Books Not-So-Heavy Petting

Jennifer Berman; Pocket Books; $8

An interesting proposition. Are dogs better than men?

A friend of mine and I recently had a disagreement about the way a man hits a woman. You can't punch her, he said (that gesture being reserved for man-to-man combat), nor can you slap her (that's effeminate). Instead, you swat her with the back of your hand. Interesting, I said. It's like hitting a dog with a bit of rolled-up newspaper. I began to get excited, thinking that maybe I had found a thesis topic. When women slap one another, I said delightedly, they are still retaining face-to-face communication. When you hit a woman that way it's as if you're hitting a dog!

My friend was not as pleased with my hypothesis. That's not the way you hit a dog, he said. You hit a dog overhand, like this. Thwack.

But when you hit someone that way, woman or dog (backhand, I meant), it's as if you're deliberately minimizing her, pushing her away, treating her as if she were a slave.

He became more impassioned than I had seen him in a while. In no way, he shouted, is a dog like a slave. He had studied the master-slave relationship, and had its nuances down pat. Also, he has a dog. I've never had the privilege. I had to admit his line of reasoning was compelling.

We came to agree after a few minutes of argument that a dog was more servant than slave, though I maintained that compensation for this sort of service was arguable, built into the dog's existence qua dog, its naturally lower status.

This discussion left me with high hopes for Why Dogs Are Better Than Men. On the face of it, Jennifer Berman's book seeks to collapse the widely accepted pecking order. It is predicated on the assumption that men do not make as satisfying companions for women as Harvey Mansfield would like to believe; the cover concretizes this assumption, featuring a racy-looking mongrel eagerly helping himself to a happy-seeming woman's popcorn as they sit side by side on the sofa, watching television. Inviting. You might cheer the caption that "Dogs aren't threatened by two women with short hair."

But as one progresses through the text, it becomes clear that Berman has a different agenda than the simple usurpation of egregious male hegemony. Rather than straighfowardly singing the virtues of dog, this book actually structured according to any unexpected dialectic. It ends with the not-so-revolutionary preposition that it is, in fact, men who are better than dogs, if only because Holiday Inns accept them (i.e. men are easier to have sex with!).

To wit: Chapter 1 (thesis) shares its titlewith the book. It includes such double-entendre,pun treasures as "Dogs are very direct aboutwanting to go out," Dogs admit when they'rejealous," and "You can train a dog." Some are goodfor a chuckle, particularly when they parody humanself-help tomes--("The Courage to Heel") orpsychobabble ("I'm feeling very conflicted aboutthis new dog you keep talking about bringing home.On one paw, I want a playmate. One the otherpaw...") Ho ho.

Chapter 2 (you'd hope it would be synthesis,but it's antithesis) illustrates "How Dogs and Menare the Same," with some slightly weakerstatements such as "Both are bad at asking youquestions," "The smaller ones tend to be morenervous," and "Neither understands what you see incats." Many of these just don't resonate with me,unfortunately. Chapter 3 (the shocking synthesis)ends with the ostensibly reassuring "Why Men areBetter Then Dogs". scandalously, one of theepigrams here is "Men can do math stuff."Quel relief.

Berman's work has its place in a long andperhaps wearisome subgenre of cartoon books aboutpets. I remember fondly, for instance--I'veforgotten the author--the relatively recent workEverything I Needed to Know I Learned From MyCat. But maybe I am too quick to reveal mypreferences. This book has the winningillustrations of its type; they might amuse ornauseate you. The book is good for a quickflip-through in Wordsworth, or perhaps as a giftfor a certain kind of disaffected female friend