GRGR(3) talking dog 44.20

[keith woodward]

Doug wrote:
>So, Pointsman would be the one who recites the dialog which TRP attributes
>to the dog (by putting it in quotes and writing, "replies the dog.")?

You mean the "You vere expeckting mayve Lessie" line, right?  I wouldn't
say that Pointsman is involved in the narrative at that point, but I would
suggest (as you did in your earlier post) that there is a bit of
uncertainty with regard to the source of the narration (Roger? or the
Dog?).  [more below...]

>It would seem a bit less tortured to read the episode as beginning in a
>rather conventional character point of view (with a perhaps less than
>conventional character, a dog), which shifts back to a straightforward
>third-person omniscient narrator POV (after the dog's POV section ends with
>the second paragraph, the sentence beginning "It brings a scent"), where
>the narration stays for the rest of the episode, describing the actions of
>Pointsman, Roger, Jessica, the dog, and sometimes their thoughts, and
>reporting their dialogue -- including the dog's line, a surreal touch, and
>one that would seem to challenge the borders between consensus reality as
>we know it and the alternatives that TRP creates in GR. We've already seen
>that Pirate can somehow take over other people's fantasies, and we've
>attended a seance. Now we've got a talking dog.

I agree that the character POV is the clearer read of the opening.  What
troubles me about that reading is only the apparently behaviorist tinges
that color the dog's consciousness.  I'm not saying that the dog couldn't
have a "memory, or reflex" of something (where the narrator is uncertain
which to call it), but I think the possibility also exists that "memory, or
reflex" can be read as a self-correction within the narrative.  In either
sense, "or reflex" almost looks like an afterthought, creating a
foreshadowing effect on Pointsman's approach (whew!  if that makes any
sense...)

Keith W