Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
NYRB Classics (2000), Paperback, 205 pages
Description
We Think the World of You combines acute social realism and dark fantasy, and was described by J.R. Ackerley as "a fairy tale for adults." Frank, the narrator, is a middle-aged civil servant, intelligent, acerbic, self-righteous, angry. He is in love with Johnny, a young, married, working-class man with a sweetly easygoing nature. When Johnny is sent to prison for committing a petty theft, Frank gets caught up in a struggle with Johnny's wife and parents for access to him. Their struggle finds a strange focus in Johnny's dog--a beautiful but neglected German shepherd named Evie. And it is she, in the end, who becomes the improbable and undeniable guardian of Frank's inner world.
Media reviews
User reviews
LibraryThing member OmieWise
The novelization of his love for Tulip, which is much better than the more factual book. This novel contains the kind of drama that was absent from the memoir, and is also in many ways more forthright. It made me like My Dog Tulip more than I did when I originally read it.
LibraryThing member stuckinabigbook
This powerful short novel, with its extraordinary mixture of acute social realism and dark fantasy, was described by J. R. Ackerley himself as "a fairy tale for adults." Frank, the narrator, is a middle-aged civil servant, intelligent, acerbic, self-righteous, angry. He is in love with Johnny, a
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young, married, working-class man with a sweetly easy-going nature. When Johnny is sent to prison for committing a petty theft, Frank gets caught up in a struggle with Johnny's wife and parents for access to him. Their struggle finds a strange focus in Johnny's dog—a beautiful but neglected German shepherd named Evie. And it is she, in the end, who becomes the improbable and undeniable guardian of Frank's inner world. - from nyreview of books Show Less
LibraryThing member bbrad
This tightly-written novel is Frank's story of his younger working class male lover (imprisoned for housebreaking when the story begins in London), the lover's family (wife, children, parents) and an Alsatian dog who drives the action. Yes, the dog, anthropomorphized, is the real protagonist. She
Although fiction, the book takes much nourishment from its author's life. J. R. Ackerley was a minor figure in twentieth century British letters: the editor of the BBC magazine, "The Listener." Like Frank, he was gay, unmarried and fouund sexual fulfillment with young, working class lads. The greatest love of Ackerley's life, however, became his dog, who gets a book to herself in Ackerley's small oeuvre - "My Dog Tulip."
Ackerley's sexual escapades provided him no lasting relationships, he tells us in his posthumously published memoir, "My Father and Myself." He found such friendship with his dog. His memoir says his dog years "were the happiest of my life." Fictionalized, the dog years seem somewhat sadder. Frank says, "Advancing age has only intensified her jealousy. I have lost all my old friends, they fear her and look at me with pity or contempt. We live entirely alone. Unless with her I can never go away. I can scarcely call my soul my own. Not that I am complaining, oh no, yet sometimes as we sit and my mind wanders back to the past, to my youthful ambtions and the freedom and independence I used to enjoy, I wonder what in the world happened to me and how it all came about . . . but that leads me into deep waters, too deep for fathoming. It leads me into the darkness of my own mind."
The power of the book is the absolute believability of the love between man and dog, which is trenchantly described.
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is beautiful, loving, jealous and oh so willful. Originally the property of the young lover, and looked after during his imprisonment by his mom and stepfather, Frank becomes enamored of the dog and plots to gain her, which he does, and looses the lover.Although fiction, the book takes much nourishment from its author's life. J. R. Ackerley was a minor figure in twentieth century British letters: the editor of the BBC magazine, "The Listener." Like Frank, he was gay, unmarried and fouund sexual fulfillment with young, working class lads. The greatest love of Ackerley's life, however, became his dog, who gets a book to herself in Ackerley's small oeuvre - "My Dog Tulip."
