Dogsbody by Diana Wynne Jones
Jul. 10th, 2009 11:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
meganbmooreSirius, the immortal lord of the Dog Star, has been framed for the murder of a fellow Luminary. Normally, the sentence for the murder of a Luminary would be death, but due to Sirius’s status, he’s given a chance to escape that fate. If he can find the murder weapon, which landed on Earth, and determine the identity of the true killer, then he’ll be spared. To do so, however, he has to be reborn in a mortal body, and he only has until the death of that body to complete the mission, or he’ll die when it does.
And so Sirius is reborn-initially with virtually no memories of his true self-as part of a litter of puppies that is dumped in a river. Sirius and several of his siblings survive, however, and he is taken in by a young girl named Kathleen. Kathleen’s father, a member of the IRA, is in prison, and she lives with her uncle and his family. Her uncle is nice but pays little attention unless something is obviously wrong, while her aunt is hateful and prejudiced against the Irish. As a result, Kathleen’s younger cousin, Robin, looks up to Kathleen, but is easily cowed by his mother, and his older brother, Basil, who will no doubt grow up to be nice, but for now is spoiled and self-centered, and far too willing to join in some of his mother’s awfulness.
I really liked the relationship between Kathleen and Sirius, and how everything was shown through the eyes of a dog slowly realizing that he’s a celestial being. I also loved all the mythology crammed into the book, and the other characters in Kathleen’s town, but I thought the awfulness of Kathleen’s aunt was overdone, especially in one scene near the end, though I’m getting used to Jones’s terrible parental figures. I mean, I know there really are people and parents out there who are that horrible in the ways she shows them, I’ve just been lucky enough to have never really witnessed it, so it comes across as a bit too heavyhanded to me. Like many of Jones’s books, the ending is rather abrupt, as if she decided that it was time to wrap everything up and everything was wrapped up, but it works very well here, and I’m glad that the inherent trauma in the concept is treated as horrible and traumatic, instead of as a learning experience to help usher in adulthood.
And so Sirius is reborn-initially with virtually no memories of his true self-as part of a litter of puppies that is dumped in a river. Sirius and several of his siblings survive, however, and he is taken in by a young girl named Kathleen. Kathleen’s father, a member of the IRA, is in prison, and she lives with her uncle and his family. Her uncle is nice but pays little attention unless something is obviously wrong, while her aunt is hateful and prejudiced against the Irish. As a result, Kathleen’s younger cousin, Robin, looks up to Kathleen, but is easily cowed by his mother, and his older brother, Basil, who will no doubt grow up to be nice, but for now is spoiled and self-centered, and far too willing to join in some of his mother’s awfulness.
I really liked the relationship between Kathleen and Sirius, and how everything was shown through the eyes of a dog slowly realizing that he’s a celestial being. I also loved all the mythology crammed into the book, and the other characters in Kathleen’s town, but I thought the awfulness of Kathleen’s aunt was overdone, especially in one scene near the end, though I’m getting used to Jones’s terrible parental figures. I mean, I know there really are people and parents out there who are that horrible in the ways she shows them, I’ve just been lucky enough to have never really witnessed it, so it comes across as a bit too heavyhanded to me. Like many of Jones’s books, the ending is rather abrupt, as if she decided that it was time to wrap everything up and everything was wrapped up, but it works very well here, and I’m glad that the inherent trauma in the concept is treated as horrible and traumatic, instead of as a learning experience to help usher in adulthood.