Recital of the Dog

November 2, 1992
This curious novel seems to be playwright Rabe's attempt to tap a fictional genre one associates with Central European writers--Kafka and Grass come to mind--transplanted to upstate New York. An unnamed artist tells the story of his psychological disintegration, which begins when he shoots a neighbor's dog in a fit of pique because the animal constantly harassed his small herd of cows. He claims to be sorry, but his remorse takes the form of being nasty to his wife (no charmer herself), ignoring his son and spying on the Old Man, whose dog he has killed. The latter spends his time putting up lost-dog posters, unaware that ``Barney'' is dead. (While neither the old man nor the painter is identified by name, the dog is personalized.) The posters are an apparent link between the artist and the old man on a deeper level, and we are not greatly surprised when the narrator is transformed into a dog, but one that continues to drone on in a leaden interior monologue--indeed, the whole story is fogged in by Rabe's cumbersome prose. The dramatic economy Rabe displayed in such theater pieces as The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel and other works eludes him here. His attempt to show psychopathic derangement is boring and self-indulgent, and scenes of rape and child abuse may be too violent for many readers.

December 1, 1992
Playwright Rabe's first novel is a powerful, shocking portrait of a disintegrating psyche. The unnamed protagonist is a blocked artist who has moved to the country in the hope of rekindling his inspiration. Instead, his shooting of a neighbor's dog unleashes a torrent of repressed guilt that leads first to a sadomasochistic relationship with the dog's owner and finally to a series of brutal crimes. The language mirrors the protagonist's mental state, with expressionistic distortions used to convey his increasingly bizarre projections. Yet not everything here works. For every passage of hallucinatory brilliance, another is merely overheated. Worse, the sources of the protagonist's guilt are never fully explained, leaving the reader puzzled by the ferocity of his fall. Still, the novel fairly crackles with a dark, disturbing, often dazzling energy. For most collections. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 7/92.-- Lawrence Rungren, Bedford Free P.L., Mass.

Copyright 1992 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.