(I signed up for some Open Threads and decided for each one I’ll take a snapshot of a random shelf and pick one book from the photo to highlight. Please feel free to discuss adjacent books as well and critique my choice. Books!)
You know Diana Wynne Jones even if you don’t know you know her. This prolific English author of primarily children’s books wrote Castle in the Sky Air, Howl’s Moving Castle, the Chrestomanci series, the Dalemark series, Hexwood, A Tale of Time City, and many more. Today we’ll talk about Dogsbody, a stand-alone 1975 novel that was seared into my memory when I read it as a kid.
Here’s my top-of-my-head synopsis of Dogsbody without having revisited it:
Sirius, the dogstar, has anger issues, and the other celestial beings get pissed at him, so he’s cast down to Earth and born as an actual dog. One of a litter of white dogs with red ears, he’s adopted by a little girl, who is herself rather downtrodden, living with her extended family and treated poorly. Sirius has to find a MacGuffin in order to return to his rightful place; he also has to deal with some shenanigans by his wife (?). Eventually, with the help of some other beings like the Sun, he wins . . . sort of. The Wild Hunt is also involved.
* re-reads *
Oh hey, that’s actually mostly right! I’m not actually quite to the end of my re-read (I woke up at 4:30am and couldn’t go back to sleep, so I got through most of it, but now it’s 6:30am, and I have to get ready for work); however, I’ve read enough to remember where it’s going (Lord, please return to me the sponge-brain of a child). It’s a lovely book that treats most of its characters — even the ones who would normally be stock, Durdley-esque villains — with empathy and insight. Plus it has some fantastic cats (shout out to Tibbles!). I don’t want to spoil anything, so here’s a random scene that is somewhat representative without giving much away:
Dogsbody Excerpt
Inside the hole, the real occupant was making its way through the last foot or so, snarling shrilly as it came.
“I think you ought to be going now,” said Earth.
The animal’s pointed snarling face appeared in the hole. It had green eyes too, strong white teeth and reddish fur. It was quite a bit smaller than Sirius, but it was prepared to tear him to pieces all the same.
“What is it?” he asked Earth.
“Get out of here, dog!” snarled the creature. “How dare you sit in my earth!”
“It’s a vixen,” said Earth. “Vixen, I’m sorry, but I want you to help this dog. Take him through your earth and show him your other entrance.”
“I will not!” said the vixen. “I’ve a litter of cubs back there, and he goes near them over my dead body!”
“And a fat lot of good your dead body will be to your cubs!” said Earth. “Don’t be so unreasonable.”
“I promise I won’t touch your cubs,” said Sirius.
“No. You’ll come back later with men and spades and more dogs,” snapped the vixen. “I know dogs.”
“This isn’t really a dog,” said Earth. “Look at his eyes.”
Grudgingly, with her lips drawn back from her teeth, the vixen crouched and stared up at Sirius. “Yes, I see,” she said. “But it’s not a fox either. What is it?”
“Quite another order of creature from a long way away,” Earth told her. “Now let it out through your earth before another creature comes and sets fire to you, him, your cubs and probably the whole wood too.”
Stiffly and reluctantly, the vixen turned and crawled back down the hole. “Make haste!” she said to Sirius, flicking the white tip of her brush at him. “I want you out of here.”
He squeezed himself after her. It was some distance. The smell was abominable, and grew stronger. Sirius sneezed. He wanted to stand up and stretch, but there was no space. If he had not known that it was Earth all around him, he would have panicked. At length, the vixen crawled out into a lighter, warmer place — a clayey cave, with a hole slanting up from it into bright sunlight. A number of chubby cheerful foxcubs were tumbling about in a sunny patch. Sirius thought they looked rather jolly. He would have liked to stop and play with them. They felt much the same about him. They came bundling playfully toward him, yipping excitedly, obviously under the impression that he was some sort of kindly uncle.
The vixen cuffed them fiercely aside. “Don’t go near it! And,” she added to Sirius, “touch a hair of their tails and I’ll bite your throat out!”
“I told you I wouldn’t hurt them,” Sirius protested.
“Maybe. But I can’t have them thinking dogs are friendly,” the vixen snapped. “A fine mother I’d be if I did! Go up that hole. It comes out on the other side of the wood.” As Sirius put his head into the sunlit hole and forced his shoulders after, she added, “There’s a stream where you can get a drink down to the right.”
After all that running, Sirius was terribly thirsty. “That’s thoughtful of you,” he called back, as he squeezed his hind legs after his front.
“No it isn’t. I just want you gone,” snapped the vixen. In her voice he could hear all the strain it was to live in the wild.
Anyway, I’m not very objective about books I read and loved as a kid, especially those involving animals. If you’ve read this one, let me know in the comments what you thought / think of it. And if you haven’t read it, give it a look!
Have a great Day Thread, Avocados!