Dogsbody

The librarians of my childhood failed me. I'm sorry, there isn't a nice way to say it. They let me check out armloads of Goosebumps books week after week, when just a few shelves away, there were a dozen magical, wonderful books by Diana Wynne Jones just aching to be discovered and devoured by a dork like me, who would clearly have loved them. At least I was lucky enough to randomly stumble across <a href="https://goodreads.com/author/show/20575.Daniel_Manus_Pinkwater" title="Daniel Manus Pinkwater" rel="noopener">Daniel Pinkwater</a> on my own. <br /><br />Of course, I can't judge the librarians too harshly. The late '80s were a different time -- J.K. Rowling had yet to light up the dollar signs in publisher's eyes, and fantasy books by authors like DWJ went in and out of print haphazardly. In fact it is because of Harry Potter that I found her at all -- fueled by children's wizard lust, many unheralded '80s fantasy books came back into print in the late '90s so bookstores could offer alternate reading selections (no, really, there is a very interesting blog post about it from a buyer at Barnes &amp; Noble <a href="http://joemonti.wordpress.com/2011/03/29/a-lament-for-diana-wynne-jones/" rel="nofollow noopener">here</a>).<br /><br />I can still resent them though! I have said this before when reviewing DWJ, but many of her books, while perfectly enjoyable for adults, are clearly meant to appeal the weirdly absorbent brains of children, who do not try to cram in a few pages of reading during their lunch breaks while letting their minds wander to unpaid bills and unfinished assignments. Kids, real readers at least, hyper-focus -- they read like the rest of the world has ceased to exist. This is much, much harder to do as an adult, and does a disservice to DWJ, who focuses on character over detailed plotting and relies on her readers to fill in the gaps. Invariably, I finish one of her books scratching my head a bit, but feeling like it isn't the book, it's me. Does this make any sense, or am I idealizing youthful reading again? I don't think I am; it so explains why the epic books of my youth seem so small in the harsh light of adulthood.<br /><br />Dogsbody! This book is hard to find these days, and has been out of print for at least 10 years. I can kind of see why. For one thing, the story is very strange, which makes it hard to classify, which makes it hard to sell, probably -- you see, there are these supernatural beings who live in/control the stars and planets. One of them, the Dog Star Sirius, is accused of a crime and sentenced to live out his punishment in the earthbound body of a dog. He has a chance at redemption, but if he doesn't complete his mission in time, he'll die when his dog body dies. There are a few other luminaries of dark purpose who wouldn't mind seeing that happen. Just a warning: there is a puppy drowning scene. <br /><br />Right? You can see why this one is more of a hard sell post-Potter than "Oh yeah, Chrestomanci, these books also have a Wizard School." Also, there are elements that read strangely today, to children in the U.S. at least -- Sirius, in dog form, is taken care of by a sweet little girl named Kathy. Kathy has to live with her clueless uncle and his horrid wife because her father, a member of the IRA, is in jail. Kathy's Aunt Duffie and cousin treat her like dirt and she is constantly picked on by neighborhood kids... because she's Irish. I honestly have no idea how much of this still goes on in the U.K., but if I am any indication, American schoolchildren are taught next to nothing about Ireland's tortured political history, nor would many of them think to bother hating on a classmate for being Irish (I mean, as long as you're white, right?).<br /><br />Then there's the fact that few publishers have managed to produce cover art that isn't <a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/photo.goodreads.com/books/1181267229l/1134699.jpg" rel="nofollow noopener">off-putting</a> or <a href="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51m7Wx%2BUTIL.jpg" rel="nofollow noopener">unspeakably childish</a> or <a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/photo.goodreads.com/books/1266618277l/3474309.jpg" rel="nofollow noopener">obtuse</a>. Which, I mean... yeah. It's a high bar. <br /><br />But it's a <i>wonderful</i> book. The creativity of the premise extends throughout, and I loved the scenes in which Sirius, in dog form, carries on snarky conversations with the sun, who gets no respect from the other luminaries, and the Earth, which is decidedly miffed about all these stars getting up in its business. There's the gentle sadness in Kathy's story, and lonely kids (which is most kids at one time or another) will find real truth in her struggles. Most of all, this is a book about animals that can talk to one another, but it is never cutesy. Sirius has to work to overcome his innate dog nature, which is (let's face it), dumbness and excitability (I love any scene where he talks to another dog, because all they want to do is keep saying "HI!"). If you are correct in your preference for cats, this book also has excellent and dignified cats. Anyone who realizes that cats aren't the villains gets a gold star.<br /><br />Diana Wynne Jones died last week. Even though I came to her books late in life, it was a very sad author death for me. It also made me stop and really consider the ending of this book, which reminds us that present pain need not be permanent, you'll find friends and family where you make them, and it's always worth holding on to hope.

