Customer Reviews

The Dogs: A Modern Bestiary

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Rebecca Brown is one of the riskiest, most revelatory fiction writers around. The Dogs is at turns mythical, agoraphobic, profound, and suspenseful. It is easy to miss what makes Brown so powerful, because her prose is full of understatement. But her words are amazingly deliberate, almost incantatory, and the end effect is a terrifying, transcendent thrill ride. The Dogs is a fascinating story and - like other Brown books - an exhilerating read. Brown doesn't take any easy exits, and this is what makes her work so fascinating - it cuts to the heart of the most difficult, inexplicable human emotions and lets the reader dwell there for awhile. I highly recommend The Dogs.

Rebecca Brown's books are challenging - they are beautiful and worth it. The bad reviews that she receives on here tell me nothing more than the writers weren't immediately gratified and lost their patience anticipating the climax or clarity spelled out for them in no uncertain terms, unaware that reading is a process in and of itself and that the most successful writers do not always tell you exactly what to think and when - some books reveal themselves slowly. Enjoy her words, the sentences, and the structure no matter how unconventional, without trying to rush her to a conclusion or a resolution because if that's all you're looking for you'll be left wanting. These are not feel good vignettes and are pretty moving. Reading Brown is an immensely satisfying experience for me.

When is a dog not a dog? When it is anything and everything else. In The Dogs, Rebecca Brown uses the totality of dogness--their bodies, habits, history, and varied relationships to human beings--as a literary tool through which to examine the depths of a tormented human mind. What struck me most about this work is that by making the dogs as real or unreal as she wanted, Brown gave herself a huge range in which to explore her subject.

The first chapter of The Dogs is entitled "Dog, in which is illustrated Immanence." Immanence means "having existence only in the mind." At first, this might sound limiting, but with The Dogs, Brown shows us just how vast the mind can be.

Rebecca Brown's books are challenging - they are beautiful and worth it. The bad reviews that she receives on here tell me nothing more than the writers weren't immediately gratified and lost their patience anticipating the climax or clarity spelled out for them in no uncertain terms, unaware that reading is a process in and of itself and that the most successful writers do not always tell you exactly what to think and when - some books reveal themselves slowly. Enjoy her words, the sentences, and the structure no matter how unconventional, without trying to rush her to a conclusion or a resolution because if that's all you're looking for you'll be left wanting. These are not feel good vignettes and are pretty moving. Reading Brown is an immensely satisfying experience for me.

This is my favorite book of all time. Hearing Rebecca read in the backroom of the speakeasy café made me pause and consider what Kathy Acker had done, and done well, but her books weren't my favorite any more. Rebecca's book is at the intersection of reality and fantasy, narrator and Miss Dog being on one hand and getting a woman back from a bar and then showing her to not to rush by taking off of her clothes too fast.

The Miss Dog dialogue is definitely fantasy, yeah. I mean, really no dog really could order the narrator around and humiliate her with questions and displaying a riding crop hitting her hand or paw, right? In retrospect there is something more like reality that has little fantasy in it when the narrator, gets a girl back after a bar. Immediately upon arrival the girl unbuttoned her shirt threw it over a paw coming from under the bed. The girl was impatient (the kind of girl the narrator used to like.) After bed, the narrator says "I think you should go." Immediately she dispatches the no nonsense no fantasy girl.

Praise won't win you anything with Rebecca, pleading for her mercy won't get you anywhere either. She has a commanding mastery of her stories which will tease you and make you not just patient but very patient when she unravels with the outcome because she does strip bare the ferocious rituals of what some people call love but is really the animalistic nature of sex and need.

This novel is one of those rare works that reminds a reader what great literature can be. Part fable, part diary, this often sadomasochistic rendering of the psyche is at first a voyeuristic view into the world of a madwoman, then on closer inspection reveals the workings of the mind of everyone...ultimately a zen meditation, this book goes beyond the chiches of the zen void and offers the reader a talisman of amazing power. The only book I've read that truly has the power to heal and transform. Kirkus sucks.

As I began this book, I was enthralled by the writing - moving easily between the real, the fantastic, the medieval, the fairy-world. The Doberman of the title both is and isn't; is frendly, protective, sadistic leading one ever closer to understanding the phobias of the unnamed narrator.

Unfortunately, from my perspective, as the Dobermans take over, the writer (not the narrator) looses control and a novel with great promise goes plop!

I will perhaps try another piece by the author as there was much promise. I understand why some will enjoy (and defend) this book. But with so many books to read and so little time to read them, I can't recommend this.

Is this Rebecca Brown the same Rebecca Brown MD that wrote "He Came to Set the Captives Free", "Becoming a Vessel of Honor", and "Unbroken Curses".? It is important for me to have this information. Thank you.

What a waste of good ink. Hopefully no trees died for this book. Pretentious, slaps you in the face with blatent symbolism. Obviously this writer has issues that need to be resolved with intense psychotherapy.