Dog Bites Man: City Shocked : A Novel

Rating:
Summary: Very Funny "Dog"
Review: A satire that works. Outrageous and worthy of Evelyn Waugh. No kidding!

Rating:
Summary: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Dog
Review: DOG BITES MAN: CITY SHOCKED tries to do far too many things at once, and only ends up falling on its own face. Despite having a potentially amusing plot twist, the story never really takes advantage of the full promise of the premise. The writing is uninspired and the satire really lacks the titular bite. The political lampooning is far too heavy-handed to be really effective. Numerous times the narrative would actually point out the ironic or humorous elements resulting in the reader feeling as though one is being lectured at rather than being allowed to discover the satire for one's self. There was no reason for this to occur, and reading it at times felt like an insult to my intelligence.

The satire is too unfocused to be really effective. The author seems to want to take on too many matters at once, resulting in an onslaught that can only briefly touch upon a staggering array of subjects. Animal rights, journalism, New York mayoral politics (a huge subject in itself), abortion, religion, race, and immigration are just a few of the multiple topics that are discussed. Unfortunately, with such a wide variety of heavy subjects to skewer, almost none of them receive the in-depth attention needed. Too many topics are simply mentioned and then dropped, leaving the reader to wonder why the author bothered to mention them if he was only going to give such a superficial mocking.

The characters, while potentially interesting, end up being mostly bland. They do exactly what the plot requires them to do and have no sense of individuality. I understand that in satire the author will often have characters act irrationally simply for the sake of the sake of the story, but in DOG BITES MAN, the credulity was stretched way too far. People do things for no reason and events occur seemingly at random.

The author doesn't do himself many favors in the prose department either. The actual language is workmanship at best, and, at times, descends into the worst levels of pulp childishness. I normally have nothing against the more pulpy styles of writing; it's a form that has its place and can be very effective if used correctly. But in DOG BITES MAN, the prose can be almost painful. Every time a new character is introduced (and there are a lot of them who appear and disappear seemingly at random over the course of the 300+ pages) the narrative takes a long time-out while a large, annoying, and ultimately pointless character description and background is hauled out. If this were a book series, these three pages that are devoted to each character would be cut-and-pasted directly from their character outline to the exact place in the story where the aforementioned character appears.

None of the writing is done with any sort of subtlety whatsoever. It's a very short distance for a book to go from being a satire of bad pulp writing, to actually becoming bad pulp writing itself. I honestly couldn't tell if the author was mocking this form of simplistic writing or was unable to write in a more engaging style. By the end, I found it really didn't matter; I simply was unable to make myself care.

On the other hand the author demonstrates that when he puts his mind to it, the satire can work fairly well. There are several moments that are genuinely quite funny. Despite dropping the satirical ball at many key points, there is quite a lot of potential here. The characters, while remaining mostly faceless and indistinct, are fairly interesting to read about. At least, I was curious to see what they would be up to next. It's quite a quick read, and while the action may be incredibly slow moving (you'd be surprised at how long it takes for the incident referred to in the title to take place) it never becomes boring.

I was severely disappointed by DOG BITES MAN. The author apparently didn't have enough confidence in the reader's ability to pick up on basic satire and humor, therefore ended up spending far too much time explaining why aspects of the novel were funny. Nothing kills a joke faster than having it explained to death. That annoying characteristic of the novel severely tested my patience and left me with a bad taste in my mouth. While the potential was there for this to be a great and hard-hitting political satire, it rarely lived up to this. What it lacks in subtlety it makes up for in self-important speeches, which just isn't a good trade for my tastes.

Rating:
Summary: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Dog
Review: DOG BITES MAN: CITY SHOCKED tries to do far too many things at once, and only ends up falling on its own face. Despite having a potentially amusing plot twist, the story never really takes advantage of the full promise of the premise. The writing is uninspired and the satire really lacks the titular bite. The political lampooning is far too heavy-handed to be really effective. Numerous times the narrative would actually point out the ironic or humorous elements resulting in the reader feeling as though one is being lectured at rather than being allowed to discover the satire for one's self. There was no reason for this to occur, and reading it at times felt like an insult to my intelligence.

