The book:
Picking from so many great books in so many styles can be very difficult. Fortunately for us, this Christmas we discovered a new book so exciting that our first Shelf Improvement pick of 2016 was done before the year started!
Trinidadian-Canadian Andre Alexis is an author who has been steadily gaining critical recognition – and literary awards – for his vibrant storytelling. Fifteen Dogs is fascinating from the opening. Greek Gods and half-brothers Hermes and Apollo are arguing in a bar, about the nature of humanity, so a bet is made about what would happen if animals were granted the same ‘gift’. The titular fifteen dogs from a nearby veterinary clinic are bestowed with human intelligence and, not before some debate, escape into the wide world.
Alexis’ story follows the way of the gods, tugging at political, existential and allegorical thoughts. As it weaves its wonderfully surreal way to its conclusion, Fifteen Dogs reveals itself as far more than a fantastical story about dogs who can think. We hope you enjoy this exciting and thoughtful story as much as we did.
What the Guardian thought:
Expectations are set spinning from the very first sentence, which gives us the gods Apollo and Hermes having a quiet drink at the Wheat Sheaf Tavern in Toronto’s High Park. They discuss humanity, as gods do, and end up agreeing a wager, as is also the godly way. Give animals human intelligence, Apollo claims, and they’ll end up even more unhappy than humans are. The two of them happen to be near a veterinary clinic where 15 dogs are being kennelled overnight, so these become the guinea pigs for their Olympian experiment.
They make a motley pack, as a glance at the book’s “Dramatis Canes” will suggest, and indeed much of the dogs’ energy during their first days of freedom is spent working out their hierarchy. There is a flurry of violence, and for a time the book looks as though it will turn into a canine version of Lord of the Flies, but Alexis has little interest in doggedly following his premise to its most obvious conclusions. As well as their new problem-solving skills and introspection, the dogs perceive a deepening in their natural language, such that they can soon communicate abstract ideas.
Not that all of them are happy with their accelerated evolution. Atticus, the pack’s de facto leader, says, “We must learn to be dogs again”, and there is an interesting play on the idea of primitivism – that they end up “performing” doggishness, making barking sounds, rather than simply barking. There is a night of the long knives to eradicate the new thinkers, but two escape, and the book escapes with them. These are Majnoun, a black poodle who developed the new language, and Prince, who has started using it to invent rather good poetry. Majnoun, badly wounded, is taken in by a couple, Nira and Miguel. He becomes particularly attached to Nira and, in a further leap that in any other book you would have to call unrealistic, learns to understand and then speak English.
That this flagrantly lunatic twist works should give an idea of quite how impressive Fifteen Dogs, an award winner in Canada, is. Alexis doesn’t make a big deal of his twists and shifts; he just gets on with exploring the very local effects of the miracle on his characters, who seem to chew on the novel’s language the way a dog chews a favourite bone. There are also gobbets of lit crit and, in the end, a decent serving of pathos, which is, after all, the only thing we’ve got over the gods. I’m far from being a dog person, but as a book person I loved this smart, exuberant fantasy from start to finish.
Jonathan Gibbs - Read the full review
If you liked this, then try:
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Gods Behaving Badly by Marie Doherty
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Only the Animals by Ceridwen Dovey
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Spill, Simmer, Falter, Wither by Sara Baume
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