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Overview
“Combines the cruel humor of Candide with the allegorical panache of Animal Farm.”—Entertainment Weekly
"Carol is the most unappreciated great writer we've got. Carmen Dog ought to be a classic in the colleges by now . . . It's so funny, and it's so keen."
—Ursula K. Le Guin
“A rollicking outre satire.... full of comic leaps and absurdist genius.”—Bitch
“A wise and funny book.”—The New York Times
"This trenchant feminist fantasy-satire mixes elements of Animal Farm, Rhinoceros and The Handmaid's Tale.... Imagination and absurdist humor mark [Carmen Dog] throughout, and Emshwiller is engaging even when most savage about male-female relationships."—Booklist
"Her fantastic premise allows Emshwiller canny and frequently hilarious insights into the damaging sex-role stereotypes both men and women perpetuate."
—Publishers Weekly
The debut title in our Peapod Classics line, Carol Emshwiller’s genre-jumping debut novel is a dangerous, sharp-eyed look at men, women, and the world we live in.
Everything is changing: women are turning into animals, and animals are turning into women. Pooch, a golden setter, is turning into a beautiful woman—although she still has some of her canine traits: she just can't shuck that loyalty thing—and her former owner has turned into a snapping turtle. When the turtle tries to take a bite of her own baby, Pooch snatches the baby and runs. Meanwhile, there's a dangerous wolverine on the loose, men are desperately trying to figure out what's going on, and Pooch discovers what she really wants: to sing Carmen.
Carmen Dog is the funny feminist classic that inspired writers Pat Murphy and Karen Joy Fowler to create the James Tiptree Jr. Memorial Award.
Synopsis
Funny feminist classic; a genre-jumping debut novel.
Publishers Weekly
Emshwiller ( Verging on the Pertinent ) stretches a conceit past the breaking point in this uneven allegory. Women are degenerating into various animals, and female animals are acquiring human characteristics. The men are puzzled, but don't much mindg ; animals, they realize, are ideal companions (``Relationships and responsibilities were less confining. After all, they merely involved dumb animals who were not worth consideration, politeness, time, effort, gifts''). Her fantastic premise allows Emshwiller canny and frequently hilarious insights into the damaging sex-role stereotypes both men and women perpetuate (a dog's visit to a psychologist is a highlight). But she juggles too many genres here--the g plot turns on mad scientists, academic conspiracies, formula romances--without sustaining the reader's interest in the central story of human/animal metamorphoses. Eventually the g social critique is swallowed by increasingly silly scenarios. (Mar.)