transplants human glands into a dog and turns it into an idle, slovenly, and foul-mouthed Commissar "for the elimination of vagrant quadrupeds." Written in 1925.
The Plague Dogs by Richard Adams, author of Watership Down. Two dogs escape from a place where experiments are carried out on animals.
The Dog of the South by Charles Portis. A man chases after his runaway wife to get his car back, following her all the way to Central America in a broken-down bus called "Dog of the South."
Skookum's North by Doug Urquhart. "Paws" was the name of a cartoon strip that ran for many years in northern Canadian newspapers. The main character is Skookum, the lead dog of a team owned by Marten Fisher. They live in Fort Doggerel.
