“My Dog Tulip lampoons the British middle class as well as human anthropocentrism in general. Ackerley’s technique of combining shocking subject matter with a genteel, decorous prose style is always a joy to read. It’s also definately the main reason he managed to get away with publishing this book in 1956. It’s no small measure of the success of this balancing act, that a book which still manages to upset a minority of readers in 2001 was published in 1956 to general critical acclaim.”

“What you get, if you buy My Dog Tulip, is a very detailed account of Ackerley’s life with his dog Queenie (he changed the name to Tulip, only after it was suggested to him that ‘Queenie’ might cause some tittilation, as Ackerley had been a somewhat outspoken member of London’s gay community for some time). At times it is hilarious – never more so than when he’s poking fun at English propriety. At other times it is very touching, and at others there is a barely concealed anger against human arrogance. Yes, there are many, detailed descriptions of canine bodily functions – one chapter is titled ‘Liquids and solids’. In my view Ackerley pulls this off with complete dignitiy, even if I’m reminded of Salvador Dali explaining to a shocked society lady how he covers himself with filth when he paints, but in order to attract “only the cleanest flies.”"

“When the real Queenie died, Ackerley was devestated, and never really recovered. The greatest achievement of My Dog Tulip is its final chapter ‘The Turn of the Screw’, where suddenly the style of the writing changes; the comic veneer is dropped, and suddenly all the imagery about life, death and reproduction make sense. Tulip is still with him, but time is against them. It is one of the most beautiful and moving ruminations on mortality that I’ve read.”

Me, again (sorry I’m not sure how to use HTML to blockquote the above excerpts from the Amazon review): I am a dog worshipper. Couldn’t have one as a kid, but read every dog book in our local library. Every one. I thought dogs were like Lassie, Laddie. By the time I adopted my Tulip 10 years ago, I thought back with a kind of hazy fondness of those heroic dogs, but I loved even more the idiosyncratic dogs that I knew once I could have my own. Ackerley wrote about a real dog. And he unveiled himself in writing about his adored Tulip.

I’m taken with those post-Edwardian writers and poets, many survivors (or not) of WWI. Ackerley was one. I’ve read other Ackerley books and read quite a bit about him and his literary peers. I think he’s a remarkable writer. As that perceptive Amazon reviewer said, ‘who else could write such prose about dog urine, poop, and menstrual blood!”

I’ve not read the dog books you mention, but hope to read Virginia Woolf’s “Flush.” I am reading the Pat Barton trilogy beginning with “Regeneration” and am dragging my feet reading the third as I don’t want them to end. Sassoon (Ackerley’s Colonel Pugh) is a major character.

I hope you see “My Dog Tulip.” It’s a literary and beautifully drawn film, made by a producer (Norman Twain), director-animator and painter team, the married couple Paul and Sandra Fierlinger (of PBS fame) for whom Tulip is a labor of love. Tulip doesn’t have a campaign budget for the Academy Award nominations, but one can only hope it is nominated along with the mega $$$ Toy Store 3. I’ve developed an e-mail friendship with the producer who lives here in NY and kindly invited me to some screenings.

And I also hope you can see “We Think the World of You.” As mentioned you can see it (streaming online) through Netflix. It isn’t available on DVD.

Finally, I’ll say that I find more remarkable books on the New York Review of Books website. They started up their own publishing arm a few years ago, re-publishing many that were out of print (Ackerley’s books were their first, and Tulip is their best seller over the years). You can order their books through them, most at discount. I’ve often found remarkable authors and titles there I wouldn’t have encountered elsewhere.
http://www.nybooks.com/books/http://www.nybooks.com/books/

My Tulip and I send our regards back to you and your Cairn. I’ve tried to adopt a Cairn a couple of times over the past 20 years but keep getting sidelined by other dogs in greater need, Tulip-the-Belgian-Tervueren-mix, and a champion Westie whose breeders didn’t want her after she won her championship and gave them champion pups. When I got her at age 6, I realized she didn’t even know her name as she was never a pet. I had her for 7 years until last year. Those Scottish dogs are stubborn but loving, aren’t they?

I just read Mark Doty’s The Dog Years and am about to read Flush by Virginia Woolf. Have you read them? I also read Dogged Pursuit by Robert Rodi. Perhaps a dogs and their queers post coming up at some point!

My regards to your Tulip — may you two continue racking up the miles walked together for a long time! (Our Cairn is now almost 2 — we walk with him a lot, too!)

Both books were written while the “buggery laws” were still in effect in Britain, so the memoir carried not a hint of Ackerley’s life before Tulip. “We Think the World of You” is a fabulous novel, the movie is terrific too — and because it was fiction, Ackerley could tell the full story of his life. (Note: I’m almost sure that the edition of Tulip that I originally read did not have a forward by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas. I know that W.H. Auden wrote the forward for Ackerley’s brilliant memoir “My Father and Myself.”)

I agree that the reading of “My Dog Tulip” is enhanced by knowing more about Ackerley, his life and times. But I read it originally without that knowledge and enjoyed it so much so that when I subsequently adopted a Belgian Tervueren mix off the streets of L.A., I named her Tulip. She had many of the same unfortunate but ‘endearing’ qualities of Ackerley’s Tulip. Fortunately for me she calmed down somewhat as she gained confidence. She’s now 12 and I share Ackerley’s obsession to a greater extent than I readily admit. (For example, I did the math recently and realized I walked her 1,825 times in the last year. An older dog now, she needs to go outside 5 times a day. So Ackerley’s chapter heading of “liquids and solids” is more a part of our life than I’d like to admit.)

Do not miss the beautifully animated adult film of “My Dog Tulip,” which is in U.S. release now (not out on DVD yet as of Jan. 2011). Wonderful reviews, too numerous to mention, but see the NYT, NYRB, LA Times, etc. And, also see “We Think the World of You,” which is available online streaming through Netflix. Gary Oldman and Alan Bates. And/or read the book. All his books are available through the NYRB website at a discount. The whole Ackerley crowd of late Edwardian writers and poets are worth exploring. (Note that Colonel Pugh in “My Dog Tulip” is really the poet Sigfried Sassoon.)