{"title": "Fifteen Dogs", "key": "/works/OL17716842W", "authors": [{"author": {"key": "/authors/OL221881A"}, "type": {"key": "/type/author_role"}}], "type": {"key": "/type/work"}, "covers": [8462871, 8531894, 8994083, 12245537], "subjects": ["Fiction, general", "Dogs", "Fiction", "Intellect", "Animal intelligence", "Consciousness in animals", "Chiens", "Romans, nouvelles", "Intelligence", "Animaux", "Conscience chez les animaux", "General", "Allegories", "Psychology", "Collection:Canada Reads", "Collection:Canada Reads Winner", "Collection:Canada Reads 2017"], "description": "\u2014 I wonder, said Hermes, what it would be like if animals had human intelligence.\r\n\u2014 I'll wager a year's servitude, answered Apollo, that animals \u2013 any animal you like \u2013 would be even more unhappy than humans are, if they were given human intelligence.\r\n\r\nAnd so it begins: a bet between the gods Hermes and Apollo leads them to grant human consciousness and language to a group of dogs overnighting at a Toronto vet\u00aderinary clinic. Suddenly capable of more complex thought, the pack is torn between those who resist the new ways of thinking, preferring the old 'dog' ways, and those who embrace the change. The gods watch from above as the dogs venture into their newly unfamiliar world, as they become divided among themselves, as each struggles with new thoughts and feelings. Wily Benjy moves from home to home, Prince becomes a poet, and Majnoun forges a relationship with a kind couple that stops even the Fates in their tracks.\r\n\r\nAndr\u00e9 Alexis's contemporary take on the apologue offers an utterly compelling and affecting look at the beauty and perils of human consciousness. By turns meditative and devastating, charming and strange, Fifteen Dogs shows you can teach an old genre new tricks.", "subject_people": ["Hermes (Greek deity)", "Apollo (Deity)", "Benjy", "Prince", "Majnoun"], "subject_places": ["Toronto (Ont.)"], "latest_revision": 5, "revision": 5, "created": {"type": "/type/datetime", "value": "2017-05-26T10:34:07.496189"}, "last_modified": {"type": "/type/datetime", "value": "2025-11-24T23:54:56.628323"}}