Dogs: A Modern Bestiary
December 1st, 2002by Rebecca Brown
ISBN: 0872863441
I’ve read several of Brown’s earlier books, and always found her use of language and play with perspective interesting. She has a way of making the reader work for the story, and delivering a payoff that is worth the effort.
I don’t want to say it, but I’m not sure that she entirely succeeds with this book. The premise and structure of the book is solid, but maybe she is asking the reader to do to much work. I’m not a lazy reader, but I found it frustrating to continually ask myself what is going on here. Questioning the line between real and fantasy in a story, appropriating fairy tales (which I love) and making use of repetition to skew the narrative are all things that can work to great effect, if they can come together in the reader’s mind.
There are bits that do work. This is from one of the reworkings of Little Red Riding Hood:
I remind myself that I am doing good, that I am not afraid, that I am girded covered dressed accommodated medicated and I am on a mission of charity. I walk into the woods. I try to whistle a happy tune, but I catch myself because they say that calls them.
My recommendation is that if you are a Rebecca Brown fan, you might want to check this out of the library, but you will probably want to skip buying it. If you think her work sounds interesting, check out The Terrible Girls instead.
February 26th, 2003 at 3:42 pm
Oh, there is a bit of orange light, and in that light a laughter of knee slapping soul spilling mirth. Here, hear, dynamic power play in relationships between women. There there now, has it been a decade since you spent hours in converted chicken barns scouring Beckett’s poetry and novels for dog eared fences and horizons and pebbles in pockets? Who could have thought that sadomasochism, incest, and bestiality could make you laugh so? When I turned around she had taken off her clothes: too soon. Having been haunted for years after hearing Rebecca read from the modern bestiary in the back room of an internet cafe my recommendation is that you listen to her read. Listen to the days between the words where cotton mornings pass and who would notice if you didn’t get out of bed until the bills came due and the cat started to howl from hunger? Who else could host such lively parties at all hours kudos to costumes? I had tears coming out of my eyes, I couldn’t stop laughing, and Brown is so deliberate about forcing a reaction from the one listening/reading. This isn’t a soliloquy, let the the air fill with response. Language is the only thing that lies. Someone did drill holes in our skulls just so the philharmonic could get through. Listen! And if it can not “come together in your mind” then don’t blame her.
This writing reminds me of Kathy Ackers better works: so full of what it might mean that you have to figure it out, you have to rise up and meet it half way to enjoy it.