Pransky turns out to be a natural. “Watching Pransky
jump in bed with a nursing home resident or put her head in someone’s lap, I
could see that the love she was sharing was simple and profound,” Halpern
writes.
To understand the human-dog bond and Pransky’s particular talents, she draws upon Schopenhauer on lovingkindness, Descartes on the separation between mind and body, Aristotle on self-restraint and Darwin on animal emotions. And as we get to know Halpern better, it comes as no surprise that she volunteers. She’s a really good person, and Pransky is a really good dog, and despite that, I loved the book.
When writing about pets and infirm and elderly people, the temptation to get sappy and sentimental may be great, but Halpern never succumbs. I found myself choking back tears at her spare and dignified descriptions of life in a nursing home: “Iris was in the far corner, her back to the window, her body framed by the sunlight, her eyes open, staring idly in the middle distance. . . . Dottie faced the television, which was turned off, its black screen broadcasting her own dull stare back to her.”
Nor does the book become depressing, though the deaths do come. There are small and great triumphs — a partially paralyzed woman wills herself to move in order to get closer to Pransky. When a nearly mute woman touches Pransky’s head and says, “Puppy,” Halpern writes, it was like “feeling the synapses fire in my own brain.” And there are many laughs as well, as when Halpern and the divine Pransky encounter vicious dog haters. (“Get your goddamn dog out of here!”)
- Review of Sue Halpern's new book A Dog Walks Into a Nursing Home: Lessons in the Good Life from an Unlikely Teacher
To understand the human-dog bond and Pransky’s particular talents, she draws upon Schopenhauer on lovingkindness, Descartes on the separation between mind and body, Aristotle on self-restraint and Darwin on animal emotions. And as we get to know Halpern better, it comes as no surprise that she volunteers. She’s a really good person, and Pransky is a really good dog, and despite that, I loved the book.
When writing about pets and infirm and elderly people, the temptation to get sappy and sentimental may be great, but Halpern never succumbs. I found myself choking back tears at her spare and dignified descriptions of life in a nursing home: “Iris was in the far corner, her back to the window, her body framed by the sunlight, her eyes open, staring idly in the middle distance. . . . Dottie faced the television, which was turned off, its black screen broadcasting her own dull stare back to her.”
Nor does the book become depressing, though the deaths do come. There are small and great triumphs — a partially paralyzed woman wills herself to move in order to get closer to Pransky. When a nearly mute woman touches Pransky’s head and says, “Puppy,” Halpern writes, it was like “feeling the synapses fire in my own brain.” And there are many laughs as well, as when Halpern and the divine Pransky encounter vicious dog haters. (“Get your goddamn dog out of here!”)
- Review of Sue Halpern's new book A Dog Walks Into a Nursing Home: Lessons in the Good Life from an Unlikely Teacher
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