Red Dog [Hardcover]

Louis De Bernieres (Author), Alan Baker (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 11, 2001

In 1998, Louis de Bernieres—acclaimed author of Corelli’s Mandolin—came upon a bronze statue in a town on Australia’s northwestern coast and was immediately compelled to know more about “Red Dog.” He did not have to go far: everyone for hundreds of miles in every direction seemed to have a story about Red Dog. He was a Red Cloud Kelpie, a breed of sheepdog known for its energy and cleverness. But Red Dog was a kind of ultra-Kelpie, energetic and clever enough for an entire breed in himself.

Dubbed a “professional traveler” rather than a stray, Red Dog established his own transportation system, hitchhiking between far-flung towns and female dogs in cars whose engine noises he’d memorized and whose drivers he’d charmed. The call of the wild was matched by the call of the supper dish; Red Dog’s appetite was as legendary as his exploits. Everyone wanted to adopt him (one group of workers made him a member of their union), but Red Dog would be adopted by—or, more precisely, he would adopt—only one man: a bus driver whose love life quickly began to suffer and who never quite recovered from Red Dog’s relentlessly affectionate presence.

Independent, clever, sly, stubborn, courageous and foolhardy, impatient with boredom and the boring, Red Dog endeared himself to (almost) everyone who crossed his path. These funny, surprising, and touching stories of his life are certain to endear him to every reader.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Red Dog is a book by a writer in love. While passing through a town in the Australian outback, novelist Louis de Bernières discovered a statue of a dog. Intrigued, he made inquiries, and was swamped by locals with tales of a wildly charismatic creature named Tally Ho. De Bernières, author of Corelli's Mandolin, has fashioned a charming picaresque of Tally's misdeeds and misadventures, not least of which involve the animal's enormous appetite (complemented by an equally enormous flatulence). "Tally," he writes, "was the most notorious canine dustbin in the whole neighbourhood. With apparent relish he ate paper bags, sticks, dead rats, butterflies, apple peel, eggshells, used tissues and socks." De Bernières' enchantment with this "dustbin" is a reflection of a larger rapture: here is a writer who has fallen for Australia itself. He wittily captures the country's cadences, its landscape, its weakness for the (literal) underdog. --Claire Dederer

From Publishers Weekly

The best stories about animals are really stories about the people who form bonds with them, and therein lies the central fault of this extremely slender effort from the celebrated author of Corelli's Mandolin. Apparently, de BerniŠres was so taken with a statue of a sheepdog he found in an unnamed town in Australia that he had to uncover the sources that fed the local legend. He transformed them into this picaresque narrative, a series of tall tales, written in a self-consciously folksy style about the animal known variously as Red Dog, Tally Ho and Bluey. Because de BerniŠres anthropomorphizes him, Red Dog comes across as all too human, while the people who know and love him are mere stick figures; the author acknowledges he "invented" them and it shows. While the dog does possess an uncanny ability to make his wants and needs known (more probably, it's the uncanny predilection for humans to interpret the dog's various "communications"), these tall tales simply aren't tall enough. To be effective, the anecdotes that make up the book should be surprising, amazing or at the very least delightful, but Red Dog's adventures are mundane. The dog is clearly meant to evoke the pioneering Australian's conception of himself: independent, resourceful, footloose and stubborn. Red Dog is also prone to aggressive flatulence, presumably not an element of the Australian character. No doubt there was an Australian sheepdog that was well-loved by a circle that transcended a single family or even a town, but it's a stretch to turn that idea into a book, even one as slight as this one. Dog lovers might bite, but other readers should beware. The book is charmingly illustrated by Alan Baker, and includes a useful glossary of "Australianisms."

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 119 pages
• Publisher: Pantheon; 1ST edition (September 11, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375421556
• ISBN-13: 978-0375421556
• Product Dimensions: 7.2 x 5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #841,688 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Louis de Bernieres was awarded the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best Book Eurasia Region in 1991 and 1992, and for Best Book in 1995. He was selected by Granta as one of the twenty Best of Young British Novelists in 1993, and lives in Norfolk, East Anglia.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Red Dog -Louis de Bernieres, September 26, 2004

By 

John Mackay - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Red Dog (Hardcover)

This is bound to become a classic, like "The Snow Goose". De Berniere has captured a disappearing Australia - frontier Western Australia in the not-too distant past.

Like many good novels in the last decade ("Dirt Music","Cloud Street" "The Shark Net"), it is set in Western Australia. It is a story for all ages, told in simple, unfussy narrative. It does not idealise the dog, its friends or enemies. I am suprised that it has been dismissed by some as a "children's book". I cannot imagine why.

Any dog lover would be delighted by this novella.

I just hope it's not made into a film. It's a narrative that can only live on the page.

It can be read in a few hours, but its effect will last for years.

John MacKay, Sydney Australia

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Charming, February 8, 2002

By 

taking a rest - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Red Dog (Hardcover)

Louis De Bernieres has written some marvelous literature. "Red Dog", is a wonderful true story about a dog that befriended a good portion of Australia, and has been memorialized with a bronze statue as well as other books. Faithful readers of this author will likely be disappointed if they expect another sweeping novel. This short story does not appear to have been planned, as it unfolds with crisp episodes in the remarkable life of this canine. It is extremely unusual in that the book has been illustrated with what appear to be etchings. Illustration has sadly become the domain of primarily very expensive, limited edition, small press books.

This is not a child's book, perhaps for young readers in Junior High, but not for young children. This is a book about adults and how a remarkably charismatic canine changed their lives. This is not a fairly tale, it includes the realities of very trying circumstances and the people who pioneer the way in this extremely difficult environment. When it gets hot in the USA warnings suggest certain groups stay indoors. When it gets hot down under, warnings are issued for gas tanks that are prone to explode when exposed to the sun!

I think it is great that an author who has established himself as an accomplished literary writer would have the courage to step well away from what has worked for him repeatedly. I was reminded of some of John Steinbeck's work that centered around animals, both his own and fictional. If John Steinbeck can make the change I believe it is safe for other accomplished authors to explore unfamiliar genres, and they do not deserve to be punished for doing so. This is especially the case when the results are so worthwhile. I was going to give this 4 stars but I stepped it up to 5. The book was punished and I wanted to even out what is a brief but entering read.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A nice tail (pun intended) about a red dog and his human friends., January 15, 2009

By 

My color - See all my reviews

This review is from: Red Dog. Louis de Bernires (Paperback)

Personally I was lost on what to think about this particular book of Bernieres. I am an avid fan of Bernieres and have gone through all of his books in a sip, either loving them to the death or tossing them away (I am particularly talking about the Partisan's Daughter) yet this book left me unsure of myself.

First of all the brilliance of Louis de Bernieres' writing seemed to be absent from this one, it sure wasn't The War Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts, much less witty and a lot more direct. Leaving nothing to the imagination (well of course aside from the story but there was another quality with Don Emmanuel) it was truly writing like it should be told to a child on a bedside. Sure that doesn't make it less notable but it usually lacks wittiness when it lacks maturity. And I was looking forward to some wittiness that'll make me smile and giggle on my own for no apparent reason.

But I cannot go on denying the fact that it is a lovely and heartwarming story that like it is so common in Bernieres' work lets you in on another culture that you did not know that much about, this time, Australian. A dog's relationship with humans could not have been told better. And you still cried and laughed without getting bored throughout the book.

It's not a huge or heavy book that will take too much of your time, it's a very nice book to relax, to take your mind off of things and to connect with life again but it's not an excellent book.