Bashan and I

Thomas Mann set aside the great themes of his fiction to write a small, affectionate idyll about his short-haired pointer. Over a series of walks through the fields and riverbanks near his Munich home, the narrator studies Bashan’s moods, his hunting instincts, his jealousies, and his uncomplicated delight at each morning’s outing. Written in the closing months of the First World War, the book turns away from history toward an unhurried, almost timeless world where the only real decision is which way to go at the garden gate. Mann’s precise, tender attention makes a companion animal feel fully knowable without ever tipping into sentimentality. A free PDF and EPUB edition is available here.