A legszebb kutyatörténetek

by Gerald Durrell

A kutyák, akikkel megosztható a létezés, különös és csodálatos lények, s nem lehet teljes az élet kutya nélkül, ám ez csak akkor igaz, ha nem kezdjük isteníteni őket. Megvan a magukhoz való eszük és bölcsességük. Találkoztam jó kutyákkal, és rossz kutyákkal, butákkal és intelligensekkel, de soha nem voltam kutya nélkül. Ahogyan a görögök mondják, egy ház nem otthon addig, míg fecske nem fészkel az eresz alá, ugyanúgy azt tartom, hogy egy ház attól lesz otthon, ha van benne kutya. Úgy vélem, ez a könyv ékesen bizonyítja, milyen hihetetlenül sokoldalú és elbűvölő állatok a kutyák. Olvassák és élvezzék e néhány történetet, a legkiválóbbakat azok közül, amelyeket kutyákról valaha is írták. /Gerald Durrell/

Genres: Dogs, Animals, Short Stories, Fiction, Anthologies

268 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1990

About the author

Gerald "Gerry" Malcolm Durrell was born in India in 1925. His elder siblings are Lawrence Durrell, Leslie Durrell, and Margaret Durrell. His family settled on Corfu when Gerald was a boy and he spent his time studying its wildlife. He relates these experiences in the trilogy beginning with My Family And Other Animals, and continuing with Birds, Beasts, And Relatives and The Garden Of The Gods. In his books he writes with wry humour and great perception about both the humans and the animals he meets.

On leaving Corfu he returned to England to work on the staff of Whipsnade Park as a student keeper. His adventures there are told with characteristic energy in Beasts In My Belfry. A few years later, Gerald began organising his own animal-collecting expeditions. The first, to the Cameroons, was followed by expeditions to Paraguay, Argentina and Sierra Leone. He recounts these experiences in a number of books, including The Drunken Forest. Gerald also visited many countries while shooting various television series, including An Amateur Naturalist. In 1958 Gerald Durrell realised a lifelong dream when he set up the Jersey Zoological Park, followed a few years later by the Jersey Wildlife Preservation Trust.

Gerald was married twice; Jacquie Durrell (1951-1979), Lee Durrell (1979-1995).

Gerald Durrell's style is exuberant, passionate and acutely observed. He died in 1995.

Reviews

[Barbara Brien · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was a curious mix of dog stories that seemed to be mostly fiction with a smattering of memoirs. Some were excellent - "Comet" by Samuel A. Derieux, who I had never heard of, "For the Love of a Man" by Jack London who of course I had heard of; some were short - "Gone Wrong" by PG Wodehouse; some were longer - "'Teem': a Treasure Hunter" by Rudyard Kipling. A couple of them I disliked, like "Having No Hearts" by Sir Hugh Walpole, and "The Bitch" by Colette.

[Olivia Mitas · Rating 2 out of 5]

Most of this anthology was just not good.

[Rena Sherwood · Rating 2 out of 5]

You're old enough to know that any title with the words "best stories" will contain anything but. Very bizarre mix of fiction, memoir and drawings. Some of the selections are very sad, such as when an idiot decides to breed purebred dogs. The best selections (such as James Herriot's and Jack London's) have been published many times before. Some nice drawings, but most had nothing to do with the prose they were illustrating. The drawings were done by a variety of artists.

In the end, this winds up being an utterly forgettable book.

Selections:

