A canny canine tale

Meditations on death, ageing, loneliness polar exploration and perverted penguins, as told by a good dog.

Faithful hound Tassen tells the story of his adored owner’s bereavement, growing frailty, loneliness and resilience. It’s a concept so cute, you may wish to projectile vomit. Don’t despair. Norwegian writer HansOlav Thyvold’s novel is several motifs better than that. When Major Thorkildsen dies. Mrs T starts hitting the “dragon water”, while Tassen hits the choc treats. Then his mistress begins carrying a revolver in her purse …

So, it’s more than saccharine from the start and its mood sharpens further when the nasty children – aka Puppy and Bitch – start pressuring their mum to move out of her house so they can move in.

The underdogs (sorry) fight back. It leads to good, gutsy displays of the defiance, stoicism and cunning stratagems of old age, counterpointed by an acknowledgement of growing vulnerability. It’s all done by plot rather than prosing, which is always wise.

The book is leavened by pawky humour: the garbage man confronts Mrs T with her booze bottles and bags of dog droppings, whereupon she confronts him with a complimentary coffee and cinnamon roll; there’s the TV “reality” show Dr Pill with its anguished callers: “I think I’ve had sex, and I’d really like to be sure of it.”

Tassen resigns himself to being dog-sat by diesel-scented Jack the Neighbour and ends up high on pot at a party. He’s sure a local librarian is on heat.

More weightily, mistress and mutt become engrossed, via the library, in Roald Amundsen’s South Pole trek – with dogs, of course. You may find the space given to ruthless Roald (about whom Thyvold has written a book) getting on for excessive, but it does include some nuggets: the explorer slaughtering nearly 200 dogs; the penguin predilection for necrophilia.

There’s inevitable anthropomorphising, but Tassen is mostly and convincingly canine. He can scent the foul smell of a dying body, resents disdainful afghan hounds and swaggering rottweilers and experiments exhaustively to confirm that “Always the same, always the same, your bum’s behind you, wherever you aim”. In moments of depression, he considers shooting himself, but knows it’s tricky without an opposable thumb.

A new order appears at the end: one that means more loss, a half-comprehension and a final page that could bring joy or betrayal. But you sense and hope Tassen will survive. Good dog.

He experiments to confirm that “Always the same, always the same, your bum’s behind you, wherever you aim”.

GOOD DOGS DON’T MAKE IT TO THE SOUTH POLE, by Hans-Olav Thyvold (Allen & Unwin, $32.99)