diana wynne jones - dogsbody
25 Oct 2009 09:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cimoreneOne of Jones's earliest works: my mother and I got it from the library and read it several times when I was young, but didn't bother hunting down our own copy. My memory was that it was not as exciting as her later work, but of course it also was out of print for a while in the US, and in the time before Internet shopping, getting hold of distant books could be quite difficult as it typically involved relying on local bookshops to order them for you. We did this for new releases from DWJ and Patricia Wrede (these were mutual favorite writers), but our luck wasn't always 100%.
At any rate, so much time had elapsed since I last read Dogsbody that I was curious to see it through adult eyes and form a new impression, but on the other hand, unfortunately, I still remembered the plot and the twist.
Namely, I forgot the Huntsman, a character who is never named directly in the book. DWJ's made an interesting stab at mythology in this book - interesting because it's much less elaborate and developed, compared to her later works which deal with it. The universe leans more to the fantasy side since she makes no attempt to link the social system of the stars up with Earth mythology. This makes perfect sense since the stars are unaware of most of the goings-on on Earth, including the existence of the Huntsman and presumably other Earth mythic figures, but it does mean, I think, that she didn't get to spend as much time on him as she probably would have liked to.
In DWJ's ouvre, the figure reminds me most of the very recent The Merlin Conspiracy, probably in my top 5 of her novels. I was expecting her to do more with him, though. She's done a lot with various mythologies, including the old pagan pantheons of the UK, but I don't recall ever responding to the sinister tragedy of a mythic figure in quite the same way before. In a way it's a more mature portrait than many of the others, I feel. I'd happily read several more novels entirely about him.
Also, the ending gave me a weird distaste, with the final vibe of Stockholm Syndrome. I remember simply crying about the separation of girl and dog when I was a child. But, okay, I mean, dogs love their owners, and of course it makes sense, after being trapped in the body of the dog which this girl lavished with love and care, that Sirius would love the girl as well. But he was her pet, even if an intelligent one who understood English - an innocent and unequal, childlike relationship. The idea that he saved the seat of his Companion *star* for her, the former occupant of which bewitched him with her sexuality - is this relationship now supposed to be sexual? Are we meant to be creeped out by the suggestion that, even freed from the dog, the patterns of its mind have impressed a doglike devotion to her on his mind forever that he can't escape from? Weird.
At any rate, so much time had elapsed since I last read Dogsbody that I was curious to see it through adult eyes and form a new impression, but on the other hand, unfortunately, I still remembered the plot and the twist.
Namely, I forgot the Huntsman, a character who is never named directly in the book. DWJ's made an interesting stab at mythology in this book - interesting because it's much less elaborate and developed, compared to her later works which deal with it. The universe leans more to the fantasy side since she makes no attempt to link the social system of the stars up with Earth mythology. This makes perfect sense since the stars are unaware of most of the goings-on on Earth, including the existence of the Huntsman and presumably other Earth mythic figures, but it does mean, I think, that she didn't get to spend as much time on him as she probably would have liked to.
In DWJ's ouvre, the figure reminds me most of the very recent The Merlin Conspiracy, probably in my top 5 of her novels. I was expecting her to do more with him, though. She's done a lot with various mythologies, including the old pagan pantheons of the UK, but I don't recall ever responding to the sinister tragedy of a mythic figure in quite the same way before. In a way it's a more mature portrait than many of the others, I feel. I'd happily read several more novels entirely about him.
Also, the ending gave me a weird distaste, with the final vibe of Stockholm Syndrome. I remember simply crying about the separation of girl and dog when I was a child. But, okay, I mean, dogs love their owners, and of course it makes sense, after being trapped in the body of the dog which this girl lavished with love and care, that Sirius would love the girl as well. But he was her pet, even if an intelligent one who understood English - an innocent and unequal, childlike relationship. The idea that he saved the seat of his Companion *star* for her, the former occupant of which bewitched him with her sexuality - is this relationship now supposed to be sexual? Are we meant to be creeped out by the suggestion that, even freed from the dog, the patterns of its mind have impressed a doglike devotion to her on his mind forever that he can't escape from? Weird.
