Popchik

I've just finished a wonderful new novel called The Goldfinch. It’s by Donna Tartt and featured a protagonist who was always on the brink of disaster. While it was nerve-wracking, all 700 pages of it, it ended on a philosophical note and contained some of the most lovable characters I've come across for some time. One of them was a little Maltese terrier called Popper in English and Popchik in Russian. He was important because while the main character was always in dire straits (drugs, alcohol, and the criminal underworld) his affection for the dog never wavered. He even took Popchik by bus from Las Vegas to New York. He hid him in a sports bag!

 Here is the first appearance of the little dog who bursts out of the house after Theo’s feckless father and girlfriend take the boy home to Las Vegas. Popper has been locked in the house for days:

“Before she’d opened the door all the way, a hysterical stringy mop shot out, shrieking, and began to hop and dance and caper all around us.”

That hysterical stringy mop is badly neglected in Las Vegas but becomes a part of Theo’s strange household in New York. Over a decade later Popchik is still there when Theo comes back from Amsterdam, pacing around his feet “in staunch geriatric figure eights of greeting”.

And on a different note, a photo of Orewa from the path to Hatfield’s beach, taken last week.