My review: Harry is a white dog with black spots, who hates taking baths. And then comes full circle, hiding the brush again. His attempt to solve his initial problem has led to a greater problem which he finally solves by accepting the thing he was trying to avoid in the first place. And then the last page delivers a delicious last little kick, as Harry dreams of “how much fun it had been getting dirty” and he sleeps so soundly that he doesn’t even feel the scrubbing brush he has hidden under his pillow. And so the thing he hates is the thing that saves him. And when all hope seems lost, he remembers the scrubbing brush and digs it up and runs into the house and jumps in the tub and begs for a bath.

So he buries the scrubbing brush and runs away and has a wonderful day getting dirty, but then when he goes back home (because of course he hasn’t really run away), his family doesn’t recognize him. There’s a clear initial problem: Harry likes everything, except getting a bath. I remember loving the story when I was little, and I love it just as much now, if not more. Join my 3-emails-a-year newsletter #prizes There can be no better education for a child. For it is not a Scotty per se, rather it is a cypher for man's eternal (non)interconnectedness with the natural world, realised with Zion's characteristic perspicuity, its disingenuous indirectness a paradoxical signifier of its vital directness and its relevance, in real terms, to the anguished unreality of the modern - and yet forebodingly ancient - the disjunction of Man and his nearest (this terminology rapaciously encompassing Woman and her nearest) post-Jungian-evolutionary relation.

In short, this modern classic of 20th century literature subsumes our bourgeois preconceptions in a tale of real drama and urgency, a creative maelstrom in which modern angst is conceptualised in canine form. Will your loved ones recognise your rights to make the choices you have? Will they even recognise you after the upheavals of your personal transition/journey.Ībove all this book lets you know that running away from home can be kinda fun. When can indignities (such as baths) be imposed upon the young or upon minorities (Scotties), and when is it time to stand up to authority and say 'No!' (or 'woof'). If I identify as a black dog with white spots (or by extension the ying to any yang be it gender, sexuality, or some more esoteric quality) can I not change? Can the leopard (or Scotty dog) change its spots?

Gene Zion cunningly disguised one of the great existential questions of our age in this Dirty Harry book.ĭo I have to remain how I was born.

Gene zion harry the dirty dog