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Aceite de perro
Antes de desaparecer para siempre en la vorágine de la revolución mexicana, de la que nunca regresó, ni vivo ni muerto, Ambrose Bierce ya era todo un personaje en San Francisco, la ciudad que lo formó como escritor y periodista. Se había ganado con creces la reputación de ser una de las plumas más incisivas, irreverentes, devastadoras y mordaces de la prensa de Estados Unidos, y había publicado un centenar de cuentos cortos que eran la expresión más acabada de su amargo ingenio iconoclasta y sardónico. Aceite de Perro es uno de los cuentos de Bierce con el que el lector se sorprenderá gracias a la imaginación siniestra del autor y al misterio que crea en sus obras.
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About the author
Ambrose Bierce
2,467 books1,322 followersdied perhaps 1914
Caustic wit and a strong sense of horror mark works, including In the Midst of Life (1891-1892) and The Devil's Dictionary (1906), of American writer Ambrose Gwinett Bierce.
People today best know this editorialist, journalist, and fabulist for his short story, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge and his lexicon.
The informative sardonic view of human nature alongside his vehemence as a critic with his motto, "nothing matters," earned him the nickname "Bitter Bierce."
People knew Bierce despite his reputation as a searing critic, however, to encourage younger poet George Sterling and fiction author W.C. Morrow.
Bierce employed a distinctive style especially in his stories. This style often embraces an abrupt beginning, dark imagery, vague references to time, limited descriptions, the theme of war, and impossible events.
Bierce disappeared in December 1913 at the age of 71 years. People think that he traveled to Mexico to gain a firsthand perspective on ongoing revolution of that country.
Theories abound on a mystery, ultimate fate of Bierce. He in one of his final letters stated: "Good-bye. If you hear of my being stood up against a Mexican stone wall and shot to rags, please know that I think it is a pretty good way to depart this life. It beats old age, disease, or falling down the cellar stairs. To be a Gringo in Mexico--ah, that is euthanasia!"
Caustic wit and a strong sense of horror mark works, including In the Midst of Life (1891-1892) and The Devil's Dictionary (1906), of American writer Ambrose Gwinett Bierce.
People today best know this editorialist, journalist, and fabulist for his short story, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge and his lexicon.
The informative sardonic view of human nature alongside his vehemence as a critic with his motto, "nothing matters," earned him the nickname "Bitter Bierce."
People knew Bierce despite his reputation as a searing critic, however, to encourage younger poet George Sterling and fiction author W.C. Morrow.
Bierce employed a distinctive style especially in his stories. This style often embraces an abrupt beginning, dark imagery, vague references to time, limited descriptions, the theme of war, and impossible events.
Bierce disappeared in December 1913 at the age of 71 years. People think that he traveled to Mexico to gain a firsthand perspective on ongoing revolution of that country.
Theories abound on a mystery, ultimate fate of Bierce. He in one of his final letters stated: "Good-bye. If you hear of my being stood up against a Mexican stone wall and shot to rags, please know that I think it is a pretty good way to depart this life. It beats old age, disease, or falling down the cellar stairs. To be a Gringo in Mexico--ah, that is euthanasia!"
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 43 reviews
October 11, 2023
#A story a day to chase the blues away #11
“Óleo de Cão”, Ambrose Bierce, EUA, 1911
Atarefado entre um pai que faz ol.can para fins medicinais e uma mãe que se livra de crianças indesejadas, o jovem Boffer Bings vê-se compelido a aguçar o engenho. “Óleo de Cão” é um conto amoral e horripilante sobre o pior género de pessoas, as que visam os seres mais inocentes do mundo, bebés e cães, mas que por isso constitui o perfeito conto de horror.
Por vezes, no cumprimento desta obrigação eu sentia necessidade de recorrer à minha inteligência natural porque todos os polícias da vizinhança contrariavam as actividades da minha mãe. Não tinham sido eleitos com votos da oposição, e também é verdade que ao caso nunca foi dado um desfecho político: as coisas limitavam-se a ser assim, e mais nada.
“Óleo de Cão”, Ambrose Bierce, EUA, 1911
Atarefado entre um pai que faz ol.can para fins medicinais e uma mãe que se livra de crianças indesejadas, o jovem Boffer Bings vê-se compelido a aguçar o engenho. “Óleo de Cão” é um conto amoral e horripilante sobre o pior género de pessoas, as que visam os seres mais inocentes do mundo, bebés e cães, mas que por isso constitui o perfeito conto de horror.
