I had an argument with a co-worker this afternoon. This is something I try to avoid at all costs, because usually arguments are tiresome and boring, because neither side is willing to give any ground and mostly just want an excuse to air their own ideas, to hell with listening or hearing what the opposition have to say. I can be guilty of that, absolutely, but usually I'm willing to hear out an opening line before I realize the other person is an idiot.But, what can I say, I am a terribly earnest person sometimes and my co-worker is who internet trolls model themselves after. And furthermore, even with a circular argument, being forced to explicate an abstract idea to an audience (even a hostile one) allows one to refine and understand that idea even better, right? So I'm not a complete masochist. I don't think....We ranged over several subjects, but, as you may have guessed, what really concerned me was the idea of animal rights. He thinks the whole idea is ridiculous. According to him animals are things, sometimes they are useful or good eating, but they don't inherently deserve any better treatment then what they physically need before the axe comes down. Me and my sentimental attachments were scorned. "See how long that pet is your friend if you don't feed it."Uh-huh. Can't argue with that. Readers remember that line as I further talk about this coworker: not bright. Maybe I am a masochist, because I could not bring myself to stop the conversation for a long time.That line of thinking, about animals being useful tools and nothing more, is what the people of the Lakelands and the people in the laboratory thought in The Plague Dogs. And there’s a certain rightness to that. Adams' being a similarly earnest person to myself highlighted the crueler aspects of testing facilities in his representation, which also wasn’t wrong. I don't think anybody reading the book should believe that anyplace like A.R.S.E. actually exists, but as a caricature to satirize the empty research that has been promoted in the past and to broadly raise the ethical questions about animal research it served its purpose. My problem with the book was less in how blunt it sometimes was, but in how the narrative never seemed to come together.On further questioning, my co-worker admitted to never possessing any particularly feelings of affection for numerous pets his family had growing up. In an eerie parallel to Rowf in The Plague Dogs, he used to take his hamster in its exercise ball and place it in a full bathtub. Seriously? Apparently so, and why, you may ask? He just wanted to see how long the hamster would last underwater and how many times it could take it. It could take a lot. I was laughing in a "oh my God you crazy piece of shit, stop breathing my air" kind of way when I told him I would have had him institutionalized, but I really wish someone had noticed that kind of behavior when he was younger. I think all of us had a phase or have a streak of childlike curiosity that's cruel but that? So much for kids taking wings off flies. He thinks bullfighting is awesome, too. Also: dogs, roosters, beta. If it will fight to the death, that's tits.The Plague Dogs doesn't work on the narrative level that Watership Down did probably because this project came straight from the heart. Adams read some upsetting reports and wanted to get why he was upset down on paper. Here in black and white were descriptions of isolation experiments, mutilations, poisonings and the ubiquitous spraying of aerosol products into rabbit's eyes. What Adams' had a problem with, and what I have a problem with when it comes down to it, is the idea that because research doesn't necessarily have to justify itself to anyone there are those who will poke and incise and eviscerate without any introspection or any silly treehugging notion about the lack of humanity in their actions. Adams was going for black humor sometimes but the satire elements, especially concerning government, never got off the ground for me, all I wanted was for the narrative to go back to what the dogs or even the reporter were up to.In a condescending tone I was told that after bullfights, after being poked and spouted and hamstrung for several hours, the bull is served to needy people. Such largess! I wasn't suitably impressed, which led to my eating habits being challenged. It never ended. After the usual back and forth he came out with the fact that my cow being rendered unconscious by electrical current before being efficiently bled out was too clinical? I'm a hypocrite unless I kill it myself? He then tried to console me that his girlfriend thought the same way I did so I didn't have to feel bad about it. I don’t get upset easily, and even that level of patronizing validation didn’t provoke me to saying something that would make the workday awkward, but damn. I checked out at the point.The Plague Dogs was piecemeal, with not enough satire to make it work as satire and not enough animal shenanigans to qualify as a real adventure, his attentions were good but it never felt focused to me. And I am not one of those people who think that Adams is only good with animals - I really enjoyed his horror-suspense novel The Girl in a Swing. What saved the book was the ending, schmaltz and yanked heartstrings and all, I ate it up.I failed to get my position across to my co-worker, not that he cared to begin with. Animal rights are not about treating animals "better" than humans or anything like that. I may not like the idea of some animal research, but I will never argue that it isn't necessary. Sometimes the pragmatic person euthanizing an unwanted litter is doing the right thing. I also have larger, softer ideas, that are more about our responsibility to those creatures, domesticated or not, that provide us with valuable services, from the something as intangible as companionship or a brief sighting of a wild anything on a walk to that very real patty on a sesame seed bun. People like my co-worker are not the majority of course, but it unnerved me to come across someone who at the most fundamental level could not understand that obligation, slight as it is. Adams must have felt similarly when he began work on this book. You can go all your life thinking a certain way, holding certain beliefs, but when you’re suddenly confronted with a perplexed stare and a why do you care, well, sometimes the words just don’t come out right. I'm glad he made the attempt.I did warn you that I could get terribly earnest.
