Niki: The Story of a Dog (New York Review Books Classics)

I didn't believe a book could be written from an animal's point of view, but I was mistaken. Very well done. My compliments to the author.

These words, when uttered in Tibor Dery's novella, "Niki: The Story of a Dog" are an observation about how the canine protagonist must have felt after her adopted owners moved her from a town filled with fields where she could run free to a small apartment in Budapest. But Tibor Dery published Niki in Budapest in the summer of 1956 and although he did not participate in the uprising that fall he did serve as a spokesman for the short-lived revolutionary regime led by Imre Nagy. Subsequent to the arrival of Soviet tanks and the crushing of the October revolution Dery was tried by the reinstated old regime and sentenced, in 1957, to a nine year prison term. He was released in 1960. In that context, "Nikki: The Story of a Dog" is as much a melancholy story of Hungary between 1948 and 1956 as it is the beautifully told story of the life of one stray dog.The story opens quite simply: "The Dog - we will not yet give it a name - adopted the Ancsas in the spring of 1948." Niki, a neglected puppy, comes across a couple, the Ancsas, dedicated Communists both, and decides that they will be her new master. Dery tells the story of Niki beautifully and I was absorbed in the story from that opening line. For the Ancsas it was not love at first sight. They'd lost their only son and other family members in the war and Dery writes of their reluctance to let anyone, human or animal, into their hearts. The fact that Nikki accomplishes this task is something of a miracle considering, as Dery writes, that Niki's "only hope must be in mercy, and there was little enough of that to be found in a ruined land."As the story progresses we follow Niki and the Ancsas as they move from the outer suburban fields and streams of the town of Csobanka to Budapest when Mr. Ancsas, a mining engineer, is put in charges of a manufacturing facility. Although the story's focus is on Niki and her life bits and pieces of the outside world begin to intrude on this small family. One can sense the crackdown and the beginning of the purges under the leadership of Matyas Rakosi. Rakosi is never mentioned and the purges are referred to only in passing but their presence is felt. Eventually an event occurs that shakes the family apart, an event that was all too common in Rakosi's Hungary.Even if Niki had been simply about the story of a dog it would have been an enjoyable book. Dery's sentences are beautifully put together and his ability to describe Niki's actions without presuming to think for the animal and without imposing human traits into Niki are more than pleasurable. But Niki was about more than just a simple story and the understated context added a certain heft (or feeling about the book) that took the story to a different level entirely.On either level "Niki The Story of a Dog" is well worth reading. I enjoyed it immensely. L. Fleisig

This book is a gem. Without a touch of sentimentality or anthropomorphism, Déry touchingly imagines the interior life of a dog, a creature of little understanding but great feeling. Anyone experienced in observing canine behavior will be completely convinced of the dead-on accuracy of the author’s portrayal.The book is set in Hungary during the late forties and early fifties, a period of Stalinist oppression. The human characters understand as little of the arbitrary arrests and disappearances that have cast a pall of terror over their lives as our animal protagonist, Niki, does of the comings and goings of her mistress and the sudden absence of her beloved master, who for reasons unknown simply vanishes from her life. For both man and beast, such utter vulnerability to the incomprehensible can be made bearable only by “a strong reciprocal affection.” That mutual affection allows Niki and her mistress, whose husband has disappeared, to go on, at least for a time.As noted, human emotions and thoughts are not attributed to Niki. She is not a heroine, just a dog. But this reader came away with a renewed sense of the infinite value of these living and sentient creatures, and more convinced than ever that the word “dog” should never be accompanied by the modifier “just.”

Uncannily precise in its observation and descriptions of canine behavior, this is a story of a dog and her owners, set against a backdrop of post-war Hungary. Charming in the recounting of Niki's life with the Ancsas it is also affecting in relating the tragedy that befalls two normal people caught up in the machinations of anonymous political forces. As a novel of protest this has a gentle, yet tragic, edge; as the tale of a small, simple household it is warm and sympathetic. The product of a particular era, yes, yet timeless.

No time to review it. Just get it. It's one of the best books I've read in a long time, and I read a lot of them. The dog, Niki, and his relationship to his owners, becomes a meme (is this the right way to use "meme?" I'm a journalist but an older one and I still haven't figured that one out!) for Hungary during the brutal and bleak mid-1950s.

Some things need to be simple. Not stupid. Just simple. The narrator of this dog story was just too intellectual, too pretentious to make the story memorable and enjoyable. And the ending was simply a downer. As dog stories usually are.

There needs to be much more subtle and meaningful literature like this. Each sentence beongs. It is more than just a story about a dog.

when is the story of a cat being published?