“Dogsbody” by Diana Wynne Jones, In this universe, every celestial body is inhabited by an intelligent entity; in the case of stars, they're called luminaries. A luminary is not a solemn, grand tutelary angel, a luminary isn't just another mortal entity,. Luminaries have as much variation of personality as humans do, and in the case of stars, the star is merely the sphere that the luminary inhabits and is responsible for, not its physical body. <br /><br /><br />Sirius is notorious for his fiery temper; when he's accused of killing another luminary in a fit of rage for hanging around Sirius' Companion, he contaminates his own defense by losing his temper yet again, and as the story opens, a tribunal of other major luminaries is passing sentence on him. <br /><br />As Sirius is the viewpoint character . we're given the impression that his wrath is that of outraged innocence, but at first, we only learn that he's withholding facts that would make things look worse, and that the Judges are hoping to get a fuller story out of him. He's found guilty on 3 charges: murder; misusing a Zoi to commit the murder; and negligence (the Zoi was lost, thrown away to fall somewhere on Earth). But in view of his former high standing (and on grounds of temporary insanity), he's given a special suspended sentence of death: to be bound into a mortal body on Earth, where he must retrieve the Zoi to be reinstated. We're given details about exactly what a Zoi is much later in the story: it's a very dangerous, sophisticated tool. <br /><br />When next Sirius wakes up, he's in the body of a newborn puppy in England. Sirius is still himself, but he can't think properly until the puppy's body is more mature, so his viewpoint becomes that of an unusually bright dog for quite awhile.) He and his siblings are mutts born of a purebred, valuable dog; shortly after Sirius' arrival, the puppies are thrown into the river to drown. Each is rescued and comes to live with a different person, meeting again only when they're half grown. Sirius' savior is Kathleen, a young Irish girl sent to live with distant English relatives while her father serves a prison sentence for terrorist activities. The Duffields They provide for Kathleen and don't physically abuse her, but Duffie the mother, pours out continual verbal abuse on the laziness of the Irish while simultaneously loading most of the housework on Kathleen holding her to a promise she made in exchange for keeping 'Leo', her new puppy - named for his fiery green eyes. Kathleen's too young and inexperienced to do everything well - and Duffie heaps more scorn on her rather than teaching her properly. The father is an anything-for-a-quiet-life type; he won't stand up to his wife but isn't unsympathetic. The older boy is picking up his mother's bigotry,<br />

