GRGR(3) talking dog 44.20

[keith woodward]

Doug writes:
>"You vere ekshpecting maybe *Lessie*?" replies the dog. (44.20)
>Is Roger actually replying to the dog when he says, "*Come* on mate, it'll
>be over before you know it" a couple of lines later? Is the dog's comment
>just a result of Roger's ether consumption?

Indeed, the dog seems to do a bit of the narration from time to time in the
episode (if sometimes indirectly).  We are told that "He has memory, or
reflex, of [the explosion]" and that "a fall of masonry [...] caught him on
the left hindquarter", at which point, the dogs THOUGHTS seem to enter into
the narrative: "(still raw, still needs licking)".  The alternate of this
reading is that Pointsman is narrating about the dog, which would explain
the occurance of "or reflex" as a kind of narrative self-correction (re
dogs, I imagine "reflex" is a much better term than "Memory" for a
Pavlovian).  But, if we accept this latter understanding of the opening
narrator, the dog's memory becomes unreliable, Pointsman probably wasn't
there at the blast and certainly couldn't give an actual account of the
dog's memory, he could only suppose.

We see it again: "As Roger, who carries the light, moves rearward, the dog,
some circuit of him, recalls the other light that came from behind in
recent days---the light that followed the great blast so seethed through
afterward by pain and cold.  Light from the rear signals death / men with
nets about to leap can be avoided--" (45).  The description of the dog's
memory is in terms of conditioning: the light from behind is causally
connected to pain (and death) for the dog.  The dog's action (leaping) is
fostered out of a calculation for the least risk/pain.  Again, it wouldn't
be surprising to find Pointsman narrating the dog's thought-process.
Perhaps he is calculating the dog's reactions (in the narrative) and thus,
seeing that the dog will leap, calls for the sponge.  It seems almost that
it could go either way at this point.  Same with that tricky "Lessie"
passage.

Keith W