“War Dogs”
by Paul Yoon
from the October 28, 2024 issue of The New Yorker
Though Paul Yoon has been publishing since 2009, with two novels and three short story collections under his belt, I still haven’t read any of his work, including his story that appeared in The New Yorker last year, “Valley of the Moon.” I’d like to change that this week. The first paragraph of “War Dogs” doesn’t do a lot to help me know what’s coming, though that’s okay:
The facility lies two miles away from the main terminals but within the grounds of the airport, at the end of a service road that skirts a pond where geese flock during their migrations. It’s in the shape of an enormous U, and equipped with stalls, bathing areas, runs, a paddock out back, and rooms that are advertised online as suites.
Please read the story and share your thoughts below!
Yes, Trevor, this is a good one. I’m not ready to comment. I’ve read it twice, and will listen to it tonight. It’s all over the place, but I think it does come together somehow. I like it enough that I plan to read a Yoon collection. Better than his previous story, “Valley of the Moon”, which was interesting, but I had a certain problem with it that I felt Yoon’s explanation didn’t satisfy. I hope you’ll read my comment and go back to that, too. No one else commented on it. I’ll listen to that tonight, too, if I can stay awake.
Reading this more than once seems almost essential, because each of the eight little chapters fills in the pictures drawn in each of the others, to form a fuller picture. Point of view focus moves from one to another of some of the characters, as well as the author, so it’s really multiple pictures. Some of them are animal, and I think the author did pretty well imagining animal vs human mentality (as if I would really know, but still…).
Mostly what I have to say is that I like the story and find the way it is written interesting. None of what I’m saying here is really necessary for anyone who’s read it, only to entice others to read it. So I recommend it and hope to read other comments. I’m now about to read from Yong’s collection, _The Mountain_.
Reading this more than once seems almost essential, because each of the eight little chapters fills in the pictures drawn in each of the others, to form a fuller picture. Point of view focus moves from one to another of some of the characters, as well as the author, so it’s really multiple pictures. Some of them are animals, and I think the author did pretty well imagining animal vs human mentality (as if I would really know, but still…).
Mostly what I have to say is that I like the story and find the way it is written interesting. None of what I’m saying here is necessary for anyone who’s read it, other than to entice others to read it. So I recommend it and hope to read other comments. I’m now about to read from Yong’s collection, _The Mountain_.
“There just dogs,” one of the characters remarks. Which is tragically so harsh, judgemental and dismissive. And the characters in this story are so in tune the horses and dogs even if they are a little out of tune with themselves. The attitude is also echoed in how the father of the vet thinks much less of his son for becoming a vet instead of a real doctor.
Yoon’s short story, “War Dogs,” is one of the best in The New Yorker this year. How does a writer truthfully render what’s on a dog’s mind or a horse’s mind in third person? And then how do you simultaneously weave whatever is on a human’s mind which interacts and coexists with their in some way kindred spirits?
And then this whole scene is set opposite war in which everyone is out of tune with everything.
Yoon has this technical mastery of his short story’s fluid motion which is a sort of free form reaching out randomly to land on a connecting flight of exactly the right words. There’s a high wire precision here that seems more poetic than prose like. When a writer can take the precision of poetry (necessary because of compressed space) and stretch it out over 2,000 words, that’s amazing.
“Who cares about the animals? his father liked to say. A bomb is falling every day.”
Such a deeply felt meditative anti-war pro dog and pro horse = pro life short story.