Gain Your Copy Niki: The Story Of A Dog Envisioned By Edward Hyams Available As Paper Copy

an incredible little book, somewhere near the very very top of everything i've read this year This book is a gem, Without a touch of sentimentality or anthropomorphism, Déry touchingly imagines the interior life of a dog, a creature of little understanding but great feeling, Anyone experienced in observing canine behavior will be completely convinced of the deadon accuracy of the authors portrayal,

The book is set in Hungary during the late forties and early fifties, a period of Stalinist oppression, The human characters understand as little of the arbitrary arrests and disappearances that have cast a pall of terror over their lives as our animal protagonist, Niki, does of the comings and goings of her mistress and the sudden absence of her beloved master, who for reasons unknown simply vanishes from her life.
For both man and beast, such utter vulnerability to the incomprehensible can be made bearable only by “a strong reciprocal affection, ” That mutual affection allows Niki and her mistress, whose husband has disappeared, to go on, at least for a time,

As noted, human emotions and thoughts are not attributed to Niki, She is not a heroine, just a dog, But this reader came away with a renewed sense of the infinite value of these living and sentient creatures, and more convinced than ever that the word “dog” should never be accompanied by the modifier “just.
” I would not have learned about this wonderful book except that the publisher NYRB contacted me about using the picture on the cover from my Flickr account, Antique Dog Photos.
The picture was collected by my brother, The book concerns essence of a dog especially a terrier living in a very dark time in post war Hungary, Available on Amazon and from the publisher, In this book a terrier, perhaps a jack russel, adopts a Hungarian couple living outside Budapest after WW, A NY Times classic. I am really stumped on how to review this book, The language is very wordy, The philosophical undercurrents are never blatant and this is reinforced by the style of writing, Descriptions of how dogs see the world around them are usually spoton, The energy of a young dog could with the words of this book be perceived better than shown in a film, And yet the book goes beyond this, It is making a comparison of how dogs and people deal with the absurdities of life, How we deal with life that makes no sense to us, How the only way to manage in this absurd world is to have a feeling of "reciprocal affection" with another, be it a dog or a human, So the book is NOT just about a dog, but about how it was to live in Hungary before the Hungarian Revolution of, The ending really bothers me, and it is important b/c it is concerned with why the book was written, I can find no explanation for the ending that I could like, It is not only ambiguous, but either trite or inconsistent with what has ohappened, For the ending and the lengthy, convoluted language employed, I give it onlystars,

Now I will read another book about Hungary: sitelinkThe Storyteller: Memory, Secrets, Magic and Lies, I need to know more Hungarian history, This is about a Hungarian family, starting at the end of thes and going through the Hungarian Revolution, It is a biography of the author's family, Sad but sweet story of a fox terrier and the family she adopted in Hungary a few years after World War II, Novela corta que narra las peripecias de una perra y en la que el autor intenta plasmar el mundo que el animal ve a través de sus ojos.


Niki: la historia de una perra no deja claro si lo que se lee es una fabulación sobre el pensamiento canino o un intento real de intentar adivinar qué pueden pensar los perros de los humanos, si tienen sentimientos y cuáles pueden ser sus motivaciones vitales.
Ese tono de observación es lo que puede hacer dudar al lector a la hora de afrontar esta obra, que por otra parte está llena de ternura y bonitos pasajes que son una oda a la paz y la tranquilidad.
“The Dog adopted the Ancsas in the spring of”: so the story begins, The Ancsas are a middleaged couple living on the outskirts of Budapest in a ruinous Hungary that is just beginning to wake up from the nightmare of World War II.
The new Communist government promises to set things straight, and Mr, Ancsa, an engineer, is as eager to get to work building the future as he is to forget the past, The last thing he has time for is a little mongrel bitch, pregnant with her first litter, But Niki knows better, and before long she is part of the Ancsa household, The Ancsas even take her along with them when Mr, Ancsas new job requires a move to an apartment in the city,

Then Mr. Ancsa is swept up in a political crackdowndisappearing without a trace, For five years he does not return, five years of absence, silence, fear, and the constant struggle to survivefive years during which Mrs, Ancsa and Niki have only each other,

The story of Niki, an ordinary dog, and the Ancsas, a no less ordinary couple, is an extraordinarily touching, utterly unsentimental, parable about caring, kindness, and the endurance of love.
A sweet and poignant story, with a cheeky and somewhat oldfashioned even for thes omniscient narrator, which adds to its charm, The Ancsas are a middleaged couple in Communist Hungary that adopts a dog, or rather, she adopts them, Shortly after, Mr. Ancsa is imprisoned without a word of explanation, Déry explores political oppression and its effects through a nonanthropomorphic character study of a "little white terrier bitch" an Everydog named Niki, Really welldone, but have tissues on hand, Dogs are like angels, they have all merits of men and none of their defects, beautiful book, we all have nikis in our lifes, we are so lucky.
there is not that kind of loyalty, not even in our families, No wonder I love dogs so much, to me animals are so much better than us not doubt it, . . niki is in my heart I will remember her, running after the little stones and being happy, Like J. D. Salinger, dogs are sort of my litmus test, If you don't like 'em, I probably don't like you and vice versa,

