An Ordinary Dog is a carnival of clashing forms and tones, all deployed with a cool wit and technical precision. They bear sceptical witness to — what? To the affecting ordinariness of human needs, to the vanity of human wishes. Woods writes about desire: sacred and profane, serene and frantic, refined and grubby — often betrayed by cussedness, always complicated by external events. Looking back to times of crisis when history is endured and re-invented, An Ordinary Dog explores where myth degenerates into faith and reason falters. The mood veers between equanimity and desperation; the focus between detachment and intimate involvement.