Por vezes, no cumprimento desta obrigação eu sentia necessidade de recorrer à minha inteligência natural porque todos os polícias da vizinhança contrariavam as actividades da minha mãe. Não tinham sido eleitos com votos da oposição, e também é verdade que ao caso nunca foi dado um desfecho político: as coisas limitavam-se a ser assim, e mais nada.
May 4, 2016
A shockingly grim short horror tale, with elements of dark humor. I can't believe they published this in 1911! I wouldn't advise reading it if you're sensitive about puppies or babies. The story reminded me of Sweeney Todd. It's kind of like a car wreck - ghoulish, but you can't look away. How far will the author go with this story? Pretty darn far. It can be read here: http://americanliterature.com/author/...
February 27, 2019
Sinopsis:
Boffer Bings es un niño que ayuda a su padre llevando perros para elaborar un popular remedio de aceite de perro y a su madre eliminando niños no deseados. Un día, por casualidad, Boffer decide deshacerse de uno de esos niños echándolo al caldero de su padre, consiguiendo así un aceite de mayor calidad. Sus padres deciden fusionar sus tareas hasta que la asamblea pública les prohíbe la actividad. Pero a estos emprendedores les resulta demasiado difícil dejar atrás su nueva y obsesiva pasión.
Aspectos formales:
Consiste en un relato corto, directo, lineal y narrado en primera persona por el niño protagonista, dotándolo así de una vista cercana para rebajar el peso de un juicio moral sobre las actitudes y comportamientos de los personajes. A través de sus ojos, existe una nobleza al margen de todo esto.
Los personajes son siempre consecuentes. De extracción humilde, no ven mal alguno en buscarse la vida. Incluso cuando son miembros relevantes de la Iglesia en la comunidad.
El lenguaje no es complejo ni recargado, pero tampoco simple. Sabe expresar conceptos con perífrasis fluidas que aportan una presencia mayor para un lector cultivado, que no necesariamente culto. Aun siendo el narrador un niño y a pesar de sus orígenes, su forma de expresarse (con un estilo algo pretérito) resulta muy elegante.
La perspectiva carente de brújula moral y sus tintes de humor negro lo convierten en un relato que el lector adulto y menos conservador encontrará simpático y granuja. No por ello podemos tacharlo de imprudente, pues cualquier lector puede comprender que, a pesar de mostrar estos comportamientos despreciables en un tono normalizado (casi cotidiano), en ningún momento se presentan de forma sincera como plausibles.
Boffer Bings es un niño que ayuda a su padre llevando perros para elaborar un popular remedio de aceite de perro y a su madre eliminando niños no deseados. Un día, por casualidad, Boffer decide deshacerse de uno de esos niños echándolo al caldero de su padre, consiguiendo así un aceite de mayor calidad. Sus padres deciden fusionar sus tareas hasta que la asamblea pública les prohíbe la actividad. Pero a estos emprendedores les resulta demasiado difícil dejar atrás su nueva y obsesiva pasión.
Aspectos formales:
Consiste en un relato corto, directo, lineal y narrado en primera persona por el niño protagonista, dotándolo así de una vista cercana para rebajar el peso de un juicio moral sobre las actitudes y comportamientos de los personajes. A través de sus ojos, existe una nobleza al margen de todo esto.
Los personajes son siempre consecuentes. De extracción humilde, no ven mal alguno en buscarse la vida. Incluso cuando son miembros relevantes de la Iglesia en la comunidad.
El lenguaje no es complejo ni recargado, pero tampoco simple. Sabe expresar conceptos con perífrasis fluidas que aportan una presencia mayor para un lector cultivado, que no necesariamente culto. Aun siendo el narrador un niño y a pesar de sus orígenes, su forma de expresarse (con un estilo algo pretérito) resulta muy elegante.
La perspectiva carente de brújula moral y sus tintes de humor negro lo convierten en un relato que el lector adulto y menos conservador encontrará simpático y granuja. No por ello podemos tacharlo de imprudente, pues cualquier lector puede comprender que, a pesar de mostrar estos comportamientos despreciables en un tono normalizado (casi cotidiano), en ningún momento se presentan de forma sincera como plausibles.