* "Introduction" by Gerrald Durrell. Instantly forgettable few pages.
* "Can I Be Your Dog?" By Eric Parker. Pointless and painful ramblings about bad kennels and dogs of family members.
* "Memoirs of a Yellow Dog" by O. Henry. Ummm .... yeah. Not one of O. Henry's best. Told from the dog's point of view. "Yellow dog" is an insult in America, and unjustly so.
* "Tricki Woo" by James Herriot. Excerpt from James Herriot's Dog Stories. Skip this anthology to go read James Herriot's book.
* "Having No Hearts" by Sir John Walpole. This is a long but pretty decent story with a happy twist to it. It's one of the best selections in this book.
* "Comet" by Samuel A. Derieux. A pointer bred for the hunt is terrified of guns.
* "For the Love of a Man" by Jack London. Another of the very few highlights in this book.
* "The Coming of Riquet" by Anatole France. Dull story about a stray dog finding a home.
* "Jimmy, the Dog in My Life" by Sir Arthur Bryant. Memoir of the author's English rough-haired terrier.
* "Teem: A Treasure-Hunter" by Rudyard Kipling. Told from a dog's point of view. Utterly forgettable.
* "Gone Wrong" by P. G. Wodehouse. Mostly incoherent ramblings about dogs in Beverly Hills.
* "The Great Lad" by Joyce Stranger. Shepherd and sheepdog in trouble. The dog is named Moss, but the shepherd sometimes calls him a lad.
* "Bunch" by James Douglas. Supposedly, this is a biography of Douglas' dog Bunch, but he mostly talks about anything other than the dog. There are a lot of jokes about killing dogs.
* "Dogs in a Big Way" by Anna and Kenneth Roberts. This is that piece about idiots deciding to breed dogs.
* "Montmorency" by Jerome K. Jerome. Mercifully short piece about the author' fox terrier, who killed chickens and cats.
* "Some Sunnybank Dogs" by Albert Payson Terhune, the author of Lad: A Dog gives us this assortment of his favorite dogs, including the real Lad.
* "Let Us Have a Mongrel Dog Show" by Cecil Alden. Non-fiction supposedly humorous piece about why England should start doing shows for mixed breeds or mongrels, and how.
* "Dandy, the Story of a Dog" by W. H. Hudson. Short piece about the life and death of a Dandy Dinmont.
* "Verdun Belle" by Alexander Wolcott. World War II story about American soldiers and a French dog. No real ending here.
* "The Oracle of the Dog" by G. K. Chesterton. A Father Brown story. Ugh.
* "The Bitch" by Colette. Another soldier and dog story.
* "Intelligent and Loyal" by Jilly Cooper. Excerpt from the excellent non-fiction book of the same name about mongrels.
* "The End" by Virginia Woolf. Excerpt from Flush. Yet another reason to be afraid of Virginia Woolf.

[fióka · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hála Durrellnek, ezek nem a megható kutyatörténetek műfajából valók. Persze ezeken is meg lehet hatódni, ha az ember akar, de semmi köze azokhoz a direkt könnycsatornabirizgálóan összeválogatott megható történetecskéhez a drága kicsi kutyuskákról. Van itt sok kedves név és máshonnan már ismert történet (nem tudom, miért írom ezt, mikor nem először olvasom, tehát van már honnan ismerjem őket :D), pl. a Herrioté, a Kiplingé (ő írta az egyik legjobbat), Jack London, Wodehouse, Jerome K. Jerome sem marad ki a sorból. Szívesen felsorolnám Virginia Woolfot is, de ebből a könyvből valaki kicenzúrázta. Noha a válogatás jobbára színvonalas, most sem tudom többre értékelni, mint először, ugyanis pl. az a krimiszerűség, amiben érintőlegesen, mert a történet vele volt teljes, szerepel egy kutya is (amúgy elképesztően unalmas) és az amerikai, lenézéssel szerető sznob kutyatartó sztorija sem csalt ki belőlem elragadtatott ugatásokat. Még kiáltásokat sem. A magyar válogatás pedig borzasztó. Tömörkény gyakorlatilag úgy szereti a kutyákat és zeng róluk dicshimnuszt, hogy lenézi őket. Kosztolányi novellája nagyon aranyos, még kutya is van benne, ám sajnálatos módon Kosztolányiról szól (azaz a lírai énről, mindegy). Szerb Antal elbűvölő, mint mindig, viszont az ő novellája sem a kutyákról szól, hanem nőkről és férfiakról. Ehhez a témához nyilvánvalóan kell egy kutya, ergo beleírt egy kutyát. Szász Imre Basáját valamikor nagyon szerettem, de most kezdek gondolkozni egy revideáláson – amúgy az övé véletlenül elejétől végéig kutyás történet.
Ami még élvezetes volt, az újdonsült szűkebb pátriám kétrendbeli említése két novellában, izgalmas volt olyasmiről olvasni, ahol már jártam (szép kicsi tengerparti város az egyik, a másik óceánparti, micsoda változatosság, nem?) és a vidékről, ahol élek és amit otthonunkká avattunk.
Ha valamely tévelygő lélek olyas válogatásban reménykedik, ami pontosan ugyanolyan lesz, mintha Durrell írta volna, az máris lemondhat róla. Semmi köze az ő stílusához, ő pusztán a szerkesztő.

