Melancholia’s Dog

“In this skillful blend of psychology, philosophy, art, and literature, Alice Kuzniar sets a new standard for discourse about dogs. She shows how the love of dogs, far from being sentimental and idealistic, is marked by sadness and loss. The anguish of pet love is often shrouded in secrecy, just as its intimacy transcends the exchange of words, but Kuzniar refuses to treat animals as purely and unknowably other, just as she resists reducing pets to projections of ego-driven fantasies. Dogs are worthy of our devotion, just as they are worthy subjects of great literature and art, and this book suggests that understanding animals and art best takes place where those passions intersect.”

“Melancholia’s Dog is a risky and improper book; that is, Kuzniar gives us an acutely intelligent work—intellectually and emotionally—that actually takes seriously what goes on affectively between dogs and people. This is writing attuned to the sadness of unavowed and repudiated attachment across species difference. Kuzniar addresses us, human beings, who refuse to understand that it is we who must learn to comprehend—or even just to notice—the depth, difficulty, and urgency of canine-human relations, so that we might learn at last to speak properly about such matters as pet loss and death, shared vulnerability, and resonating empathic shame. Melancholia’s Dog lovingly inhabits works of visual and literary art in order to make palpable the urgent need to stop our silliness about dogs and to nurture the practice of articulate respect for the complexities of our attachments across the bounds of species difference.”