Everyone I knew loved this book. First, it was my dad, listening to it on his way to work in Manhattan, letting the mind of a dog and life of a racer soothe him in the midtown traffic. Then, it was my mom, accepting the recommendation from my father with the promise that it would make her cry and reach for our family Shih Tzu, six years old and named Puppy. Following her, it was my oldest sister and then another friend who didn’t even really like books and then everyone else in the universe. Finally, someone special to me at Kenyon put his copy of it in my hands because I had told him a few days before, “Yeah, I know I have to read it. If you put it in my hands, I will.” Thanksgiving break commenced and I learned the secret to the art of racing in the rain.
The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein came out in 2008 and is a novel told from the perspective of a dog. Enzo loves Denny who loves Eve and Zoe, and you as the reader begin to love all of them a little like a dog would: simply and with deep enthusiasm. The human plot of the story is indistinguishable from the animal one as Enzo is entrenched in Denny’s dream to become a famous racer, the crisis of Eve, Denny’s wife, and Zoe, their daughter who’s stuffed animals become a point of contention for Enzo. The novel follows the family through the eyes of their intelligent and opinionated companion. It’s about love and loyalty, race cars and distrust of the medical system. It’s about grandparents and lawyers, fatherhood and kindness. It’s an excellent book and a New York Times bestseller.
If I am being honest, I did not have the visceral and extreme emotional reaction to the book that I anticipated. Maybe there was too much hype from too many people I trust or maybe I’m just too used to reading books for their theory and narrative arc instead of just for fun. (Disclaimer: I find reading book critically and with an analytical eye to be very entertaining, it just works on certain novels better than other.) The difficult scenes upset me and the heroics impressed me, but I did not feel my heart while reading it more than I’m used to. For me, when a story is really good, critically acclaimed or anonymously posted online, I can feel where my heart it. The world alternately expands and narrows, I’m thrown from my mind suddenly into my body. I didn’t feel that with Enzo, with Denny. I wanted to, but I didn’t.
This is not to say that I did not enjoy the novel because I did, I enjoyed it thoroughly. I loved the concept and its delivery was on point. Enzo’s perspective is appropriately childlike and wise, totally subjective and equally perceptive, while the human characters are well crafted, complex and sympathetic. The Art of Racing in the Rain is great book, worthy of the attention it is given. In my personal experience, it just didn’t make me hurt quite in the way I wanted it to.
At various points in the book, Enzo talks about what it takes to race in the rain. He loves watching tapes of famous racers or of Denny’s own trips around the track. He’s an avid race fan and one of the best moments of his life is when Denny takes him in a car at real race speeds. At one point, Denny says that in the rain, you have to race like there are eggshells on your pedals, gentle and with care. The art of racing in the rain, we learn, is about connection between you, your car, the rain, and the track. If you separate any of those, you’ll become afraid, you’ll spin out. If you let yourself, with care, become part of your car which is part of the track which is soaked with rain, you’ll finish the race. And sometimes, finishing the race is all that matters.