Acesare*
4th November 2005, 13:59
This is going to be tricky - I read this book about 10 years ago, and I'm increasingly sure that I never finished it . . .
Snitter, a Jack Russell terrier, has been sold to an animal research laboratory and have under gone brain surgery leading to a an inability to differentiate between what is real and what is only imagination. Snitter manages to escape the facility with Rowf, a rather cynical black labrador. They end up andering the countryside torn between a desire to find a master and the urge to become feral and fend for themselves.
Unfortunately, rumour begins to circulate amongst the human population that these dogs are actually carriers of the Black Death, and soon the local farming community are scouring the fields with shotguns.
This book is far darker than Adams's most famous book, Watership Down, as the subject matter is far more brutal, and is quite difficult to get into at first (probably why I gave up). However, it is excellently written and is lauded as the greatest book he has created.
There are a number of parallels that can be drawn from this book to the feelings of isolation and persecution the misunderstood have to face daily, and there are definately lessons to be learned here. Adams has a way of identifying with the animals, giving them their own voice and clearly expressing their emotions and the fact that hey do have emotions. He tells the reader something which an awful lot of humans need to learn – that no being wants to be experimented on, eaten or hunted.
This is a very emotive book (one reviewer on Amazon says it made them cry) as you really identify with Rowf and Snitter. They have real depth and are entirely believable. It is a philosophical work as the story goes behind the escape and the run to reveal the, perhaps unpleasent, truth about humans and their politics.
Also, some bloke said this:
The simplicity of the book does mask a complexity. On one hand we have a simple, enjoyable tale for child of all ages, and on the other we have the relationship between man and animal played out on a literary setting; a plea for a less hostile, arrogant and divorced view of nature; and a call for self-reflection. Like all great books, we can either read it whilst tucked in bed with cocoa, or studied it in a library. Irrespective of his method of doing so, in urging us humans to stop treating the world as our ashtray and anything which is not human as worthless, Adams deserves our respect.
And a big thank you to Amazon for all that guff!
Jo xx
Snitter, a Jack Russell terrier, has been sold to an animal research laboratory and have under gone brain surgery leading to a an inability to differentiate between what is real and what is only imagination. Snitter manages to escape the facility with Rowf, a rather cynical black labrador. They end up andering the countryside torn between a desire to find a master and the urge to become feral and fend for themselves.
Unfortunately, rumour begins to circulate amongst the human population that these dogs are actually carriers of the Black Death, and soon the local farming community are scouring the fields with shotguns.
This book is far darker than Adams's most famous book, Watership Down, as the subject matter is far more brutal, and is quite difficult to get into at first (probably why I gave up). However, it is excellently written and is lauded as the greatest book he has created.
There are a number of parallels that can be drawn from this book to the feelings of isolation and persecution the misunderstood have to face daily, and there are definately lessons to be learned here. Adams has a way of identifying with the animals, giving them their own voice and clearly expressing their emotions and the fact that hey do have emotions. He tells the reader something which an awful lot of humans need to learn – that no being wants to be experimented on, eaten or hunted.
This is a very emotive book (one reviewer on Amazon says it made them cry) as you really identify with Rowf and Snitter. They have real depth and are entirely believable. It is a philosophical work as the story goes behind the escape and the run to reveal the, perhaps unpleasent, truth about humans and their politics.
Also, some bloke said this:
The simplicity of the book does mask a complexity. On one hand we have a simple, enjoyable tale for child of all ages, and on the other we have the relationship between man and animal played out on a literary setting; a plea for a less hostile, arrogant and divorced view of nature; and a call for self-reflection. Like all great books, we can either read it whilst tucked in bed with cocoa, or studied it in a library. Irrespective of his method of doing so, in urging us humans to stop treating the world as our ashtray and anything which is not human as worthless, Adams deserves our respect.
And a big thank you to Amazon for all that guff!
Jo xx