Nose Down, Eyes Up: A Novel Review
What if you could really have a two-way conversation with your dog? No, I mean a REAL conversation, you know, where the dog can respond to you and you understand immediately what he's saying, without you having to spend hours figuring out what he means... Nose Down, Eyes Up by Merrill Markoe takes that premise and runs with it, straight into the funniest novel I've read this year.
When Gil discovers that he can understand what his dog is telling the other dogs, he tries to develop the dog, Jimmy, and his advice into a marketable commodity via the internet.
While the premise of this novel is good and the story pretty funny, there were also times I wanted to hit Gil on the head... He was pretty stupid to be getting involved with his ex-wife after she had gotten married to someone else, plus, the way he treated his girl friend kept me from being able to respect him as an honorable person... These things, along with the fact that some of Gil's personal life seemed to have little or nothing to contribute to the story kept me from giving this novel the full five stars.
Nevertheless, read this novel if you want some laughs, but only if you can tolerate some stupidity in the main character.
Nose Down, Eyes Up: A Novel Overview
From the New York Times bestselling author of Walking in Circles Before Lying Down comes a hilarious novel about a man who won't grow up, his confused relationships with women, and his four (talking) dogs.
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Customer Reviews
just awful. - woof -
This book was just plain awful. I love dogs and reading all sorts of books about dogs (fiction & non).... but I thought this book was extremely hard to get through. The characters were all super annoying especially the main character Gil. Even the dog conversations, which could've been done in a cute & clever way, were agonizing. There were several parts that were trying much too hard to be funny. The swearing really took away from it... I like to swear as much as the next person but come on... obviously the author is lacking in vocabulary. Oh and it got to where I cringed every time it said 'beer-thirty'... it wasn't really even that funny the first time... saying it 29 more times sure didn't help. I only finished reading it because I was traveling and had nothing else to read. Just plain painful from the very beginning... not at all what I expected. Boo.
Just silly - M. Chappell - Pittsburgh, PA
I wouldn't waste your time trying to get through this book. I love reading, and especially love reading books about dogs. But in my opinion, this book is really awful. The story was too ridiculous for me to enjoy at all! The dogs talk, which is okay I guess, but what they say doesn't ring true at ALL in my opinion. I couldn't get past chapter 7 it was so dumb. The dog actually pouts at his owner because he didn't literally birth him. I mean... come on!
Also, the main character is bitter and vulgar. How many times can he say F*** in one chapter? It just gets old after awhile.
Funny for the first few chapters... - A. Williamson - Atlanta, GA
When Gil stumbles upon his alpha dachshund Jimmy lecturing the neighborhood dogs on canine manipulation techniques, his life is profoundly changed. That is, if you consider Gil's first instinct to exploit his newfound knowledge by starting a pet blog to kick-off the sale of silk-screened T-shirts a profound revelation. The only redeeming quality about 47-year-old, bitterly divorced, layabout Gil is that he understands his dogs far better than the women in his life. If not for the laugh-out-loud dialogue between Gil and his four dogs, Jimmy, Cheney, Fruity, and Dinky, this book would possess little redeeming value.
As an animal lover and a dog owner, I found the first section of the book containing the interaction between Gil and his dogs both heartwarming and hilarious. I laughed out loud during several moments. But then, illustrating a dog's personality is going to be humorous no matter how you write it. However, despite the truly enjoyable first part of the book, including such memorable pearls of canine wisdom as "Is it pee inside, poo inside?" and "Everything can be eaten", the story suffers from an unfortunate overload of dislikable, shallow, greedy, and selfish cast of human characters that sour the latter plot, which focuses more heavily on human than canine antics--predictably Gil's trouble with women.
Drama starts when Gil accidentally runs into his sexy ex-wife at a convenient store while collecting a six-pack for beer-thirty--a longtime tradition for the lately-out-of-work, blue-collar handyman who conveniently lives in the empty summerhouse of rich retirees in exchange for household maintenance. Startled by the encounter with the woman who cleaned out his bank account during their divorce five years ago, Gil succumbs to Eden's overly enthusiastic greeting by giving her his phone number.
When Gil's cunning canine manipulator Jimmy discovers the shocking family secret that Gil is not his biological father, his traumatized reaction (sprinkled with a heavy dose of "nose down, eyes up") persuades a reluctant Gil to call his ex-wife and owner of Jimmy's mother Gypsy to facilitate a reunion between mother and son. Meanwhile, his landlords call unexpectedly to announce their return to the summerhouse, which forces Gil to vacate the premises and move in--grudgingly--with his well-intentioned albeit clueless "animal communicator" girlfriend Sara, whose recent desire to deepen their relationship is rubbing commitment-phobic Gil the wrong way.
Predictably, Gil begins an affair with his vain and horny ex-wife Eden under her rich husband's nose after accepting Eden's carpentry job offer to fix-up the guest house. Tack on the undercover P.I. Eden's husband has hired to spy on her who blackmails Gil, and his troubles are only beginning. Meanwhile, friction with his suspicious girlfriend Sara exacerbates Gil's stress over the affair, which he spends the majority of the novel complaining about. In fact, a large extent of Gil's dialogue had a tendency toward crudeness, which grows tiresome to read. Readers who don't enjoy frank discussions of sex or profanity may find themselves horrified by some of the saltier scenes Gil details while en flagrante delicto with Eden or Sara. When Gil moves into the guest house is about the time when the story shifts focus and the dogs take a backseat to Gil's screwed-up love life after Jimmy decides he prefers the company of his canine family to Gil. (No big surprise there.)
It was difficult to get through the second half of the story once the dogs lost the limelight and the humor alternated from doggie frolic to sexual shenanigans, but the ending is, if not the most desirable, at least realistic. Gil's soujourn to visit his mother as a way of avoiding Sara seemed an unnecessary diversion from the main story to illustrate Gil's contemptible personality as he complains about his family, particularly his mother, and picks up a sexy high-school classmate for a one-night-stand. Returning home at the onset of the California wildfires separates Gil from Jimmy when he can't get to the guest house to rescue him.
I hesitate to recommend this book because overall, it really isn't a very good story. Yes, parts of it are funny, but the overly long detour from Gil's interaction with his dogs to Gil's deplorable behavior as he selfishly manipulates the women in his life cannot maintain the same vein of light-hearted humor. Perhaps the author intended to compare human vs. canine manipulation by shifting the focus of the story, but the contrast does not make for very gratifying reading.
That being said, if you're an animal lover and don't mind stories with contemptible characters committing depressing acts of betrayal merely as a literary device for situational humor, then you will probably enjoy this story. It IS funny, at least the first half, though I doubt I will buy another book by this author given the cynical depiction of human interpersonal relationships that is such a big focus in the story.
Bottom line: there are better dog books out there.
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