Name: Fifteen Dogs
ISBN: 9781781255582

André Alexis

A pack of dogs are granted the power of human thought - but what will it do to them? A surprising and insightful look at the beauty and perils of consciousness.

Fifteen Dogs

— I wonder, said Hermes, what it would be like if animals had human intelligence.
— I'll wager a year's servitude, answered Apollo, that animals – any animal you like – would be even more unhappy than humans are, if they were given human intelligence.

And so it begins: a bet between the gods Hermes and Apollo leads them to grant human consciousness and language to a group of dogs overnighting at a Toronto vet­erinary clinic. Suddenly capable of more complex thought, the pack is torn between those who resist the new ways of thinking, preferring the old 'dog' ways, and those who embrace the change. The gods watch from above as the dogs venture into their newly unfamiliar world, as they become divided among themselves, as each struggles with new thoughts and feelings. Wily Benjy moves from home to home, Prince becomes a poet, and Majnoun forges a relationship with a kind couple that stops even the Fates in their tracks.

André Alexis's contemporary take on the apologue offers an utterly compelling and affecting look at the beauty and perils of human consciousness. By turns meditative and devastating, charming and strange, Fifteen Dogs shows you can teach an old genre new tricks.

Patrick Book

I wish I had read this when we bought it over a year ago so that I could have read it many times over by now. What a delight.

Sarah Sammis

I like the idea of it. I like the social commentary aspects of it. I don't like the typeface or the punctuation. Using m-dashes instead of quotation marks makes for a monotone mental read. 

In terms of dogs as view of man's inhumanity to man, I prefer The Plague Dogs and I Thought You Were Dead.

http://pussreboots.com/blog/2017/comm...

Wynter

For an animal lover like me this was difficult to read. Naturally, when gods give innocent animals human intellect, things must turn out bad. Such is the premise of Andre Alexis' award-winning novel. Equal parts social satire and a philosophical debate on the nature of happiness, Fifteen Dogs tugs on our heartstrings, as its canine characters fall victims to human faults. Even more heart-breaking for me is the realisation that if the novel's subjects were people, I would probably not have such a strong reaction. This in turn reminds me how desensitised I've become to the terrible ways we as humans treat each other every day.

Winner of the Giller Prize 2015 Winner of the Writers' Trust Fiction Prize 2015 It begins in a bar, like so many strange stories. The gods Hermes and Apollo argue about what would happen if animals had human intelligence, so they make a bet that leads them to grant consciousness and language to a group of dogs staying overnight at a veterinary clinic. Suddenly capable of complex thought, the dogs escape and become a pack. They are torn between those who resist the new ways of thinking, preferring the old 'dog' ways, and those who embrace the change. The gods watch from above as the dogs venture into unfamiliar territory, as they become divided among themselves, as each struggles with new thoughts and feelings. Wily Benjy moves from home to home, Prince becomes a poet, and Majnoun forges a relationship with a kind couple that stops even the Fates in their tracks. Engaging and strange, full of unexpected insights into human and canine minds, this contemporary take on the apologue is the most extraordinary book you'll read this year.

Jaclyn Margaret

lovely and witty and profound and MEMORABLE. i can’t count how many people i’ve explained this premise to to try to get them to read it — “so hermes and apollo are in a bar in toronto…”

Stefanie

I have no idea how to rate this book. It‘s either genius or utter crap - and I don‘t know which 😱

Laura Springall

Actual rating ★★.5

If this book was longer I would have DNF'd within the first 10 pages to be perfectly honest, this was a mission to get through. As a disclaimer though, this is not a genre I typically enjoy. I picked this book up years ago at a used bookstore because it sounded mildly interesting and was also only $3. It has sat on my shelf ever since because I knew as soon as I got home that I probably wouldn't enjoy it, but I finally made myself read it because one of my reading goals for the year is to actually read the books I have on my shelf. If not for that, I would never have picked this one up.

So what's going on here?
Hermes and Apollo walk into a bar (which sounds like the beginning of a bad joke lmfao) in Toronto one night, and wonder "what it would be like if animals had human intelligence." By the end of their conversation, a bet has been made and the pair find themselves in a veterinary clinic where they give the fifteen dogs staying there for the night human intelligence. What follows are the stories of said fifteen dogs throughout the remainder of their lives. 

What I loved
I'll be honest, I didn't love much here. It was interesting enough that I managed to get myself through it, and I did find this book to be thought provoking. The dogs are seeing the human world, our world, in a whole new way, but still from the perspective of a dog of course. I found it interesting the ways they described and saw our world, the customs we have that don't make sense from an outside perspective, etc. It's not something I would have any desire to read again or anything, but I didn't completely hate it at least. And I did actually really like the poems. For some reason I decided to read the "note on the text" in the back before I was very far along, and found the info about the type of poetry it is to be fascinating. I had never head of that kind of poetry and had fun trying to find the dogs names within them.

What I didn't love
I think my main issue with this was the plot and pacing. When people have asked me if I prefer books that are plot driven or character driven, I've never known which I like better. Fifteen Dogs made me realize that I definitely prefer plot driven novels. I do really enjoy heavy focus on characters, and need good character development in order to feel any kind of connection to them, but I found Fifteen Dogs to take it too far. Maybe it was how it was written or the nature of the characters, but I found it be extremely difficult to connect with anyone in this story. I just didn't care, except maybe a tiny bit for Majnoun and Prince at the very end. The writing and dialogue felt very disconnected from any sort of emotion, which again may just be the nature of the characters as they don't experience emotion the same way humans do. But regardless it was difficult to read and enjoy. I think I would have liked it more if there was a bit of dark humour thrown in here and there, it felt like the right setting for it. But instead it was very dry and stale.

Overall thoughts
Not horrible, but I doubt I'll feel inclined to pick up anything else from this author or genre. I'm just very underwhelmed, but at least it was a quick read and I can finally take this off my TBR shelf

Fifteen Dogs

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