By turns meditative and devastating, charming and strange, Fifteen Dogs shows you can teach an old genre new tricks. Wily Benjy moves from home to home, Prince becomes a poet, and Majnoun forges a relationship with a kind couple that stops even the Fates in their tracks.Īndré Alexis's contemporary take on the apologue offers an utterly compelling and affecting look at the beauty and perils of human consciousness.
The gods watch from above as the dogs venture into their newly unfamiliar world, as they become divided among themselves, as each struggles with new thoughts and feelings. Suddenly capable of more complex thought, the pack is torn between those who resist the new ways of thinking, preferringthe old 'dog' ways, and those who embrace the change. I'll wager a year's servitude, answered Apollo, that animals – any animal you like – would be even more unhappy than humans are, if they were given human intelligence.Īnd so it begins: a bet between the gods Hermes and Apollo leads them to grant human consciousness and language to a group of dogs overnighting at a Toronto veterinary clinic. I wonder, said Hermes, what it would be like if animals had human intelligence. WINNER OF THE 2015 ROGERS WRITERS' TRUST FICTION PRIZEįINALIST FOR THE 2015 TORONTO BOOK AWARDS Human Intelligence Brings Conflict Humans have higher intelligence than animals, but that does not make them live peaceful and harmonious lives. An utterly convincing and moving look at the beauty and perils of consciousness. The novel Fifteen Dogs is a good example of why human intellect does not always brings happiness. André Alexis explores all of this and more in the extraordinary Fifteen Dogs, an insightful and philosophical meditation on the nature of consciousness.
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