Belka, Why Don’t You Bark? by Hideo Furukawa
My rating: 3/5 cats
a goodreads review of this book suggests that you should “skip every chapter that doesn’t feature dogs,” and that’s not bad advice.
i’m not sure how i feel about this book. i know i didn’t hate it, but i am left a little perplexed as to what the story was, exactly.
i know it was the story of a group of four military dogs, one american, three japanese, abandoned on the aleutian island of kiska in 1943. THIS IS NOT WHERE ISLAND OF THE BLUE DOLPHINS TAKES PLACE, ALTHOUGH THERE ARE GREAT WILD DOGS IN THAT BOOK.
one of the dogs is a hokkaido:
oh my god, why would you ever abandon this dog??
and three are german shepherds:
which, well, yeah.
i love the notion of military dogs. i had to read eyes of the emperor for library school, and that was the first book i had ever read about military dogs. i liked that book a lot and expected to love this one, which was partially told from dog POVs. who doesn’t like dog POVs?? besides jason. so these dogs are abandoned and later rescued and put to other uses. the rest of the book traces their bloodlines all over the world, outlines their experiences and the way their paths diverge and occasionally, unexpectedly converge once more. some remain military dogs, some go on to become show dogs, drug-sniffing dogs, guard dogs, sled dogs, humble pets, oceanic explorers, etc. and i agree with the other reviewer—almost all of the dog parts are riveting. but also sad, at times. their whole lives are chronicled, down to their deaths, which are occasionally heroic, but still sad.
they are kind of dog-POVs, but they are written in second person, but not second person where “you” are you the reader but “you” are you the dog. and not always the same dog, just whatever dog happens to be the focus of the narrative at that point in time. so, that’s a little gimmicky, but whatever.
the other complaint i have about the dog bits is the repetition. the repetition. the repetition. the sire/dams are always invoked when discussing a new dog, as well as snippets of their backstory as though you may have forgotten it in the space of a few chapters. as well as facts from the chapter “you” are at that very moment reading. which makes for clunky prose.
as far as the more human-centric chapters, hmmm…well, the humans are not given names, just nicknames, really. you know, like they are pet dogs, dig? unless they are real people like ho chi minh or gorbachev or lyndon b. johnson. then they get to keep their names.
and there is this kidnapped eleven-year-old daughter of a yakuza boss who seems to only know the word “fuck.” now, i myself have a potty mouth, so cussin’ doesn’t bother me at all, but it just seems so incongruous to have this little kid dropping f-bombs four or five times in a single sentence. we get it. she’s hard.
and so interspersed with all the doggie “where are they nows” is the story of the cold war. the vietnam war. the afghan-russian war. the space race. and the part that the original island-dogs’ descendants played in all of these. which historical content is told in in this really casual om narr voice, complete with “likes” and “you knows” and it is so distracting to get so much historical background in this voice. because it is very detailed information, but it sounds like it is coming from the mouth of some drunk guy at the bar, who i guess is the same om narr talking to “you” the reader, the dog, in all the other chapters. and, then, under all of that historical layer, there is a third story of revenge and assassins and the criminal underworlds of russia and japan.
i am making it sound like a mess, and it’s not, not really. the dog bits are mostly really interesting and moving. i liked learning about the different ways dogs can be trained to fight a bad guy, alone or in a pack. the bite to the wrist to disarm, the retrieval of the gun, and then the bite to the throat, or not, depending on the particular brand of training.
awesome.
and you know you aren’t going to have a russian dog story without this little cutie:
and these luckier pups:
hence, title.
it’s worth reading, but it is not my most favoritest dog story ever. but it’s summer soon, and this would be perfectly suitable hot-day casual reading.
roof!!
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