By André Alexis, 2015
What a fun way to think about humanity – by stepping outside
of human consciousness and seeing what it might look like from outside. It’s
also an interesting speculation about what dog consciousness might be if dogs had
a human sort of consciousness (raising right there the question of what
consciousness is, what part of it is based on intelligence and what is innate and
if it’s innate what part might be universal, or at least cross-species — and then
there are the hints of god-consciousness). This sounds like a heavy philosophical
debate, which it is, but not in the sense of a dry treatise debated among
specialists. Instead, André Alexis tackles it with humour and fun.
The combination of humour, empathy, art and deep thought make
this book quite unique. It’s comic and entertaining in many ways, especially in
how the dogs and the gods perceive the foibles of humanity. When Apollo says to
Hermes, don’t insult me by arguing like a human, it’s a comic reflection that flips
over human arrogance and puts it in its place. The humour lightens up a story
that might be too sad without it, as does the artfulness of Alexis’ prose. When
he describes how the dogs perceive the world through scents and doggy
enthusiasms (“the excitement of biting on a new stick”), he offers a genuine
insight into different ways of seeing and appreciating the world. And the dogs’
verbal jokes and poems are both fun and poetic. They get at a kind of
consciousness that humans don’t appreciate, but can find some empathy with.
The story is, of course, sad, as it deals with life and
death. Life is a struggle for the dogs, as it is even without consciousness,
but it becomes quite poignant as they are able to contemplate what they want in
their lives and the hardships they face. The deaths of the dogs, often
occurring quite quickly but sometimes after a full life, is poignant because
readers come to know them as sympathetic characters. Even the unsympathetic
characters seem to deserve more than they get, and that too is a reflection on
human life.
Given that the dogs are granted human intelligence, and in
many ways think like humans, it’s disturbing how quickly the pack falls into
something like fascism. Some are disturbed by the dogs who think for themselves,
and especially by the artist in the pack, because it threatens the hierarchy
and the established structure of their society. In this telling, all the dogs accept
the hierarchical nature of pack society, but even so free thinkers are seen as
a threat that has to be eliminated. If the dogs are an analogue for human society,
the story illustrates the rise and the strength of fascism. It’s only through
luck or divine intervention that the artists escape fascistic repression.
The real interest, of course, is in the lives of the artists
and thinkers. Their conflict with the pack leads the philosophical Majnoun to
life with a human who uses her intelligence to communicate. But it leads the
poetic Prince to life as an outsider, who interacts with some sympathetic humans
but can’t share his vision either with them or with other dogs. What the storyline
suggests is that life is brutish and short for the unthinking, but it can have
beauty, connection, even happiness, in spite of many challenges, for those who use
their intelligence. This is the message we get from other stories set among
humans, but setting it in a doggy consciousness simplifies it and gives it a
satisfying conclusion. The storyline would probably seem trite if the
characters were humans, but that’s the benefit of a fable – the author can take
fundamental truths and give them a novel quality.
Some people compare this novel to dystopian stories like Animal
Farm and Lord of the Flies, but I think it has little in common with
them. It’s more about communication, like stories about first contact with
alien species. Here, the dogs and the gods make contact with humans in a doomed
struggle to connect that nevertheless is worth the effort.
