Your First Pet and How to Take Care of It. Book

I've never read anything by David Slavitt before, heck never even heard of him before. Slavitt is a prolific writer, with over 100 books published, ranging from poetry, to literary novels like this one, to pulp novels, to translations and even some non-fiction. What drew me to this particular book was that it name-dropped Portuguese dictator Antonio Salazar on the cover, and mentioned the bizarre state of affairs that occurred in the final years of his life. I've always found Salazar a rather interesting dictator; ascetic, reserved, and pragmatic, he more or less stumbled into the position by chance, and took on what he considered his patriotic duty to modernize his small and backwards country. Devoid of paranoid fantasies, genocidal urges, grandiose belligerency or pomposity, he ruled with a heavy yet deft hand.

This short novel sort of attempts the post-modernist shifts in perspective, wry commentary on politics, art and love and a touch of magic realism, but honestly, there isn't much there there. It tries too many things and never really seems invested in any of them, and gives up the ghost halfway through. Indeed, it's a novel that's striving to say something, but doesn't really say anything novel. Politics can be absurd? Society women can be shallow? Secret Police can be capricious? You don't say! The most interesting part of the novel is Salazar, and despite him being the title role and the prime mover of the events in the novel (ironic since he's paralyzed by a stroke, you see?), he's at a remove from the novel. I guess I was wanting something of a more penetrating look into a leader I find fascinating, and not the tropes about the shrewd economist who kept the lid on dissidents with a calculated level of pressure, allowing it to steam off at times and brutally cracking down at others. I got a sick man in bed blinking his eye at a rather unlikable and pompous poet who doesn't seem to have anything to say that's not drenched in passive-aggressive misanthropy.

Oh well, at least it doesn't offend my sense of intelligence by trying to preach a message at me. I'll give this novel that. As for the writer? Well, he's gotten my attention a bit. Considering he's a mild conservative who has translated classical Greek and Roman poetry, I'm rather curious as to reading his own poetry as well as his translation. I don't really think that this novel is a sign of a bad writer. It's clear the guy knows how to write. This one just didn't really come together is all.

2 out of 5 stars.