November 7, 2022
3/5 estrellas.
Grotesco.
Grotesco.
April 8, 2015
I've arranged my thoughts into a haiku:
"Greed is a foul trait,
But looking at this small town
They've demands to sate."
"Greed is a foul trait,
But looking at this small town
They've demands to sate."
November 1, 2022
“It was intimated by the chairman that any further raids upon the population would be met in a spirit of hostility”. Never mind Stranger Things, here’s Ambrose Bierce with a visit to the real upside down. I read this exquisitely fashioned, Fabergé egg piece of satire with a wide smile on my face but also walked away satisfied that Bierce wasn’t just showing off for the hell of it but actually was on the side of the angels.
This short tale was a recommendation from the esteemable WJEP whose appreciation for tales of hard-working folk succeeding in the business world clearly aligns with my own. I was of course familiar with Bierce’s peerless “The Devil’s Dictionary” but nothing in heaven or the fires of hell prepared me for how strongly I would feel in need of extensive counselling after finishing the eight pages or so of “Oil Of Dog”. Bierce’s air of insouciant, polite irony (the finale features an ironic death on a par with “newspaper editor falls into printing press”) and a character called Boffer Bings who flees to the city of Otumwee sets the innocent reader up to think kindly Uncle Bierce has a mere trifle in store for you; a soufflé, a bit of embryonic Wodehousian flim-flam. His tone is sunny pastoral…and then the first grass snake slithers past. The occupations of Bings’ parents are breath-takingly perverse, the sort of the details that would get modern stand-up comics labelled as “dark” or “edgy” and had this reader thinking “surely that can’t mean what I think it means?”. Bierce, no doubt casually examining his nails, then surrounds the malignancy with everything Disney loves: Bings adores his parents (“the work of my dear mother”), bitterly regrets his part in their downfall and tenderly strokes the “short, silken hair” of a foundling in his arms. He sounds like a really nice guy except for, well, everything really. The result is weapons-grade cognitive dissonance. Bierce, to say the least, has got a keen eye for the absurd – both comic and existential – and you’ve got to admire anyone who can so effectively dynamite the moral ground out from under your feet.
Too much analysis sucks some of the joy out of the writing, though; Bierce writes to be enjoyed (witness the comic invention of calling the prescription medicine Ol.Can.) although this reader feels his effect is probably best when rationed, a weekly piece rather than a binge-read. In the end one walks away from “Oil Of Dog” having certainly been entertained and not a little unnerved and then idly pondering on whether Bierce had a broader message to relay. Surely there could be nothing universal about this odd little tale of naked ambition leading to a spectacular downfall? Of course not. If there were we in 2022 might expect to be living in an age of at least one deeply questionable entrepreneur whose “heedless act entailing so dismal a commercial disaster” to the tune of $44 billion would seem to demand a similar oily end to the Bings. “Alas, that through my fault these estimable persons should have come to so bad an end!”
This short tale was a recommendation from the esteemable WJEP whose appreciation for tales of hard-working folk succeeding in the business world clearly aligns with my own. I was of course familiar with Bierce’s peerless “The Devil’s Dictionary” but nothing in heaven or the fires of hell prepared me for how strongly I would feel in need of extensive counselling after finishing the eight pages or so of “Oil Of Dog”. Bierce’s air of insouciant, polite irony (the finale features an ironic death on a par with “newspaper editor falls into printing press”) and a character called Boffer Bings who flees to the city of Otumwee sets the innocent reader up to think kindly Uncle Bierce has a mere trifle in store for you; a soufflé, a bit of embryonic Wodehousian flim-flam. His tone is sunny pastoral…and then the first grass snake slithers past. The occupations of Bings’ parents are breath-takingly perverse, the sort of the details that would get modern stand-up comics labelled as “dark” or “edgy” and had this reader thinking “surely that can’t mean what I think it means?”. Bierce, no doubt casually examining his nails, then surrounds the malignancy with everything Disney loves: Bings adores his parents (“the work of my dear mother”), bitterly regrets his part in their downfall and tenderly strokes the “short, silken hair” of a foundling in his arms. He sounds like a really nice guy except for, well, everything really. The result is weapons-grade cognitive dissonance. Bierce, to say the least, has got a keen eye for the absurd – both comic and existential – and you’ve got to admire anyone who can so effectively dynamite the moral ground out from under your feet.