This book was a major disappointment after loving Watership Down and Tales From Watership Down.There were a lot of humans in this book. It clouded things quite a bit. In Watership Down we are taken into a new world because the rabbits are wild and they have their own folk-lore, language and interesting little bits of culture. In this book, however, the dogs only know man. They do not know the wild or nature. This keeps the story from truly captivating the reader by bringing him into a different reality. The reality of this book is a reality of humans, and the dogs often wonder why men changed the natural houses into things like unnatural trees and rocks. Furthermore, the author doesn't even attempt to show any use of natural instinct on the dogs' part. There are huge dialectual barriers as well. Half of the humans in the story, as well as the fox they meet along the way, speak in a very thick accent and strange dialect which is tough to adjust to. Several times I had to keep reading and re-reading sections, eventually giving up on getting anything from them. At times is does become easy to understand, however. The real annoyance is that one of the main character is not always in a sane state of mind, so sometimes he rambles on and on in a sort of nonsense. Between these two huge barriers it was difficult for me to really have any sense of determination to read on.I tredged along though.The sybolism of Watership Down is completely abandoned in this book. The reader is taken into a story where he can observe the evil deeds of humans (and there are not many deeds which aren't evil in this book). This book says exactly what it means without allowing the reader to seek out any deeper meaning.Our heroes never seem to really acheive the respect that title holds. They stumble through this book and never seem to learn much, form any plan or be self preserving. In the end the dogs should have died. I didn't want them to, don't get me wrong, but the entire tone of the novel builds up to an ending that completely disagrees with the entire novel. Adams wasn't brave enough to break our hearts. You do learn to like the main characters, for some reason. Whereas they are not good at what they are doing, and are constantly frustrating the reader with errors, you do feel sorry for them. Their actions are not weighed on as good or bad in any way, only necessary (with that, I will add this is a fairly violent book), and without knowing they had escaped from horrible animal testing practices they would not gain any ground in the readers' hearts.
What do You think about The Plague Dogs (2006)?
I'm a bit torn on what rating to give this book. Portions of it I absolutely despised, as they just felt rather contrived and redundant... other portions I absolutely adored, and three parts were downright beautiful. I enjoyed the style of the book itself, and the newspaper clippings interspersed throughout were used just as well as they were in say, Carrie or Dracula. The moralistic conversations, while a bit jarring, were still used rather well to the purpose that the book served. All in all, a three star for me with a potential for change. The movie, on the other hand, is a solid five star endeavor.
—Hilary
The Plague DogsI honestly do not know if I should recommend this book or warn people off of it. It is a good book but any violence towards dogs, pets in general rubs me the wrong way and this degree of neglect, torture in the name of science etc is extreme. Note, the true message is awesome. The writing is superb, I have seldom disliked so many characters so violently!The plot line is intricate and flawless. But....the poor puppies. Even the rats got to me and trust me, rats, spiders, mice etc should according to my life philosophy not enter my domain as I try to avoid theirs. If however your easily distressed, then stay clear. If you need a reminder why people turn into tree huggers then by all means, have a listen. The narrator in this book is part of why this was so hard for me. He made every character unique with a voice all it's own. Brilliant. WaAr
—Wanda Hartzenberg
My thinking on choosing to read this: "Watership Down, about DOGS?!?" Could life be more perfect?Ooof, was I ever off-base.Granted, there's no mistaking. These are both unquestionably by the same author. Pastoral scenes are vivid, the animals' modes of thinking are vivid, the scale is epic... and yes, Watership Down has head-scratchy moments where the animal's perspective makes something familiar to humans alien, scenes of terror that get practically drug-trippy, parts that wring your heart because terrible horrible things happen to innocent animals... and Plague Dogs has all of those too.BUT. The dark and scary is all the darker and scarier. The sunniness of the lapine outlook, against all expectation, is not copied in the canine outlook. (If there's any animal happier than a dog--well, any land animal, dolphins have an unfair advantage, being as they're already grinning--I defy you to show me a rival to a happy dog... I do think Adams emphasized the servility a lot to convey how abused the dogs were, but he ought to have acknowledged the natural buoyancy of dogs.) The rabbits, Adams tells us, shake off each night of terrors like a dream when the next day dawns and summer warms everyone up again. The two plague dogs are only worn at more and more. I think part of it is the actual damage done to the animals. Snitter, the Fiver of this book, is intelligent but tortured. And he's not grounded as well by Rowf, his companion, the way Fiver is by Hazel, because Rowf too has been tortured. Moreover, man is more explicitly the enemy here, and unlike dispassionate crows, badgers, dogs, cats, etc, of Watership Down, the inhumanity of men in in Plague Dogs is personal, and inventive.The ending is torturous to the animal lovers who read it (namely myself,) but I have to say, it fits perfectly. And I'm willing to take the half-comfort it offers because those poor plague dogs? They deserve a rest.
—Colleen