If you know me at all, then you're aware that I'm generally known far and wide for my calm, measured, reasonable, and nonjudgmental approach to disagreements with others.
What You happen to think Ingmar Bergman films are pretentious and boring Tut, tut, tut, What an amusing thing to think, you adorable opinionhaver you! Of course, I won't fly into a violent rage I certainly won't call you a fucking fuckheaded motherfucking fucktarded fucko and then I likely won't attempt to smash an empty Jim Beam bottle over your head and threaten to slit your throat with one of the jagged shards.
True, you may actually deserve to die painfully for holding such opinions, but who am I to act as the instrument of justice and to bring about the bloody fate you may deserve I may privately realize how ridiculous your opinions are about so many various topics, but I'm not about to Stalinize this awareness by bringing about your sudden disappearance from your sad, misguided life, as well as from state and federal records, old yearbooks, porn website membership rolls, and even the Crate amp Barrel mailing list.
In other words, I'm a liberal thinker, and as such I'm content to allow you to endure in your continued error while only imagining your hoarse, verily breathless shrieks of terror rising out of a cauldron of fire and flesheating acids.
Did I mention that I am the one controlling the burner's flame level in that cauldron scenario Because I am, In my imagination only, ha ha ha, Because you're perfectly entitled to your opinion, And all that egalitarian bullshit,

Anyway. What was my point Oh, Yeah. Where dogs are concerned, my bilious hatred for human antagonists, neglectors, and abusers rises from the level of theoretical and democratic to ninja pretty quick, I will fuck you up in a serious way, resorting to that renowned warehouse of superhuman strength which allows hundredpound mothers to lift Ford Explorers off their trapped children.
And I don't just mean dogs either, I mean any animal, but since the protagonist of Niki by Tibor Déry is a lovable yet resourcefully Machiavellian mongrel bitch, I thought I'd take our canine friends as my jumpingoff point for plots and schemes of vigilante justice.
If you are such a scaly, clovenhooved demonfromhell that you can't love a pooch any pooch whose butt wiggles and waggles past you, then you deserve any manner of comeuppance that the Fates, at their whim, proscribe.
And we all know those Fates are some nasty motherfuckahs, so if you're an animal hater, you'd better just hide it as best you can like you're a Jew at Mel Gibson's Christmas bash or a black man at a NASCAR race.
The same goes for Salinger detractors, Ha ha

ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, I'm completely joking with you! Incidentally, why is it that most of the people who complain about Holden Caulfield being whiny and immature are inevitably the whiniest, most immature, depthless people in the world Split into small groups and discuss.
Is it a Chris Cooper/American Beauty thing where they hate most what they are Oh wait, I'm getting sidetracked here

Niki: The Story of a Dog is the story of a Hungarian dog, to be precise, She's a bit of a coquettish mutt who decides she'd rather like to live with this couple named the Ancsas who lost their only child in the war.
I know what you're thinking, This sounds ripe for a Sandra Bullock vehicle, where Ms, Bullock has to train with a vocal coach for six months to perfect her Hungarian accent, Tears will be shed, Oscars will be won, But this is really a great little book regardless of what Hollywood could conceivably do to it to make it the most horrible thing ever, Anyway, this iss Communist Hungary where the Ancsas live under the influence of residual Stalinist brutality and historical revisionism, so the couple is subject to the arbitrary 'justice' associated with Communist regimes.
In this way, of course, Niki's life mirrors theirs, Niki cannot fathom the meaning behind many of the Ancsas' actions, nor can she envision what a future might entail except perhaps as an indefinite continuation of 'presentness.
' The same applies to everyday Hungarians, the Ancsas learn, when Mr, Ancsa suddenly disappears one day, . . without word, without a trace, Eventually, in a culture in which selfpreservation dictates that people shun those who have been politically disgraced, a Good Samaritan friend of Mr, Ancsa finally does some extensive research and finds out Mr, Ancsa has been imprisoned for unspecified reasons,

Years pass. Mrs. Ancsa only has her beloved Niki for a friend and companion, and although they are not able to communicate their hopes and fears in a direct manner, there is a supposition by the unnamed narrator that they share a somewhat common plight.
So in other words, if you have a heart, prepare for it to break, friends, But not in a schmaltzy, mawkish way, As far as poignancy goes, this book is the real deal, . . and since it clocks in at a merepages, you really have no reasonable excuse not to read it, unless you happen to be one of those despicable, irredeemable subhuman types who don't like dogs.
In which case, watch your motherfucking back, .