The satire is too unfocused to be really effective. The author seems to want to take on too many matters at once, resulting in an onslaught that can only briefly touch upon a staggering array of subjects. Animal rights, journalism, New York mayoral politics (a huge subject in itself), abortion, religion, race, and immigration are just a few of the multiple topics that are discussed. Unfortunately, with such a wide variety of heavy subjects to skewer, almost none of them receive the in-depth attention needed. Too many topics are simply mentioned and then dropped, leaving the reader to wonder why the author bothered to mention them if he was only going to give such a superficial mocking.

The characters, while potentially interesting, end up being mostly bland. They do exactly what the plot requires them to do and have no sense of individuality. I understand that in satire the author will often have characters act irrationally simply for the sake of the sake of the story, but in DOG BITES MAN, the credulity was stretched way too far. People do things for no reason and events occur seemingly at random.

The author doesn't do himself many favors in the prose department either. The actual language is workmanship at best, and, at times, descends into the worst levels of pulp childishness. I normally have nothing against the more pulpy styles of writing; it's a form that has its place and can be very effective if used correctly. But in DOG BITES MAN, the prose can be almost painful. Every time a new character is introduced (and there are a lot of them who appear and disappear seemingly at random over the course of the 300+ pages) the narrative takes a long time-out while a large, annoying, and ultimately pointless character description and background is hauled out. If this were a book series, these three pages that are devoted to each character would be cut-and-pasted directly from their character outline to the exact place in the story where the aforementioned character appears.

None of the writing is done with any sort of subtlety whatsoever. It's a very short distance for a book to go from being a satire of bad pulp writing, to actually becoming bad pulp writing itself. I honestly couldn't tell if the author was mocking this form of simplistic writing or was unable to write in a more engaging style. By the end, I found it really didn't matter; I simply was unable to make myself care.

On the other hand the author demonstrates that when he puts his mind to it, the satire can work fairly well. There are several moments that are genuinely quite funny. Despite dropping the satirical ball at many key points, there is quite a lot of potential here. The characters, while remaining mostly faceless and indistinct, are fairly interesting to read about. At least, I was curious to see what they would be up to next. It's quite a quick read, and while the action may be incredibly slow moving (you'd be surprised at how long it takes for the incident referred to in the title to take place) it never becomes boring.

I was severely disappointed by DOG BITES MAN. The author apparently didn't have enough confidence in the reader's ability to pick up on basic satire and humor, therefore ended up spending far too much time explaining why aspects of the novel were funny. Nothing kills a joke faster than having it explained to death. That annoying characteristic of the novel severely tested my patience and left me with a bad taste in my mouth. While the potential was there for this to be a great and hard-hitting political satire, it rarely lived up to this. What it lacks in subtlety it makes up for in self-important speeches, which just isn't a good trade for my tastes.

Rating:
Summary: Likeable failure
Review: I was really rooting for this book. I love political satire and just reading the cover blurb, it sounded as if Duffy's novel might be the new Bonfire of the Vanities. And he does come up with a plot that has a lot of potential. The Mayor of New York is attacked by a pit bull. When his bodyguards kill the dog to protect him, our niave Mayor is thrown into an increasingly ludicrous, painfully plausible political scandal.

So, what happened? Duffy isn't a bad writer. While his prose certainly didn't shine, it didn't put me to sleep either. Unfortunately, like his Mayor, Duffy is simply too nice. Instead of following his satire through, he suddenly pulls back during the last quarter of the book. Suddenly, his characters become achingly noble and start making "profound" statements about the sorry state of modern politics and journalism. One got the feeling that one day, Duffy looked over what he had previously written and suddenly, for lack of a better term, chickened out. He had the courage to start to a true satire but apparently, not the guts to finish one.

Rating:
Summary: Likeable failure
Review: I was really rooting for this book. I love political satire and just reading the cover blurb, it sounded as if Duffy's novel might be the new Bonfire of the Vanities. And he does come up with a plot that has a lot of potential. The Mayor of New York is attacked by a pit bull. When his bodyguards kill the dog to protect him, our niave Mayor is thrown into an increasingly ludicrous, painfully plausible political scandal.

So, what happened? Duffy isn't a bad writer. While his prose certainly didn't shine, it didn't put me to sleep either. Unfortunately, like his Mayor, Duffy is simply too nice. Instead of following his satire through, he suddenly pulls back during the last quarter of the book. Suddenly, his characters become achingly noble and start making "profound" statements about the sorry state of modern politics and journalism. One got the feeling that one day, Duffy looked over what he had previously written and suddenly, for lack of a better term, chickened out. He had the courage to start to a true satire but apparently, not the guts to finish one.