Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Brilliant, absolutely heart-rending story, October 31, 1999
By A Customer
This has got to be the best novel I've ever read, and I've read a lot. It is the sheer quality of Richard Adam's insight and imagination that makes this stand out. Two dogs, Snitter and Rowf escape into the isolation of the wilderness, and from there Adams paints an emotional and stark painting of the two dogs' suffering. Snitter's story of his life with his master is really heart-rending and all the characters are meticulously portrayed. The main complaint about this book is that his prose can get a bit intense at times, and I admit it took a while to get flowing in Adams's narrative. Get past that and you'll come to appreciate the thoroughness and beauty of his writing. In addition to being emotive and suspenseful this is a brilliant attack on animal experimentation and how we (humans) can be so cruel and irrational, and really if you miss this, you miss the book!!
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29 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
I marked this book with post-it's, February 20, 2003
"Some say deep sleep is dreamless and that we dream only in the moments before awakening, experiencing during seconds the imagined occurances of minutes or hours. Others have surmised that dreaming is continuous as long as we are asleep, just as sensation and experience must needs continue while we are awake; but that we recall--when we recall at all--only those margins and fragments which concluded the whole range of our imagination during sleep; as though one who at night was able to walk alive through the depths of the sea, upon his return could only remember only those light-filtering, green-lit slopes up which he had clambered back at last to the sands of morning."
This is just a touch of the poetic writing that Richard Adams uses to convey this beautiful story of two dogs. It is also a story about society. This is not an easy read. The reasons that this book was more difficult for me was because of the dialect that one of the dogs spoke with and also the British terms (new to me i.e. Lorry =vehicle, dust bins =trash bins), and the text is so rich it takes a slower read to digest it. I had to look up a few words, so reading this book expanded my vocabulary. Although the reading was slower, it was worth it. Very worth it. Once I was 1/2 way through I was thanking myself for keeping on, it was paying off. And by the end - I was very into it.
I have never read such a unique writing style. There is no way to describe it but to say it is art. I poured over the book with post-its marking the ingenious philosophical ideas that I'd loike to come back to to think about and discover my feelings about.
This was my third Richard Adam's novel and I am always amazed. I plan to read all of his books.
Great read. Highly recommended. Thought provoking.
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30 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Richard Adams is one of the great writers of this generation, October 14, 1999
I read "The Plague Dogs" after I'd read "Watership Down," which is also written by Richard Adams. And while perhaps "The Plague Dogs" is a bit more difficult of a read than "Watership Down," and may lack the narrative flow of his first book, it is a tremendous novel, nonetheless. His central characters, two fugitive dogs from a testing laboratory named Rowf and Snitter, are distinctly drawn and reminiscent of some of the great tragic characters in English Literature. Their flight from captivity will draw you in from the moment they escape the laboratory, and will continue to hold you breathless as they ellude their captors and seek a new master. The novel works on two levels: both as a commentary on the mistreatment and abuse of animals in laboratories, as well as a look at humans from an animal's point of view. Be warned, however, you may not like what you see. On a negative note, the author often slips into a confusing slang, common to the area in which the novel takes place, when creating dialogue for certain characters like the lab workers and the Tod. At times, the lingo can become tedious and the reader may be tempted to skim over it. Also, the background information leading up to the introduction of Digby Driver midway through the novel can seem unnecessary; however, skipping over these aforementioned parts only denies the reader essential information and dilutes the novel from the author's translucent vision. With that said, Mr. Adams is at his lyrical best when the story focuses on the dogs and away from their human counterparts. Mr. Adams's ability to write from an animal's perspective remains unchallenged in fiction today. Not only is Mr. Adams a gifted storty-teller, but his mastery of the English language is hypnotic. "The Plague Dogs" and "Watership Down" are two masterpieces of modern literature that will haunt the reader long after the final page has been read. On my best day I aspire to be as human as a character in a Richard Adams novel.
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