Customer Reviews

Doghead: A Novel

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

"Doghead" is the multigenerational saga of the Erickisson family, beginning with Grandpa Askild, a concentration camp survivor, architect with a fondness for cubism, and an alcoholic. His motto is that reality is not for children, but his descendants encounter plenty of reality through his often bizarre behavior. When one generation reaches adulthood and becomes (slightly) less interesting, the focus shifts to their children, who have their own quirks, colorful nicknames and dark secrets. The novel is narrated by Askild's grandson Asger (who gets the most nicknames if you check the family tree) and of course, has unresolved issues and must come to terms with his complicated history. Actually, the novel doesn't use psychobabble; that's just a lazy way to summarize things.

If I had to describe this book in three adjectives, they'd be "ambitious," "hilarious" and "messy." Every few pages, someone gets sprayed with bodily fluids, has a painful accident or dies in a most un-dignified fashion. Plus there's alcoholism, child abuse, incest and poverty, and other issues Plus oodles of family dysfunction. (If Oprah gets a hold of a copy, "Doghead" may become a bestseller in the U.S., as well as Europe.) It's like "Hotel New Hampshire" crossed with "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" with enough gross-out parts to fill a Farrelly brothers comedy. Still, it works. But I'm going to make a sexist generalization here and predict that whether or not you find the book "masterful" (as a copy review puts it) or merely good might depend on your gender.

This novel tells the story of three generations of the Eriksson family as narrated by the grandson, Asger. It begins with the grandfather, Askild, who was hailed as a hero after WWII, but later came to life as a fraud who was actually a shady war profiteer and that he betrayed his best friend in order to survive concentration camp. Askild is not a very likeable character as he is a drunk and blames everyone else for his problems. He marries the beautiful and sweet Bjork who for some reason stays with him throughout the years.

Then there is the father, Niels Junior, aka Jug Ears, who has enormous ears for most of his life and is constantly teased about them. He has to learn to live with his father, as his father steals his antique coins from him in order to buy drinks and is constantly moving the family because he cannot keep a job. Niels draws monsters on the walls and learns how to kick other boys in their privates in order to exact revenge for the name calling. Neils grows up to become a workacholic, anything to separate him from his father, and grows quite distant from his family.

Finally there is Asger who tapes his sister having sexual relations with her boyfriends and shares the cassettes with his friends. Before long word gets around town that his sister is a slut and Asger is sorry but it is too late. There are other eccentric characters in the book, i.e., Anne Katrine, Askild and Bjork's retarded daughter who grows up to be very obese and is obsessed with Asger. There's also Knut, the youngest son of Askild and Bjork, who broke his sister's heart when he ran off to sea and he is primarily absent except through stories throughout the novel.

None of these characters ever really straighten out and become overwhelmingly decent people. Although the novel is funny, it is sad also. It is a very bleak view of human nature as shown through this dysfunctional family. However it makes for a great read and is truly well written. You don't want to miss these amazing characters and the story of their lives.

I chose this book for the cover and it turned out to be great. It is about a dysfunctional family narrated from the point of view of Asger (Askild's grandson). I laughed a lot! I kept getting surprised as the story developed into more complex scenes. This novel would be great for a movie!

How did this book receive so many awards? This saga came straight out of old slapstick movies and pratfalls of the Three Stooges. The humor is "potty humor." Gee whiz, "nut kickers," "swilling down glasses of pee," and drunks pucking. Perhaps humor in Europe takes a different turn. Why did this Danish author portray the family as Norwegian? Is this as like an abusive old-fashioned Polish joke? To compare this with T.C. Boyle When the Killing's Done: A Novel [Hardcover] or "Angela's Ashes" Angela's Ashes: A Memoir is absurd.

This is a great story that deserves all the praise, especially after knowing that this was the first novel of a young author in Denmark!

This novel is written in a beautiful pros. It describes the story of a danish dysfunctional family through three generations narrated by the youngest person in the family... It travels through different times and flashbacks of different characters starting with the grandfather,Asklid and his struggle with alcoholism, travels,raising his kids and above all keeping the deceitful secret of his heroic action during the war .... This will go through the other stories of his wife, kids,nephew,grand kids ,friends and the image of doghead: each one has a separate life but all the threads are inseparable....
Highly recommended!

I love quirky family books, coming from a quirky family myself. I really laughed hard at some of the parts of this book, and could relate to some of the characters. I loved this book - one of my top 20.

This won a lot of prizes, but the juries must have been made up of adolescent boys. I can't imagine this appealing to anyone else. It's full of preposterous, unpleasant characters getting into preposterous situations, moving from town to town in Denmark and Norway, living on who knows what -- nothing in it is believable, or very interesting. The humor is of the bathroom -- actually outhouse, because these people don't seem to have indoor plumbing -- variety, and particularly disgusting even for that kind of thing. I got a little over halfway through and gave up.

Since I was born and raised in Denmark I thought I would enjoy this book. I didn't.
Halfway through I threw out the book.