I didn't find out what a "dogsbody" was (a drudge or menial worker, in case you didn't know either) until years after I'd read this book, so the double meaning passed me by--Sirius being in the body of a dog/Sirius losing his position of power to become a humble and powerless creature. Fortunately, it doesn't matter at all. This is a delightful story on so many levels.<br /><br />Since Sirius the luminary star-denizen doesn't have any more idea about Earth life or humans than Sirius the abandoned puppy does, everything he learns is filtered through the dog's perceptions. This is something DWJ is amazing at, being able to look at some ordinary thing like a telephone cord and describe it the way someone would who'd not only never seen a telephone cord before, but didn't even understand the concept of telephones. (It just occurred to me that kids today might not know what a telephone cord is either. Now I feel old.) I love working out what Sirius is seeing. I also like the path Sirius takes from being an arrogant, powerful being with anger management issues to becoming someone who cares about others and puts their needs first. It could all be down to how very helpless he is, even when he's a full-grown dog, but I figure someone truly irredeemable wouldn't have changed no matter how helpless he became.<br /><br />The characterization is just superb, as usual, and once again DWJ gives us a dysfunctional family that is maybe too realistic for comfort. Kathleen is the poor relation who's in the same situation Sirius is, dependent on a family in which the adults are unreliable. Basil's the oldest son, kind of a jerk because he's bigger and a bully; Robin's the middle child, too weak to stand up to Basil even though he likes Kathleen. Mr. Duffield, Kathleen's uncle, is the distant father who doesn't notice anything that isn't important to him. And Duffy, his wife, is a nasty shrew whose laziness and viciousness is most obvious when she blackmails Kathleen into doing all the cooking and household chores to keep Sirius (Leo, as Kathleen names him) from being thrown out or killed. I don't know how old Kathleen is, but she can't be older than 11, and the thought of a healthy grown woman standing by while a child struggles with responsibilities she's not ready for makes me sick. One of the things I love most about this book is when Miss Smith, a kind and intelligent old lady who knows "Leo" is more than he appears, <input type="checkbox" class="spoiler__control" aria-label="The following text has been marked spoiler. Toggle checkbox to reveal or hide." onchange="this.labels[0].setAttribute('aria-hidden', !this.checked);" id="9886174c-9703-46be-9a7d-17762848f19a" /><label aria-hidden="true" class="spoiler" for="9886174c-9703-46be-9a7d-17762848f19a">adopts Kathleen to get her out of the Duffields' house and give her a real home. I don't care that that was probably unrealistic even for 1975; I want to believe that a horrible biological family is not a life sentence.</label><br /><br />Finally, I'm fascinated by the mythology of the story, both the invented mythos of the star-denizens and the Celtic myth elements of the cold dogs and the Hunt. Most of the story is set on Earth, so the bits about the denizens are sort of in the background, but DWJ never lets anything go to waste. Polaris is a variable star? Its denizen must be a stammerer! I get the impression that DWJ had thought the background through enough that she could have written a second book just based on that material. It's the sort of thing that gives depth to a story, and I'd admire <i>Dogsbody</i> for it even if I didn't love it.

<br />I'm already a fan of Diana Wynne Jones, and I'd heard this was one of her best books (in spite of being one of her earliest), but neither of those things prepared me for how deeply this story moved me.<br /><br />I think that part of what gives this story its power is that Jones pulls no punches here. The antagonists and the abuse they deal out are not made "safe for kids" by an over-the-top Roald Dahl treatment (as they often are in Jones' other books). The nasty adults do and threaten to do things that <i>real</i> nasty adults do. The nasty children do things that <i>real</i> nasty children do. Nor does Jones avoid other subjects that usually aren't "permitted" in books for kids: overt racism (against the Irish--the story takes place at the height of IRA violence), parental death, and mindless mating attraction (among the dog characters; no sex is actually described). Even the solving of the mystery involves the recognition of a painfully adult-level betrayal. There <i>are</i> good people in the story, even good adults that are almost too good to be true, if you didn't know that there <i>are</i> people that good in the world. This isn't a cynically dark story, but it is a realistically dark one. And yet ultimately a hopeful one. Hopeful enough to bring a tear to my cynical old eyes.<br /><br />

I've been asking people to look over my list of unread books and pick out one or two, or even a few, that really interest them and talk to me about it. Dogsbody is the first of the books I've read picked out for me like that: the clinching factor (apart from it being short and written by Diana Wynne Jones) was that I was told it has an end that is both happy and sad.<br /><br />That turns out to be true. A lot of the story is very young at heart -- the main character becomes a young puppy and slowly has to grow up and learn about the world, and he's adopted by a young girl who he adores (and who adores him). He plays and learns and gets in trouble in a very doggish way that I think anyone could enjoy. It's often funny, and Jones seems to have got dogs and cats -- and people -- just right.<br /><br />Then there's the more complicated layer, the sci-fi/fantasy issue of Sirius' crime, trial, and eventual reinstatement. There's references to the Irish Troubles, and the difficulties of race relations between the Irish and the English. There's the issue of child abuse. And there's the old, Celtic, barely glimpsed (appropriate, because barely remembered) mythology and its strange rituals, Arawn and his hounds...<br /><br />I think there's a lot there that could be confusing if you expect to get all the answers. What is a Zoi, why Sirius' Companion do what she did, who and what exactly is the Earth's dark child... In that sense, it's unsatisfying, because there aren't that many answers. But this way, you get to keep thinking and wondering long after you've closed the book.