[Cynthia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am not usually a fan of short story anthologies because they (for some unknown reason) tend to be depressing. I like short stories by favorite authors (hi there Stephen King & Maeve Binchy) but too often the multi author anthologies are bleak and sad. But I enjoyed this book thoroughly. It also gave me the opportunity to see how dog ownership has changed. The characters in these stories mourned dogs dead of distemper, which back then was very common and often fatal, received complaints from neighbors about their free roaming dogs but were never forced to confine them, just to pay for the chickens, flowers etc. destroyed. Dogs got on buses by themselves and nobody minded. And dogs work so hard. They herd sheep, they pull heavy sledges, all for the love of their owners. But here is a SPOILER. I don't know why Mr. Durrell did it this way (because he knows too that short story anthologies have to be dank and dark and bleak and sad) because the last dog in the last story DIES on the last page. Well, thanks a lot. If I were a dog I would bite him.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of short stories and book extracts about dogs, collated by British editor Lesley O’Mara. To lend it a halo of fame, the introduction is by British naturalist Gerald Durrell. But maybe it didn’t need such a leg up (no pun intended) as it includes such luminaries as short story master O. Henry, humorist P.G. Wodehouse and raunchy novelist Jilly Cooper. While many of the stories read like charmingly adapted anecdotes of the authors’ own experiences with their pets, James Herriot describes one of his veterinary patients, Cecil Aldin takes a satirical poke at dog shows, and Virigina Woolf addresses Victorian spiritualism. Rudyard Kipling provides a nearly incomprehensible story, apparently from the dog’s point of view.

The old-fashioned writing style of many of these writers highlights how public tastes have changed since the book was first published in 1990 and a few weird stories that are hard to follow spoil the fun, quirky mood of the book. But otherwise I quite enjoyed this odd assortment of canine tales (this time, the pun is intended).

[Liliana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Creo que en la traducción española aparece una selección diferente puesto que no leí los cuentos de algunos de los autores mencionados en otras reseñas del libro. Es difícil calificar globalmente un libro de varios autores, la calidad de los relatos difiere bastante. Hay unos magistrales como el de Chesterton y hay otros flojos. Considero que es una selección agradable y sin duda, a quién le guste los perros o los cuentos de animales, lo disfrutará.

[Kayde · Rating 3 out of 5]

KIND OF BORING!!

[Kareen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pensé que serían relatos de historias muy bonitas, tiernas aunque algunas si los son pero algunas estuvieron demás, o por relleno, pero al menos el autor hizo el intento.

[Jim Skidmore · Rating 3 out of 5]

The variety selected presents a wonderful cross-section of authors and their experiences with the world of dogs. A worthy read for anyone who loves and lives with dogs.

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

In these 22 stories, Lesley O'Mara chooses a variety of stories about dogs. Many weren't too interesting to me, but I loved the stories by Parker, O. Henry, London, Stranger, Aldin, and Chesterton. I liked the stories by Herriot, Douglas, Hudson, Collette, and Woolf. Appropriate for all ages!

[Daelith · Rating 2 out of 5]

Enjoyed James Herriot's and Albert Payson Terhune's stories the best. The last few stories in the book I found to be rather dull.

[Catherine Woodman · Rating 3 out of 5]

nice collection of classic stories about or including dogs

[José · Rating 2 out of 5]

2,5/5

[Sharon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyable dog stories from a multiple of authors, including one of my favorites, James Herriot.

[Twyla · Rating 2 out of 5]

My two favorite stories in here were "Having no Hearts" and "Let us have a Mongrel Dog Show". A lot of the other stories I forgot about, and some were very boring and hard to pay attention to.

[Vicki · Rating 2 out of 5]

Another COVID-19, happened to be on my bookshelves unread, the libraries are closed book.