Dogs and monsters : stories / Mark Haddon.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Haddon, Mark, 1962- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Mythology, Greek--Fiction.

Mythology, Greek.

Genre:

short stories.

Short stories

Mythological fiction.

Short stories.

Physical Description:

272 pages ; 22 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : Doubleday, [2024]

Summary:

"Greek myths have fascinated people for millennia, seeing in them lessons about fate and hubris and the contingency of existence. Mark Haddon digs into the heart of these ancient fables and sees them anew. The dawn goddess Eos asked asks Zeus to give her lover Tithonus eternal life, but forgets to ask for eternal youth. In "The Quiet Limit of the World" Haddon imagines Tithonus' life as he slowly ages over thousands of years, turning the cautionary tale of tempting the gods into a spellbinding meditation on witnessing death from the outside, and ultimately, how carnal love evolves into something richer and more poignant with time. In "The Mother's Story," Haddon takes the myth of the minotaur in his labyrinth, in which the beast is the spawn of the monstrous lust of the king's wife Pasiphae, and turns it into a wrenching parable of maternal love for a damaged child, and the more real monstrosities of patriarchy. In "D.O.G.Z." the story of Actaeon, who was turned into a stag after glimpsing the naked goddess Diana and torn to pieces by his hunting dogs, becomes a visceral metaphor about the continuum of human and animal behavior. Other stories play with contemporary mythic tropes - genetic engineering, trying to escape the future, the viciousness of adolescent ostracism - to showcase how modern humans are subject to the same capriciousness that obsessed the Greeks. Haddon's tales cover a vast range, from the mythic to the domestic, from ancient Greece to the present day, from stories about love to stories about cruelty, from battlefields to bed and breakfasts, from dogs in space to doors between worlds, all of them bound together by a profound sympathy and an understanding of how human beings act and think and feel when pushed to the very edge. Throughout Haddon's supple prose showcases his astonishing powers of observation, of both the physical world and the workings of the psyche. His vision is clear-eyed, but always resolutely empathetic"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

The mother's story

The bunker

My old school

D.O.G.Z.

The wilderness

The temptation of St Anthony

The quiet limit of the world

St Bride's Bay.

Local Notes:

Athenaeum copy: Schneidman Fund bookplate.

Other Format:

Online version: Haddon, Mark, 1962- Dogs and monsters.

ISBN:

9780385550864

0385550863

OCLC:

1415290452