A ‘dogsbody’ is of course a common way of describing a drudge, a Johnny Factotum, the office boy who makes the tea, the hapless school student on work experience. And there is a drudge in this story: Kathleen, who fulfils the role of a Cinderella under the thumb of a surrogate stepmother.<br /><br />But the title of this novel is also the starting point for the notion that a celestial being can inhabit the body of a dog, and that is the main trigger for this story. The most famous celestial body with a canine association is the so-called Dog Star, Sirius, so the question is, how does Sirius come to be incarnated in a puppy just about to be drowned at birth?<br /><br />I love the way that Diana Wynne Jones novels work: the way you can identify with one or more of the main characters, the way that each story arc leads to a resolution of sorts, the way disparate ideas come together in poetic and perhaps meaningful names and images and incidents.<br /><br />In <i>Dogsbody</i> — a relatively early work in her writing career — all three features are present. Jones had a long-lived Labrador called Caspian — named perhaps from the Prince in the Narnia tales? — whose apparent intuitive intelligence inspired both the dedication (“For Caspian, who might really be Sirius”) and the impetus for the tale, the first chapter of which she wrote in a white-heat when she should have been entertaining her mother-in-law.<br /><br />Kathleen, who adopts Sirius and calls him Leo, is a young Irish girl whose father is imprisoned during the Troubles; in this young girl, a book-lover but an outsider, and therefore a victim who gets picked on, we can see the author portraying aspects of her own childhood. The family Kathleen is fostered with — the distant father, the domineering mother, the brothers who alternately tease or support Kathleen — is vaguely reminiscent of the dysfunctional family that Jones herself grew up in, though her sisters were hopefully less fickle then Basil or Robin Duffield.<br /><br />Sirius, reborn in this world of 1970s Britain, gradually overcomes his amnesia and comes to a realisation of his celestial nature. Why was he exiled to earth? Sol, the Earth and the Moon all seem to know before he does: he is on a quest for a mysterious object called the Zoi which he was somehow instrumental in sending to Earth. And he is in a race to find it before others more sinister than him. To me the Zoi is clearly derived from the Greek, ζωή (“life”), suggesting some kind of vital spark, a life force, without which his sphere of influence in the universe — the solar system that the Dog Star, brightest star in our sky, was responsible for, along with a white dwarf companion — will suffer, along with our own system. Sirius’ search for the Zoi, which serves as the story arc, is a classic Quest story, in which he is aided by various Helpful Companions and in which we hope he Overcomes the Monster, another basic plot, which threatens to cause utter chaos.<br /><br />A kind of <i>deus ex machina</i> appears towards the end of the tale, a personage who has been prefigured in one of the books Kathleen has been reading: in one of the Welsh medieval tales called <i>The Mabinogion</i> she will have encountered the god of the underworld called Arawn, who may or may not be akin to the ancient horned Celtic god Cernunnos. A truly terrifying chthonic creature, he is not subject to the same laws as celestial beings. He is at one point specifically identified as Orion, the hunter whom the constellation Canis Major accompanies in the heavens, and this Arawn / Orion /Cernunnos correspondence provides one of the pivotal scenes in the closing chapters.<br /><br />These triggers for Jones’ imaginative fireworks are not the only attractions of the novel, of course. You do feel justifiable anger as Kathleen is bullied, and heartbreak as she is subjected to loss. But we mustn’t forget that <i>Dogsbury</i> is told from the viewpoint of Sirius the dog, and the author’s novelistic descriptions of how his canine nature conflicts with the growing cognisance of his real nature is cleverly done.<br /><br />To purloin an astronomical term, the conjuctions that occur between different ideas are finely balanced with how we need to gravitate towards real human beings and real human emotions. It’s all done in quite a satisfying and, dare I say it, heavenly fashion.

