Feed My Dear Dogs

This is Emma Richler's second novel. It took me so long to read it that you must have thought I'd become aphasic. As I read it I found myself getting distracted. The story is of the Weiss family, told by Jemima Weiss and played out against a Jewish/Christian background. Jem is nine years old when the story begins and fourteen at the end. She is one of five precocious and eccentric siblings. Dad is a plain spoken sports writer. Mum is a stylish saint. A lot of the dialogue comes from old movies and even older novels. The narrative is, I think, slowed down by almost obsessive description. It's a beautiful and clever novel but gets bogged down in its own descriptive oblique language. We get to know the individuals in this family. Their characters are finely and skillfully drawn. But there is too much happening peripherally, moon walks, telescope invention, arctic expeditions, Sherlock Holmes investigations, the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ and on and on. Everything gets tied up, albeit not neatly, in the end. It took me six weeks to finish because I felt I had to take it in tiny bites or risk overload. It was worth it in the end.