Asleep in the sun (New York Review of Books)

Lucio, a normal man in a normal (nosy) city neighborhood with normal problems with his wife (not the easiest person to get along with) and family and job (he lost it), finds he has a much bigger problem: his wife is a dog. At first, it doesn't seem like such a problem, because the German shepherd inhabiting his wife's body is actually a good deal more agreeable than his wife herself, now occupying the body of the same German shepherd in a mental hospital run by a cabal of scientists who, as it happens, have designs on the whole neighborhood. But then Lucio gains a sense, however confused, of what's right, which is an even bigger problem yet. Bioy Casares's strange, sly novel may be read as a fable of modern politics or as a meditation on the elusive parameters of the self. Above all, it is an almost scarily perfect comic turn, as well as a pure delight.