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Book Review of The Dog: A Novel

The Dog: A Novel
reviewed on + 105 more book reviews


Strange book. The protagonist, who has no name, takes on the job of overseeing transactions in a company owned by two brothers. One brother is a former classmate, although not a friend.

To do this job, our hero has to live in Dubai. So we learn some interesting things about this strange place of luxury, from how easy it is to get what you want to how easy it is to be thrown out.

Our hero is a lawyer and cautious. Thus he comes up with many ways to proclaim his lack of liability when he signs approvals. He is proud of his carefully-crafted language. For while he generally trusts this former classmate, he doesn't trust his brother.

The story is interesting although fairly straightforward. What is more interesting is the internal life led by the speaker. He ruminates on everything, and speaks in fluent parentheses, often many nested parens and pages with no paragraph breaks.

I had some difficulty figuring out exactly where he stood - was he being sly, clever, or was he genuinely a caring, thoughtful person? There may be a clue in the title, for it is himself, the dog.