A nightly ritual

Australian writer Eva Hornung based her latest novel on a newspaper article she read about a homeless Russian boy who had been brought up for some years by feral dogs. According to one of the characters in her novel there are five million homeless children living on the streets of Moscow (a quick trawl of the internet reveals a number that may be anywhere between one and five million).

Four-year-old Romochka is abandoned in a high-rise flat by his “uncle”, his mother’s whereabouts unknown. After four days of waiting for the uncle to return, Romochka ventures tentatively out into the street to find food or companionship, with his mother’s admonishments not to talk to strangers still ringing in his head. Almost immediately he sees a dog and follows it with curiosity – and increasing desperation -amid the freezing temperatures. The dog, aware it is being followed, leads Romochka to a disused cellar on the outskirts of the city, near a rubbish mountain. The child curls up with the bitch, Mamochka, for the night for warmth, unafraid to share her milk with the rest of the litter. Look away if you are squeamish as Romochka soon embeds himself with the eight-member feral dog family, hunting with them, sleeping alongside them and sharing the same food – whatever it may be. Perhaps due to his young age, he quickly he identifies himself as a dog and it isn’t until he sees himself in a mirror in the course of a house break-in a couple of years later that he realises he is a boy, and a very scruffy, alarming-looking one at that. (Interestingly enough he forgets this episode within days, re-identifying himself as a dog). When his dog mother adopts another human baby he is at first very jealous but eventually hugely protective of his “brother”.

Hornung’s prose has a haunting quality, with touching, sensuous details of Romochka’s dog mother and the fierce love he has for his dog siblings; the family dynamics as complicated as any human’s. Dog Boy pulls no punches, however, with its moments of raw violence when the pack, desperately hungry, intimidate the elderly or young children and rob them of their groceries. In another episode a pack of what we assume must be wolves or “Strangers” attack the feral dogs in their lair and are duly dispatched, their skulls later hoarded and kept as a shrine. There is an air of menace throughout the novel: the reader all too aware that the boy’s way of life cannot continue. But Romochka’s sense of survival is extraordinary and moving.The final sections of the novel detail the medical and psychiatric involvement in the young boy’s case. I felt this was the weakest section of the story; it seemed to dissolve quickly into cliché, particularly when it came to the relationship between the two scientists involved. I preferred instead the vivid, earlier descriptions of Romochka’s existence as a dog boy and his various schemes to make money and food for his canine family, including his misguided trip on the Metro (with one dog sibling in tow) which lead to his incarceration for a week.

This minor criticism aside, this was a compelling and, despite its often gruesome subject matter, an ultimately uplifting read, that will ensure you will never think the same way again about homeless children nor your family pet.

Eva Hornung won the 2010 Australian Prime Minister’s Literary Award for fiction for Dog Boy. She is a human rights activist, and co-founder of the organisation Australians Against Racism. Dog Boy has been published across the English-speaking territories, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and Italy.

Elizabeth Taylor died this week at the age of 79. By the time I was old enough to register her presence she was across all of the gossip columns in my grandmother’s magazines and Gran and I would even have a joke or two about how many husbands Elizabeth had had (eight). I’m afraid that exposure to these magazines meant that I knew more about her love life and her weight and addiction problems, and very little about her acting skills or her personality. And so the publicity machine goes. (And as a sidenote- what woman could truly bear to grow old in Hollywood?).

This piece by Truman Capote, published in today’s Telegraph is a beautiful portrait of Elizabeth, so finely rendered and exquisitely written, it brought tears to my eyes. So I hope you enjoy.

A good day’s outing and now time for some carb-loading and hitting the sofa!

It’s not a simple answer but it has something to do with the inspiration factory that is Sas Lockey, and the fact that I read these stories from the earthquake on the 22 February and I was moved and I felt guilty and I then felt gratitude and taking nothing for granted and then I wanted to walk.

So I walked my five kilometres (actually it was 6.71km in total according to RunKeeper). I walked because I have no idea what it’s like to suddenly lose half my city or indeed my home, and to have no running water or electricity and not know if my loved ones are alive or dead. I walked for my community feelings towards my Kiwi brothers and sisters. I walked for a selfish reason as I need to get well and reduce my anxiety.

If you feel the need to donate some money click here. If you fancy walking or running down at Richmond Park on Sunday, click here. If you are anywhere other than London and want to organise an event, click here.

Run/walk/dance/skip for Christchurch. Why not?

xx

*DJ man is playing at Ministry of Sound (huge I know!) the night before the official run so I completed my walk today instead