Too much analysis sucks some of the joy out of the writing, though; Bierce writes to be enjoyed (witness the comic invention of calling the prescription medicine Ol.Can.) although this reader feels his effect is probably best when rationed, a weekly piece rather than a binge-read. In the end one walks away from “Oil Of Dog” having certainly been entertained and not a little unnerved and then idly pondering on whether Bierce had a broader message to relay. Surely there could be nothing universal about this odd little tale of naked ambition leading to a spectacular downfall? Of course not. If there were we in 2022 might expect to be living in an age of at least one deeply questionable entrepreneur whose “heedless act entailing so dismal a commercial disaster” to the tune of $44 billion would seem to demand a similar oily end to the Bings. “Alas, that through my fault these estimable persons should have come to so bad an end!”
July 23, 2023
Ging so, teilweise interessant, teilweise geschmacklos aus meiner Sicht, alles in allem zum Glück eine kurze Geschichte
September 1, 2024
Así que... Problemas laborables eh.
June 11, 2022
Leído en castellano.
April 5, 2019
Oil of Dog is a macabre short by Ambrose Bierce, we'd call this tale surreal today but it's far from an irrelevant idle fantasy, at its core is an acutely acerbic social satire. It's a much more creative and original piece than Bierce's more widely appreciated, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. Quite why Occurrence... garners so much praise while, Oil... remains relatively obscure is a mystery, perhaps it's the critical tone and moralistic undercurrent of Oil... that literary commentators find unpalatable.
April 14, 2021
Cielo bendito, qué relato más grotesco. Bierce, en apenas un par de párrafos, crea toda una atmósfera tétrica, sucia y decadente. Ya desde su premisa resulta grotesco y, hacia el final, gana en sordidez. Muestra las consecuencias de la avaricia y la hipocresía social; sería incluso posible sacarle alguna lectura en favor de los animales. En todo caso, tampoco es un relato que vaya a recordar muy vivamente, pero ya solo por la forma en que crea su atmósfera vale la pena.
May 27, 2018
The blackest of humor, where our hero takes away all the wrong lessons. Approach with caution as this story may pain your sensibilities, and come near driving you to become a pirate.
You can listen to it or read it for free on PseudoPod: http://pseudopod.org/2010/06/25/pseud...
You can listen to it or read it for free on PseudoPod: http://pseudopod.org/2010/06/25/pseud...
November 17, 2019
My favorite story of his and I've read the majority. A family full of characters written by Brett Easton Ellis in two morally repugnant lines of work engineer their own downfall with a narrator you detest on all levels.
Good times.
Good times.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 3, 2014
OUTSTANDING!
This one funny guy. Funny being the key word. I would love to have had the chance to talk with him.
This one funny guy. Funny being the key word. I would love to have had the chance to talk with him.
June 4, 2014
Lovely dark short story ...
January 4, 2016
Ambrose Bierce, otro autor que me encuentro plenamente segura, que tuvo una familia perturbadora.
June 26, 2016
This is dark humour. A tale of murder, suicide, anger, hatred and most importantly greed. It's short or otherwise I'd give it a pass. But because it has a message it's worth the read. 3 stars.
March 31, 2020
*3.5 Aceite de Perro
Read
February 13, 2023Zabawowo
August 6, 2022
🙂😃😃😃😘 5 🌟. Short but precise. Jiji a complicated transaction. Jijiji 😅😅
September 28, 2022
Quede-
December 29, 2023
[1890] Que fuese publicado en 1890 en el periódico The Oakland Tribune me asombra aún más que el propio contenido del relato que es truculento pero un poco soso.
March 5, 2024
Lo leí en Literatura Universal en el instituto y fue toda una experiencia
April 10, 2024
Until I read this I didn’t know why it was called
February 8, 2025
Me acabo de traumar
May 28, 2025
Me pregunto que tanto le afectara al prota todo lo que ocurrio, porque al final no parecia tan afectado.
February 6, 2026
¿Es normal tener una obsesión con este cuento desde los trece años?
June 6, 2022
Bien relato. Buen toque de ironía. Tuve que releer un par de pasajes para comprender mejor.
Igual creo que sobra en el top.
Igual creo que sobra en el top.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 43 reviews