Dogwalker : Stories

Rating:
Summary: This is what you've been looking for...
Review: ...if you're tired of the same old thing. This book is a simple, cool, straighforward breath of fresh air. I just read some of this reviews and it's clear that some of these folks just don't get it. If you are an academic type who likes long ornate descriptions and, well, pretentious attempts at emotional depth, then perhaps you won't like "Dogwlaker". This book is the antidote to all that, really. The stories have good plots! Strange and beautiful! It's an easy, fun read, in the best sense of the word. I've been reccomending "Dogwlaker" to my friends for months and some have said, "huh?" while others are delighted. Check it out and see what side of the fence you're on.

Rating:
Summary: This is what you've been looking for...
Review: ...if you're tired of the same old thing. This book is a simple, cool, straighforward breath of fresh air. I just read some of this reviews and it's clear that some of these folks just don't get it. If you are an academic type who likes long ornate descriptions and, well, pretentious attempts at emotional depth, then perhaps you won't like "Dogwlaker". This book is the antidote to all that, really. The stories have good plots! Strange and beautiful! It's an easy, fun read, in the best sense of the word. I've been reccomending "Dogwlaker" to my friends for months and some have said, "huh?" while others are delighted. Check it out and see what side of the fence you're on.

Rating:
Summary: Doggy dreams
Review: Arthur Bradford deftly walks the ledge of the mundane, tipping but not quite falling into a marshy terrain normally reserved for dreams. I love his style of mixed realism and the surreal, all delivered with a safe and unaffected deadpan tone. Many weeks later, little oddities from these stories are still skulking around my mind.

Comparisons are difficult, but Richard Brautigan's "In Watermelon Sugar" and Denis Johnson's "Jesus' Son" come to mind.

Rating:
Summary: Strange, but fun
Review: Arthur Bradford, like most of the authors of the same "McSweeney's" and "This American Life" style, has a strange imagination. There is little literary complexity in this book--no motifs or worldly metaphors, no multi-layered narrative, no grand apotheosis, sometimes no real plots--just twisted plots about dogs, three-legged dogs, guys with cat faces, talking dogs, chainsaws, and dog-human hybrids. Bradford, who bears an uncanny resemblance to actor Jason Lee (of "Clerks" and "Chasing Amy" fame), writes in an unassuming style that never fails to please the reader, perhaps because he demands little more than simply reading and reacting to his idiosyncratic (and truly funny) tales. Which is precisely the straightforward appeal of this collection. So if you need a breather after "War and Peace," check out "Dogwalker." Give your mind a rest and your senses a bit of a shock.

Rating:
Summary: Eh...
Review: For its literary merits, I should have probably awarded this book two stars; early reviews are right to point out that much of the book's prose is flat and unspired, that many of the book's non-sequiturs are forced, that some stories seem like abandoned fragments, that the characters and situations are willfully eccentric. And much of this is pretty much true, yet Dogwalker is an enjoyable book nonetheless. How? I perceive Bradford as a kind of David Lynch of short fiction--love him or hate him, you're certainly going to receive a strange bolt of the weird when reading his stories. Often, these pieces have a unique and grotesque humor; I loved "Chainsaw Apple" and "Bill McQuill." Years ago, I read "Catface" when a sophmore in college and ever since sought out Bradford's works; "Catface" rightfully begins the collection--since it defines the tone and is the most interestly constructed of the pieces. Bradford owes an obvious debt to Denis Johnson's Jesus' Son--nothing wrong with that, really--and here is some of the oddness of Johnson's stories, but little of the poetry and compassion. After waiting for this collection to come out, I have to say I'm a little disappointed, but that there are a few strong pieces that make the reading worthwhile.

Rating:
Summary: Original
Review: I really enjoyed this book. The characters are quirky and funny, it is filled with humor, and it's very original. I recommend it to people who find humor in the offbeat things in life.

Rating:
Summary: What's He Writing In There?
Review: I'm pretty sure that Tom Waits mated with a book and the result is Arthur Bradford. If I told you that the characters in Dogwalker live on the same block as The Eyeball Kid and Table Top Joe, and if you understood that, you should not only have read this book by now - you should be actively refusing to loan it out to relatives and friends without a security deposit. Each chapter in Dogwalker reads like the discovery of a new and fascinating insect; if that isn't praise, what is?

Rating:
Summary: Bradford ? Dogwalker
Review: Similar to a previous reviewer, I feel that I missed something. Throughout my time spent reading this collection (which admittedly was brief as this is a short collection), I found myself flipping to the blurbs on the back extolling the "heart" and "compassion" of the stories. And I've got to say, I really think a lot of people read an awful lot into this collection.

The stories themselves are pointless. There's no emotional payoff as far as I can see. And how many three-legged dogs do we have to read about? I realize there's probably a far larger population of three-legged dogs running (or limping) around the world than I would believe but by the time we hear about the last three-legged dog, the idea is tired and worn out.

Pointlessness is okay by me. I'd hate it if everything had an emotional punch. But what bothered me most about this collection (and the praise for it) was the quality of the actual writing itself. It was just not good. It wasn't awful but high school freshmen could be expected to string these sentences together. I saw very few signs of true writing talent.

Strange ideas are great but without solid writing skills they're worthless. Like many of the dogs he writes about, this collection just wobbles around on three-legs and never really struts as advertised. I'd advise all but the most desperate of readers to pass this by.

Rating:
Summary: Fantastically absurd
Review: The Dogwalker is a collection of short first-person stories that mostly revolve around dogs. In perhaps the most bizarre of the bunch, the narrator has sex with his girlfriend's dog, which spawns a tiny man and results in several generations of dog/men mutations. Another story, my favorite, starts: "It seemed like a pretty simple trick to me. My friend Robert would hold the apple in his mouth while I, steady-handed, carved his initials into the piece of fruit with a chainsaw." Bradford walks you into bizzaro world slowly, starting out with stories I thought were a little odd and progressing to some of the weirdest stories I've ever read. What I love about the stories is their assumptiveness. It is never questioned whether or not chainsawing initials into an apple in someone's mouth is a good idea, or whether mating with canines is morally permissible. It just takes the premise and runs with it. It's a quick read, and very entertaining. It's also one of the only current books I've read which reminds me of Richard Brautigan's writing style.

Rating:
Summary: an amazing, disturbing, obsessive tour de force
Review: This book of short stories - ostensibly independent, but linked in style, subject, and theme - strikes a rare balance between sublime writing and readability. The stories are models of their genre, written in a flat, simple style that flatters the content, and the author is careful to exclude extraneous material that could distract from the intensity of his work.

But beware - these stories are *intense*. More than that, they're disturbing. They revolve around deformation and mutation on both the physical and psychological levels. The characters in the book are stunted, twisted creatures with amputated limbs and tumorous growths - sometimes on their bodies, but more often in their minds. They do things that seem bizarre and disgusting until, gradually, they begin to seem deeply truthful.

And that's a good thing, because it makes you think about your own life and what it means to you. But it's also a difficult thing. Don't buy this book to read on your vacation, and don't buy it to distract yourself from life's complications. Buy it because it's literature at its grittiest and most incisive, because it's everything a difficult book should be, and because these stories, of all the books you read this week or this month or this year, will be among those you remember.