The Art of Racing in the Rain: Chapter 5 Summary & Analysis

Enzo pauses the narrative to lament his lack of thumbs, beginning by saying that monkeys, practically the dumbest species on earth, have thumbs. The duck-billed platypus is the stupidest, but only marginally more so than a monkey. The thumbs of the monkeys were meant for dogs. Enzo says, "give me my thumbs, you fucking monkeys!" and then, as an aside, says he loves the Al Pacino remake of Scarface, although it is incomparable to the excellent Godfather movies.

Enzo says he watches too much TV. Denny turns it on in the morning when he leaves, and warns Enzo not to watch all day, but he does anyway. Fortunately, Denny lets Enzo watch a lot of Speed Channel and NASCAR because racing is Enzo's favorite, but Denny also insists on leaving other channels on for variety. When he's watching other channels like PBS or the Discovery Channel, Enzo learns about other cultures and ways of life, which leads him to think about his own life and what makes sense and what doesn't.

Many shows discuss Darwin at length. The educational shows Enzo's watched on evolution are very well thought out and researched in Enzo's opinion, although he doesn't understand why evolution and creation can't coexist. Enzo sees spiritualism and science as one, the marriage of bodies and spirits in one human package. Instead, scientific theorists go on at length about how monkeys are the most closely related species to humans. Enzo believes this is speculation. Enzo says the most important idea isn't whether humans came from monkeys or fish, it's that when the body became human enough, a human soul slipped in.

Enzo's theory is that primates are not the closest relatives to humans, as those on TV believe, but dogs are. His first case-in-point is a dog’s dew claw, which he believes is evidence of a pre-emergent thumb. Enzo believes, further, that men have bred the thumb out of certain dog breeds through selective breeding in an attempt to prevent dogs from evolving into dexterous and dangerous mammals.

Enzo believes that the domestication of dogs is motivated by the fear that if left to evolve on their own, dogs would develop thumbs and smaller tongues and would then be superior to men. This is the reason why dogs must live under constant human supervision. Enzo believes that this plan was hatched in a back room of the White House by an evil adviser and a president lacking in morality and intellect. Enzo believes they made the correct assessment that dogs are all progressive on social issues, although this assessment comes from paranoia rather than spiritual insight.

Enzo's second case-in-point is the werewolf. When the man steps out of the forest on the full moon, he doesn't find himself transformed into a monkey.