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My Dog Tulip (New York Review Books Classics) |  | Author: J.R. Ackerley
Creator: Elizabeth Marshall Thomas
Publisher: NYRB Classics
Category: Book
List Price: $13.95
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Seller: betterworldbooks_
Rating:  22 reviews
Sales Rank: 17954
Media: Paperback
Pages: 208
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5 x 0.6
ISBN: 0940322110
Dewey Decimal Number: 828.91209
EAN: 9780940322110
ASIN: 0940322110
Publication Date: September 30, 1999
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com Review
My Dog Tulip is the ultimate bitch session--in the canine sense of the phrase, of course. In 1947, J.R. Ackerley rescued an 18-month-old German shepherd, and from the start her every look and move were to undo him. "Tulip never let me down. She is nothing if not consistent. She knows where to draw the line, and it is always in the same place, a circle around us both. Indeed, she is a good girl, but--and this is the point--she would not care for it to be generally known." As he anatomizes her from head to toe with the awe-struck precision of a medieval courtier, Ackerley instantly turns us into Tulipomanes. Alas, many of the mere mortals she encounters feel differently, for there are indeed two Tulips. One is highly strung but heroic, flirtatious but true. The other is a four-legged rejoinder to authority: a biter, a barker, and a dab hand at defecating her way around London. Not that any of these are her fault. "You're the trouble," Tulip's one good vet tells Ackerley as she banishes him from the surgery. "She's in love with you, that's obvious. And so life's full of worries for her." In many ways this 1956 memoir is an intimate saga of human idealism and doggish realism. Or is it the other way around? In any case, this odd couple undertakes a series of adventures, which bring them into contact with a gallery of strange, mostly martial players. There's the taunting Colonel Finch, owner of Gunner, an Alsatian suitor that Tulip finds wanting--and Captain Pugh, who had served with Ackerley in World War I and who even then was a bizarre mixture of efficiency and indolence. Decades later, in "those rare moments when he was not horizontal he would stalk about the farm buildings with great vigor, making pertinent remarks in his military voice and spreading consternation among the cows." Ackerley stints no detail when it comes to the varieties of Tulip's urinary and anal experience. But he is concerned above all with the canine heart, and the perils of conception and whelping are at his book's center. Tulip's vita amorosa truly is a via dolorosa as she scorns and scants her aristocratic paramours. Finally, "this exquisite creature in the midst of her desire" hears of the call of-- But we shall reveal no more! My Dog Tulip should instantly make its way onto the shelves of lovers of fine dogs (of whichever bloodlines) and finer literature--and doesn't that cover most of humanity? --Kerry Fried
Product Description
J.R. Ackerley's German shepherd Tulip was s kittish, possessive, and wild, but he loved her deeply. This clear-eyed and wonderin g, humorous and moving book, described by Christopher Isherwood as one of the greatest masterpieces of animal literature, is her biography, a work of faultless an d respectful observation that transcends the seeming modesty of its subject. In tell ing the story of his beloved Tulip, Ackerley has written a book that is a profound a nd subtle meditation on the strangeness abiding at the heart of all re lationships. This frank and often very funny account of the ways of dog and man was recently sing led out by The New Yorker as one of the bona-fide dog-lit classics.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 22
 Unpleasant albeit very well-written August 25, 2010
rbnn (Berkeley, CA United States)
The book focuses on various earthy canine activities in somewhat off-putting detail but without really providing good insight into the character of the dog herself.
Moreover, the author is irritating as he constantly deprecates other people for their class or appearance.
On the other hand, the prose is superb; the sentences classically polished and balanced to a degree rarely seen today. But I felt this just made the contrast with the book's substance dispiriting.
The book is primarily useful as a sort of a window into an earlier, more easygoing world - one before leash laws - and for that it may be of interest to some.
 Dogs Choose Their Owners August 24, 2010
C. Robinson (New York, NY)
Actually, I have a previous edition of this book, which I read after seeing the movie "We Think the World of You," starring Alan Bates and Gary Oldman. Reading both books (this one nonfiction, the other true but "novelized" to avoid trouble with Queenie's original owner) will give you a full sense of how Ackerley came to own Tulip (a.k.a. Queenie)--or rather, how she came to own him--and I highly recommend the beautiful film (with an untrained German shepherd who was nonetheless perfect in her role).
 awful December 6, 2009
Good Dogg (ft worth, texas United States)
1 out of 8 found this review helpful
Worst book I ever read. The fop is fixated on animal privates and mating lubricants. Freud, call home.
 My Dog Tulip is a Classic July 5, 2007
Linda F. Kurtz (Ann Arbor, Mi United States)
3 out of 6 found this review helpful
This book was exactly as other reviewers described it; some hated it and others loved it. I was hesitant at first but decided I had to experience it. It is charming and a big reminder of how people viewed dogs in the not so distant past. Tulip's loving owner did not think of using doggie poop bags and struggled for years with where and when she eliminated. He wouldn't hear of spaying her and struggled for years with her coming in season, even having a litter of puppies he didn't want and couldn't find good homes for. All this was delightfully described in a mercifully brief book. I'm glad I read it, although I've read many other books on dogs that were more amusing and more enlightening. It is a wonderful reminder of what things were like in the 1940s and should be on the shelf of every dog lover who also loves books.
Reviewers Trash Classic!!! February 18, 2004
7 out of 16 found this review helpful
Who is Kerry Fried, and why is s/he reviewing this classic? I read this book several years ago. As a story of a female shepherd and her owner, it is brutally honest, to the detail. Ackerley as a dog person, seems so indulgent and feeble. While reading, one must be mindful that the events took place in the 40's and in Briton. Perhaps he never had a dog before, and knew no better. Pups, off leash adventures, pooping issues. As subject matter, who but another shepherd lover would care. Who but a post modern dog lover would be appalled at the old fashioned beliefs and attitudes. But, and this is critical, but, the language is beautiful, the sentiment expressed is pure. And the final chapter, and final paragraph, are exquisite. I feel the passing of her life from his own, his long life stretching out so far beyond her sweet existence within it. I love my dog Olk as dearly, and dread his eventual loss.Nancy
Showing reviews 1-5 of 22
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