Review of "A Puppy in the Sun" by Ani

Review of Mariyana’s “A Puppy in the Sun”


Having read Hemingway’s story, I, to be honest, felt a bit depressed. Such a strained relationship between the characters, so many emotions, most of them false, so much left unsaid. This was the original story. Phew, I thought, luckily we have an upcoming parody, can’t wait to read something to brighten up this cold night. Well, I do not intend to sound nasty, but “A Puppy in the Sun” sounded even more depressing… If only the task itself didn’t require some “chortle”, I would have applauded Mariyana’s story.

A perfect reflection of “Cat in the Rain” – this is what you get when you put a minus in front of “A Puppy in the Sun”, like in a mathematical equation. The only problem is I did not get to laugh. Parody, after all, is about laughing, isn’t it?

Nevertheless, if we ignore the not-funny part, I like the precision of Mariyana’s mirror story – each and every element is as if gently handled with a pair of tweezers only to briefly examine it and then to pin its total counterpart, while at the same time managing to keep the original grimness of the story. This does not sound easy. I was intrigued by the way Mariyana succeeded in making rain and heat seem equal – too much of either is never welcome; cat and dog seem interchangeable; a bad relationship still being bad whether the characters try to hide it or not, etc.

Still, unfortunately, exchanging white for black does not make the story an original piece of writing. What the reader expected to see, if you ask me, was not simply a reflection, but a reflection in a distorted mirror – a funny image to giggle at. The simple switch of different elements is a signal of lack of creativeness – which I am sure is not the case here, maybe just the task was not right.