By: Anne-n-Spencer

Anne-n-Spencer — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 16:54:19 +0000

I agree with Mr. MacInnis completely and will probably not be going to see “Marley and Me” for that reason. Apparently my parents, or at least my mother, felt the same way years ago about “Old Yeller.” I simply wasn’t allowed to see it as a child. I also think I see what the reviewer in the other post meant when she said a “long, flat arc.” I loved the book “Marley and Me.” But Marley’s decline and eventual death, seemed to take up too much of the book. I could see the first hints of it, and after that, with every turn of the page, I was steeling myself for the inevitable end. It was a fine book, but it might have been a bit shorter. I can see it being unbearably sad in a movie. All this made me think of a poem of Kipling’s, “The Power of the Dog.” So I looked it up:

There is sorrow enough in the natural way
From men and women to fill our day;
And when we are certain of sorrow in store,
Why do we always arrange for more?
Brothers and Sisters, I bid you beware
Of giving your heart to a dog to tear.

Comments on: Canadian writer says, “No Marley for me”

By: Anne-n-Spencer