[REVIEW] Fifteen Dogs by André Alexis

171 pages, $17.95

Review by Lynne Weiss

Fifteen Dogs, the latest novel by Canadian writer Andre Alexis, compellingly explores the human condition—the need for purpose, spiritual sustenance, food, sex, sensual gratification, and most of all, for love and language—through the perspective of fifteen dogs who have been given human consciousness in the course of a bet between Hermes and Apollo.

All fifteen dogs happen to be in a veterinary clinic next to the Toronto tavern where Hermes and Apollo formulate their wager. “I’ll wager a year’s servitude,” says Apollo, “that animals—any animals you choose—would be even more unhappy than humans are if they had human intelligence.”

Apollo’s brother Hermes (they are both sons of Zeus), accepts the bet on the condition that if even one of the creatures to whom they grant human consciousness dies happy, he wins the bet.

And the race is on. Once the gods change their consciousness, one of the dogs, Majnoun, figures out how to open his own kennel cage as well as those of the others and the back door of the clinic. The dogs leave, the clinic door shuts behind them, and the fifteen dogs are locked out of their old world of dog consciousness, exiled in their new world of human consciousness. Three of the fifteen dogs refuse to leave and wait by the back door for the morning arrival of the clinic staff. One of these is put down, as intended, but with a painful awareness of what is happening to her. The other two go back to their owners, but their new insight into their owner’s perspective brings pain and frustration.

The other twelve, confronted by a world that “seemed new and marvelous and yet … familiar and banal,” set off to make a new life, sticking together as a pack. Problems of dominance and echelon soon beset them. “… who would lead,” Majnoun wonders, “and who would he choose to follow?” There is the question of leadership within the pack of dogs, but there is also the question of whether dogs can truly be dogs without a master. “But the word master evoked in all of them feelings that did and did not call for hiding.” For some dogs, such as the teacup poodle Athena, masters are people who carry her around. Majnoun, however, both takes pride in and resents his ability to do a master’s bidding. Were it not for the treats, and not just the treats themselves, but the feelings of pleasing someone, Majnoun might have run away even before receiving human consciousness. But “now that he was free, there was no use thinking about treats at all.”

While most of the dogs are caught up in the struggles for dominance, one dog, Prince, becomes fascinated with his newfound linguistic abilities. He alone welcomes the new consciousness. He divides the day into portions. He asks questions. He makes puns, he invents words, and worst of all, he makes up poems. He is soon driven out of the pack, but not of course, out of the story. Atticus, who becomes the pack’s leader, suffers as well. For him, “all the old pleasures—sniffing at an anus, burying one’s nose where a friend’s genitals were, mounting those with lower status—could no longer be had without crippling self-consciousness.” Atticus’s longing for the old ways drives him to what could be called fascism in his dictatorship of what is and is not culturally acceptable and his orders to execute those who disobey. Under Atticus’s leadership, the pack becomes “an imitation of an imitation of dogs” and all that had once been natural is turned into ritual. Benjy, one of the last of the low-status dogs, realizes that he is “in his way as necessary as the leader, for if there is a top, there must necessarily be a bottom.” This awareness gives Benjy the power to turn the tables on the pack and save himself.

Majnoun is among the dogs the pack tries to kill for his inability to accept the new order. Left for dead, he is rescued by a pair of humans who treat him well. Eventually, Majnoun reveals his ability to speak and reason to his human master, a woman named Nira, and while this revelation initially threatens his relationship with Nira, over time it allows a close and profound connection. Nonetheless, Majnoun’s death is not the one that decides the bet. That role is left to Prince, the dog whose love of language brings the book to its final, moving close, and the dog who, while he does not generally occupy the center of this story, is no doubt the creature who best exemplifies this gifted author’s perspective.

***

Lynne Weiss’s work has appeared in Circa: A Journal of Historical Fiction; Black Warrior Review; and Brain, Child; as well as the blogs of The Common, Ploughshares, and PANK. She has received grants and residency awards from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the Millay Colony, the Vermont Studio Center, and Yaddo.