SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Paul Yoon's new novel is a kind of contemporary odyssey, except the central character is a dog that becomes part of a war in an unnamed country. He sniffs out bombs to save lives, he sinks his teeth into enemies, makes alliances, loses friends and goes on, and he is the narrator of his own story. Etna is the name of the dog and the new novel by Paul Yoon. He's a 2021 Guggenheim fellow and the author of six books of fiction and joins us from Hudson, New York. Thanks so much for being with us.
PAUL YOON: Thanks, Scott. It's such a pleasure to be here. I'm so happy to be with you.
SIMON: We're happy to have you. How does Etna get recruited? If that's quite the word.
YOON: Yeah. No, I think that is the word. He's a little pup in a fictional country on the coast. He sort of - he's on a farm. He's living happily on a farm with other animals and other dogs and his mom and his siblings. And one day, he sort of senses a change in the air, so to speak, and a woman, a mysterious woman, comes to the farm and says that she's looking for dogs to join her and her army for a coming war. And before he knows it, he's lifted up and hurried into her truck, and he's gone. And so it happens pretty fast.
SIMON: She tells Etna, you're going to work hard and save a lot of lives. I found myself very touched by that.
YOON: Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, he's so young, and he's really disoriented at this point. And he's never been in a car before, and so he doesn't know what's going on. And I think there's a future laid out for him in that moment when she says that. But, you know, for him, at that moment, it's hard for him to process it 'cause he's so scared and alone and, I think, missing his mother and his siblings on the farm.
SIMON: He forms a particular relationship, too, with Jason, his human comrade.
YOON: Yes, his handler. Yes, exactly.
SIMON: I didn't want to say handler. It sounded cold (laughter).
YOON: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sure, sure. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah.
SIMON: They are comrades. I mean...
YOON: Oh, absolutely. They're comrades. I think they grow to rely on each other. They grow to protect each other and to be willing to give their lives for each other. Part of it is that when he was sort of taken away from his original family, Jason and his fellow dogs and his entire unit becomes a new family, so to speak, as the war goes on. And so he's really, really connected to Jason, who's always by his side.
SIMON: Let me ask you to read a section. And this is tough stuff.
YOON: Yeah. Absolutely. Here we go.
(Reading) We worked and fought all over the country. We walked and ran and trekked and rode in trucks and jumped through open and broken windows, and we climbed and ascended and we lived almost every day with explosions and gunfire and houses falling and buildings falling and everywhere fire and bodies on fire and the earth breaking and breaking deeper. And Jason and Brian and all the men we were with killed other men and sometimes animals. And I killed, and the other dogs killed. We lost men. We lost dogs. We slept when and where we could. And some nights when it was safe and silent, we watched the men build their own fires on top of the earth that had already been burned by fires, and we all slept beside those new fires and woke and got up and started again.
SIMON: What do we learn about war when we see it through the eyes of a dog?
YOON: Well, my hope is we sort of see in some ways its utter senselessness. And yet that ability for this dog to just keep going and to endure and to keep pushing on and to survive alongside his men. But also I think feeling - well, I'm not sure, you know? But I think also feeling that they are doing their best, but they're also - you know, it's complex. They are also responsible for a lot of destruction and death. And so part of it is, I think, Etna reckoning with all this and not exactly being a hero and dealing with that throughout the novel as well.
SIMON: What are the challenges? I wish I knew a better way to put this. What are the challenges in having a dog as your narrator?
YOON: Oh, I don't - where to begin? I think part of it was trying to make that leap into the voice and the mind and the point of view of a nonhuman perspective. And that was probably - I mean, that was the biggest challenge. And yet I also - you know, just as the writer creating the story, I also - it was paramount and important to me that the readers sort of have a way in and are able to build this world or see this world and understand the world, perhaps in ways that Etna isn't necessarily describing or telling. And so balancing that was a huge challenge for me, too.
SIMON: Does he learn the importance of having a pack?
YOON: Oh, absolutely. In fact, I think his original goal is he wants to go to a physical place. He wants to go home because that's where he feels he belongs. But along the way, I think he learns that what's more important is he needs a pack and that everyone needs a pack. And he does find one. Through the kindness of a few humans and a few dogs, he forms a kind of new family that all help him get to where he wants to go.
SIMON: Paul Yoon. His new novel, "Etna." Thank you so much for being with us.
YOON: Oh, it was such a pleasure to be here, Scott.
(SOUNDBITE OF SHAKEY GRAVES' "SUDDENLY") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