In the universe of <i>Dogsbody</i>, stars are ruled by spirits called luminaries. When a nearby star "goes nova" and a device called the Zoi falls to earth, the luminary of Sirius is falsely accused of murder. His punishment is to be born on Earth as a dog and retrieve the Zoi--or die trying. <br /><br />Yes, it's quite a bizarre book. I normally associate DWJ's stories with whimsy, charm, and magic, and this book is a bit of a departure from those themes. Of all the books by her that I've read, <i>Dogsbody</i> stands out as the most fantastical and the most realistic, the most tragic and the most uplifting. After reading it a few years ago, and having since then recommended it to 2404297851 people, I decided it was about time that I re-read it to make sure it was as good as I remembered.<br /><br />I have to say that there were parts in the first half of the novel that I found somewhat slow, but once it picked up momentum it was thoroughly action-packed and impossible to put down. The personalities of the Sun, Earth, and Moon are wonderful--anthropomorphic, yet clearly not human. (I especially enjoyed Sun's protectiveness of Earth.) Animals' personalities were portrayed equally well, as was Sirius's constant inner battle to get around his dog nature to remember where he came from--or vice versa, when his dog nature saves his life. There's definitely a fairy-tale element to this story, with some surprising departures from the norm.<br /><br />At its core, I think this story has a pretty bitter theme--being betrayed, and then being the betrayer--but it's also full of beauty. I closed the book with an immense feeling of awe and gratitude.

I checked this book out of the library from a small town I lived in for a short time. I think I was in fifth grade. The book managed to haunt me (in all the right ways) well into my adulthood, but I could never find it again until someone ordered a copy off Amazon and gave it to me my freshman year of college. <br /><br />The second time I read it, I finished it in a couple of hours. <br /><br />It made me cry both times. <br /><br />The plot does fail to explain itself. Something deep and wonderful is going on just beyond the pages, and DWJ sees no need to explain it. Maybe that's what made it so haunting for me. As a child, I completely missed the Irish subtext that made such integral backstory to Kathy's character, but as an adult it was an amazing discovery to make and further proves just what a many-layered, fast read this is.

Magnificent! จินตนาการสุดบรรเจิด ยอดเยี่ยมเกินคำบรรยาย <br /><br />ด้วยความคาดหมายว่าเป็นหนังสือดีสำหรับเยาวชนในตอนแรก แต่ก็พบว่าดีเยี่ยมสำหรับคนทุกเพศทุกวัย เป็นหนังสือที่ทั้งดีและอ่านสนุก ช่วยสร้างเสริมจินตนาการทั้งแฟนตาซีและวิทยาศาสตร์ได้เป็นอย่างดี<br /><br />เป็นหนังสือที่ควรมีไว้ทุกบ้าน โดยเฉพาะครอบครัวที่มีเด็กก่อนวัยรุ่น หนังสือเล่มนี้จะช่วยเปิดจินตนาการให้เยาวชนได้เป็นอย่างดี. เป็นหนังสือที่จะแนะนำให้ลูกหลานได้อ่านอย่างแน่นอน

A short and beautifully written story about a celestial being falsely accused of murder who is sentenced to live on earth in the body of a dog. <br /> Yet this is so much more than a murder mystery where the main character tries to return to his previous life. It's about someone sensing for the first time the natural world around him with all of its sights and smells(the latter a particularly vivd and wonderfully written).<br /> Most of all its a touching story of the bond between a young girl who is mistreated by almost everyone around her and the dog who starts to wonder if going him is better than the life he has on earth.<br /> Very moving, and reminds you that what you have in the here and now, no matter how simple is sometimes the best.