By Gwendolyn Dawson Thomas Pletzinger’s imaginative novel, Funeral for a Dog, proceeds on two parallel planes.  One plane is inhabited by the present-day diary entries of German journalist/ethnographer Daniel Mandelkern recording a brief visit to the Italian lakeside home of reclusive children’s book author Dirk Svensson.  The other plane consists of Svensson’s previously-written memoir about his travels through New York …