I picked this book up in Florida in May and put it into the stacks, hoping that by seeding the stacks with a bunch of Christmas books in various locations that I would be able to find a Christmas book when I was in the mood for my annual Christmas book reading. I suppose I could organize the stacks, but…. Nah, I would need a lot more stacks for that. Kind of like the extra space we had to organize my library when we moved to Nogglestead, which was then overrun by things I have bought since. At any rate, since I have decided to read shorter books while my lower level, spot of my nightly reading, is torn up and tented off, I went looking for the Mannheim Steamroller Christmas book which I had just had in my hands last week when selecting one of the shorter books I have already reported on. But, of course, the Mannheim Steamroller (sorry, Chip Davis) book is lost in the stacks for another couple of years, and this book came to hand. I recounted how I heard of Rodrigue and the Blue Dog in the linked post about how I bought the book, but I’d been in his gallery before this book came out.
The book is a tie-in to a series of…. Prints? Featuring the Blue Dog in Christmas settings, including as the angel atop the tree, in the snow, and so on. The art itself is very simple and pop-art–I know I mark myself as hoi polloi or bourgeoisie when I say I prefer Kinkade or Hargrove’s more realism. Here’s a sample of Blue Dog I posted in 2012 when I mentioned misstating his name in a conversation with my beautiful wife (note that the sample is not from the Christmas series):
Not really my style of art. But I remember it and the artist.
The text is not fiction; rather, it’s a bit of memoir about the artist’s Christmases in his youth in rural Louisiana and the joy he felt, underlining that he had two dogs at the time. But then he grew up, went to school, the dogs died, and as an adult he lost the feeling of Christmas until he became a successful artist, his adult dog died, and he found Christmas joy in being able to put Blue Dog in a bunch of paintings. That’s the arc of the story, but really it’s about putting some text and dog memories beside prints in the then-contemporary series.
A quick read upstairs away from the rustling plastic and masonry dust. I don’t think I’ll count it as my Christmas book, but we will see if I can find another one in the next two months.
