Reviewed by Patricia Simms-Reeve
A significant factor that changed our pandemic-gripped lives was, for many lonely or perhaps childless people, the owning of a pet. The most popular was the dog because it, like its owner, needed to go out for daily exercise.
Therefore, the leading ‘character’ in My Name is Gucci, a large spotted mongrel, will appeal to a wide audience.
It will amuse too those who are not devoted to dogs. Gucci is no ordinary mutt. He is multi- layered, made wise and interesting by having lived in his prior re-incarnated lives. Gucci is a rescue dog. He spent his first five years in a shelter in Singapore then a young woman ‘she’ connected with him and he was taken to Sydney where she lived with her partner – unsurprisingly, ‘he’.
Some other humans in the book don’t have names but, typically, are identified by appearance. One unpleasant woman was ‘pink hat’…although Matt owns Chin Chin, and Lee has Noodles, the old Labrador and Gucci’s friend. Cats, he dismisses as ‘peculiar and impolite’ and it is obvious that he considers them to be a loss as a companion.
The dog’s world comes to the fore. Food is indisputably of prime importance. When poor Noodles dies, he goes to ‘lamb shank heaven’. Gucci enjoys nearly everything except green, leafy and cabbage-like items. Second in his list of pleasures is the walk which entails smells – the delight of identifying traces of acquaintances and learning countless clues to possible excitement.
Gucci learns to live in a high-rise apartment, negotiate the strangeness of the lift, and indulge in the cafe lifestyle.
The book is not just about a lucky dog living the good life. Written by Sun Jung, a Korean writer living in Australia, it gives snapshots of Korean family life and the obsessive power of the women, especially grandmothers. Superstition holds sway, devotion to ancestors, belief in Feng Shui. Some animals are not fortunate, like General who was imprisoned in a farm breeding fighting dogs.
It is the skill of Sun’s managing her plot where she links Gucci’s and her new owner’s past lives. Simultaneously, culture, animal and human foibles/behaviours as well as their relationships with the surrounding world are related in an often charmingly humorous manner.
Initially I had to work to comprehend the Korean words and fully grasp them in context, but this largely became easier and did not interrupt the flow to the extent of readily knowing which ‘she’ or ‘he’ was the subject!
Other novels have been written about canine characters’ significance in human lives, The Friend (Sigrid Nunez) being read most recently. Gucci gives an insight into a dog’s world in an amusing yet thoughtful way. Those not enamoured of dogs as pets would find this, nevertheless, well worth reading.
My Name is Gucci
[2024]
by Sun Jung
Transit Lounge
ISBN 978 1 9230 2317 8
$32.99; 272pp