animal spirits

When Marines enter an abandoned house in Fallujah, Iraq, and hear a suspicious noise, they clench their weapons, edge round a corner and prepare to open fire.

What they find during the US-led attack on the 'most dangerous city on earth', however, is not an insurgent bent on revenge but a tiny puppy left behind when most of the city's population fled before the bombing.

Mrs Treasure reads pet books. This is a blurb for something called From Baghdad with Love, which appears in the back of her current pet book, which is about a cat which...well, nothing, it's just about a cat this bloke found. At Christmas. Ba-da-bing, there's yer book.

It's a huge sub-genre, way bigger than TV tie in-driven romany, midwife and servant memoirs, mere ephemera by comparison. It's expanding into current and historical events, which evidently have more cachet when they involve puppies. I think radicals should get into this: manufacturing consent with puppies. Seriously, it'd sell loads. I wouldn't be surprised to see Zizek getting into the field, sharp fellow that he is.

Comments

[dick gregory]

Here's some stories:
5 Photos of Syrian Rebels Loving on Kittens

I assume this is a stock photo of a unicorn.
Unicorn lair 'discovered' in North Korea

[gg]

>I think radicals should get into this: manufacturing consent with puppies.

Animals can't consent. Implied activity may be illegal in certain states.

[Barry Freed]

Better yet, sounds perfect for Zizek Ebooks*.

h/t belle le triste.

*or maybe it should it dubdobdee ebooks or something like that. I forget. (Lord Sukrat, your cognomen mash has finally eated my brainz.)

[Neil]

Here's the TV adaptation:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRjtVdWvNzY&feature=youtube_gdata_player

[des von bladet]

"During the siege of Stalingrad, back in the days before he died face-down in the snow, Ivan found an abandoned puppy in the street. It wasn't bad, stewed."

I can has advance now?

[johnf]

Being a keen fan of literary sub genres, so far on Amazon I've managed to come up with Magic Kitten: A Christmas Surprise; Christmas Kitten (Bear Hugs); The Christmas Kittens; A Kitten Called Christmas; Christmas (Trouble with Daisy); The Christmas Day Kitten; Kitten's Christmas (Touch and Feel); The Christmas Kitten (The Kitten Who Saved a Man); Christmas Kitten (Giant Embossed) (Yes, I don't know what that means either); and Oscar the Christmas Kitten: A Story of Hope.

The list continues at length but I'm not going to. Which one was Mrs Treasure reading?

[Barry Freed]

Nice one, des.

"Lying face down in the snow, Ivan's life poured out onto the grey soot-streaked snow in that alley outside the Barrikady Gun Factory. Pushkin, his storm group's puppy mascot and cute as the button on a collective farm girl's blouse, bounded up and gently lapped at the red steaming pool. "Look," cried Grigori pointing, "look what Boris has!" Pushkin glanced up, brown eyes big as saucers, and saw Boris emerging from one of the buildings. The big Russian was still breathing heavily. In one hand he had his spade, the blade rusted, glinting at the edge where it had been carefully sharpened and freshly spattered red with the blood of fascist murderers. In the other hand Boris held a dog by the scruff of the neck, a Rottweiler and a mere pup. "Oh, how happy," thought Pushkin, "a new playmate at long last." Boris flung his arms wide, the puppy squirming to get free from his grasp, from the other arm the blood flew from the edge of the spade and made a long red streak in the snow. "Tonight," Boris boomed in his great baritone, "we feast on the very flesh of the fascist invader!" A cheer broke out from the men. And to this day, even Pushkin will tell you, no hard fought victory had ever tasted so sweet.

[Barry Freed]

The above needed a bit more editing. Like cut out the "in the snow" in the first line among other things. Oh, well.

I'm reminded of a photograph in Michael K Jones' book on Stalingrad (which I don't have to hand and can't find online) showing a bunch of Russian soldiers, one of them holding a puppy and the rest pointing at it all of them with smiles on their faces. It was their unit's mascot and this was during the period of some of the worst fighting and they were overjoyed that it had survived yet one more day. This was thought too frivolous for the censors who removed the dog from the photograph and put a submachine gun in its place.

[SF reader]

Actually that book re: the dude walking across Afghanistan is in this genre. This was a surprisingly tedious book.

[ajay]

Actually that book re: the dude walking across Afghanistan is in this genre.

The Places In Between, you mean?

Add me to the subscription list for Pushkin the Stalingrad Puppy. I think I see a series here. Pushkin Goes to Kursk, Pushkin and Operation Bagration, Pushkin and the Partisans, Pushkin Meets Marshal Zhukov, Pushkin at the Spree Crossing...

[jamie]

but then the time came when The Puppies Had to Stop

[Barry Freed]

That silly dog was always getting into trouble. You should read "Pushkin goes to Berlin," when his unit was in the garden of the Reich Chancellery and Pushkin was rooting around in piles of rubble and ashes and finds a half-charred thigh bone and before you know it he runs away down into the bunker with it and they all had to chase after him down there. That dog really chewed up that bone - they couldn't get it away from him. What times they all had!

[Simstim]

It all went swimingly, until Pushkin was conscripted to the Anti-Tank Unit...

[ajay]

Wo ist Hundchengruppe Steiner?

[Richard J]

Pushkin and the Lienz Cossacks is unfortunately unavailable owing to a libel suit.

[dick gregory]

Suit up

[redpesto]

I can see the Downfall parody already, the nervous officials explaining to Hitler that Tiddles (or whatever the German equivalent is), whom Eva found wandering around the Berghof last Christmas, didn't make it back through the bunker's cat flap...

[Barry Freed]

Wo ist Tiddles?

[belle le triste]

Katzenkrimis (German cat names at close of article...)

related: @Horse_ebooks

(I am not in fact zizek)

[redpesto]

Just as with dogs, there are some typical, clichéd names for cats. The German equivalent of "kitty" is Mieze or Miezekatze (pussycat). Muschi is a very common cat name, but since it carries all the same meanings as "pussy" in English, you need to be careful about throwing it into a German conversation! (But there's nothing wrong with the word as a name for your cat.)

The late Sven Hassel clearly missed the chance of a kids' story called Mieze Cassino

[ajay]

Sounds more like an Ian Fleming title, to be honest.

[belle le triste]

Kitty Kitty Bang Bang

[redpesto]

Of course, when the Allies found a Christmas Kitten in the ruins of Hiroshima, they had no idea what would happen next (think Godzilla, only cuter).

PS: Re. "Kitty Kitty Bang Bang" - ah, the perfect excuse to post a link to this workplace timewaster