At Slate, Rosecrans Baldwin notices that novelists are quite attuned to the sound of a dog barking in the distance:
Novelists can’t resist including a dog barking in the distance. I’ve seen it happen across the spectrum—Jackie Collins, William Faulkner, and Chuck Palahniuk: “There was no more rain, just an eerie stillness, a deathly silence. Somewhere a dog barked mournfully.” (American Star) “She did not answer for a time. The fireflies drifted; somewhere a dog barked, mellow sad, faraway.” (Light in August) “This is such a fine neighborhood. I jump the fence to the next backyard and land on my head in somebody’s rose bush. Somewhere a dog’s barking.” (Choke)
Having heard the dog’s call, it seemed like I couldn’t find a book without one. Not The Death of Ivan Ilyich. Not Shadow Country. Not Ulysses. Not Robert Penn Warren’s All The King’s Men, or Monica Ali’s Alentejo Blue, or Steven King’s It or Christine. Not Jodi Picoult’s House Rules. If novelists share anything, it’s a distant-dog impulse. Picture an author at work: She’s exhausted, gazing at her laptop and dreaming about lunch. “[Author typing.] Boyd slammed the car door shut. He stared at his new condominium, with the for-sale sign in the yard. He picked up a pistol and pointed it at his head. [Author thinking, Now what? Gotta buy time.] Somewhere a dog barked. [Author thinking, Hmm, that'll do.] Then Boyd remembered he did qualify for the tax rebate for first-time home buyers, and put down the gun.” If a novel is an archeological record of 4.54 billion decisions, then maybe distant barking dogs are its fossils, evidence of the novelist working out an idea.
What’s even more interesting than this phenomena is that Baldwin was able to recognize it in so many different types of novels. Anyone else have a favorite example of this novelists’ crutch?
June 17th, 2010 | 1:57 pm
She is a bit unfair calling it a narrative rest stop. It seems to me that it usually serves the purpose of illustrating the silence of the immediate scene.
Also, you don’t see dogs in the story because authors are cat people, but “caterwauling in distance” would be dissonant in most cases. SO they need dogs, but not up close.
June 17th, 2010 | 3:25 pm
While we’re at it, why can’t these folks identify where the bark is coming from? It’s not like these people are in a canyon or something and echoes make the location of the source of a sound hard to determine.
And what’s with the consistent anonymity of the dog? Do these people not know any of their neighbors and/or are they unfamiliar with their pets? The bark of any large neighborhood dog is generally easy to identify, is it not?
How about “From a few houses up the street, he heard his neighbor Ted’s German Shepherd barking…”? Better, no?
Glad I got that off my chest….
June 17th, 2010 | 4:34 pm
Worse than trite, it is lazy, just plain wrong. A bark is a short, sharp distinct sound.The OED terms it “explosive”. There is nothing mournful, mellow, or sad about it.
Howl, bay, whimper, or ululation maybe; bark, never.
June 18th, 2010 | 3:52 pm
How can it be silent if a dog is barking? Maybe this is a philosophical question: If there is nobody to hear it, it’s not making any noise.
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