Ackerley's sexual escapades provided him no lasting relationships, he tells us in his posthumously published memoir, "My Father and Myself." He found such friendship with his dog. His memoir says his dog years "were the happiest of my life." Fictionalized, the dog years seem somewhat sadder. Frank says, "Advancing age has only intensified her jealousy. I have lost all my old friends, they fear her and look at me with pity or contempt. We live entirely alone. Unless with her I can never go away. I can scarcely call my soul my own. Not that I am complaining, oh no, yet sometimes as we sit and my mind wanders back to the past, to my youthful ambtions and the freedom and independence I used to enjoy, I wonder what in the world happened to me and how it all came about . . . but that leads me into deep waters, too deep for fathoming. It leads me into the darkness of my own mind."
The power of the book is the absolute believability of the love between man and dog, which is trenchantly described.
Show Less
LibraryThing member arubabookwoman
This is the story of Frank, a well-bred, middle-aged civil servant who lusts after Johnny, a married, poorly educated working class young man who occasionally gets on the wrong side of the law. When Johnny is sent to jail for a year, Frank gets caught in a struggle with Johnny's wife and parents
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for custody of Johnny's dog Evie. This is obviously a humorous book, and although there are undercurrents of class warfare and gay rights, the focus is on Evie, an irresistible character who steals the show. This is a quick read, and one I fully recommend. Show Less
LibraryThing member dbsovereign
A dog. A man enthralled. A pioneer in the world of power manifesting itself as indistinguishable from the mundane.
LibraryThing member whitreidtan
It has always been good to be a dog in my family. We often love them more than people. Like us, J.R. Ackerley famously loved his own dog furiously so it is not surprising that he would write a novel that uses a dog as a major plot driver in his queer classic, We Think the World of You.
Frank is a
None of the characters here are likable. Frank condescends to Johnny's family, never realizing that they (and Johnny himself) do not in fact, think the world of him, but are using him for financial gain. Every last character is less likable than Evie, who is definitely pitiable and misused by everyone around her. There is definite social commentary here on the lives of working class Britons but the characters are all seen through Frank's eyes so they are in fact little better than stereotypes; even Johnny, who he professes to love, comes across as a bit of a careless dimwit. The female characters are terrible and it's hard to say whether that's Frank's misogyny or indeed Ackerley's. Others have found humor in the telling but I missed that entirely. I'd have felt sorry for Frank, who Johnny basically used as a bottomless wallet, if he hadn't also been such a snob. The writing is very well done but the book as a whole was dull, populated as it was by hateful, opportunistic characters.
Frank is a
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middle aged, middle class civil servant. He is in love with Johnny, a good looking working class man who has just been sent to prison for stealing. When he first visits Johnny in prison, Johnny asks Frank to look after his German Shepherd, Evie, but Frank refuses, leaving the beautiful dog to be neglected and ignored by Johnny's parents. As Frank engages in a passive aggressive bid for permission to visit Johnny, vying with Johnny's parents and wife, he falls for the dog, spending much of his emotional energy on trying to rescue her from Johnny's family.None of the characters here are likable. Frank condescends to Johnny's family, never realizing that they (and Johnny himself) do not in fact, think the world of him, but are using him for financial gain. Every last character is less likable than Evie, who is definitely pitiable and misused by everyone around her. There is definite social commentary here on the lives of working class Britons but the characters are all seen through Frank's eyes so they are in fact little better than stereotypes; even Johnny, who he professes to love, comes across as a bit of a careless dimwit. The female characters are terrible and it's hard to say whether that's Frank's misogyny or indeed Ackerley's. Others have found humor in the telling but I missed that entirely. I'd have felt sorry for Frank, who Johnny basically used as a bottomless wallet, if he hadn't also been such a snob. The writing is very well done but the book as a whole was dull, populated as it was by hateful, opportunistic characters.
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LibraryThing member BibliophageOnCoffee
Just the right amount of humor to mask the underlying despair.
Subjects
Awards
WH Smith Literary Award (Winner — 1962)
Language
Original publication date
1960
Physical description
205 p.; 8.03 inches
ISBN
0940322269 / 9780940322264