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Overview
Dogs and Water chronicles a piece of a lonely journey, without origin or destination. A young man wandering a nameless path has only a stuffed bear as a companion, which inertly endures his desperation, anger, and musings along the way. The landscape is cold and bleak with few landmarks, and offers only precarious encounters with animals and armed men. These interactions are rife with instinct, the drive for survival, and human ethics concerning the killed and injured. He finds acceptance with a pack of dogs, though their nature is wild and their potential threat is as unsettling as the sudden presence of a massive pipeline on the horizon. In a dreamlike state, the endless land becomes a vast body of water where his boat is destroyed and his body floats in a subconscious space. On land, the road disappears and only blind circumstance remains. All is uncertain and all can be lost, but he continues on regardless.
Synopsis
Dogs and Water chronicles a piece of a lonely journey, without origin or destination. A young man wandering a nameless path has only a stuffed bear as a companion, which inertly endures his desperation, anger, and musings along the way. The landscape is cold and bleak with few landmarks, and offers only precarious encounters with animals and armed men. These interactions are rife with instinct, the drive for survival, and human ethics concerning the killed and injured. He finds acceptance with a pack of dogs, though their nature is wild and their potential threat is as unsettling as the sudden presence of a massive pipeline on the horizon. In a dreamlike state, the endless land becomes a vast body of water where his boat is destroyed and his body floats in a subconscious space. On land, the road disappears and only blind circumstance remains. All is uncertain and all can be lost, but he continues on regardless.
Heidi DolamoreCopyright 2006 Reed Business Information. - School Library Journal
Gr 10 Up
Nilsen's narrative lens focuses narrowly on a lone traveler wandering in a desolate landscape. In a series of simple black-line drawings that dissolve into the whiteness of the page, an unnamed man clad in a hoodie stumbles through a desertlike environment with a stuffed bear strapped to his backpack. The bear is both a source of companionship and the target of frustrated outrage. Wild dogs pursue the traveler; after fending off their attack, he joins the pack, sleeping among them and walking alongside them as they march toward the empty horizon. The journey is punctuated by dreams of a vast ocean, illustrated in muted and ashen blue tones. The sparse narrative leaves many questions unanswered, offering no explanations for how or why any of this has come to pass. Events are depicted with an eerie sense of detachment, underscoring the bleak circumstances in which the young man is trapped. Nilsen conveys a sense of isolation, loneliness, and alienation within a loose framework that leaves itself open to myriad interpretations. Teens interested in independent comics or independent film will be attracted to it.
Editorials
School Library Journal
Gr 10 Up
Nilsen's narrative lens focuses narrowly on a lone traveler wandering in a desolate landscape. In a series of simple black-line drawings that dissolve into the whiteness of the page, an unnamed man clad in a hoodie stumbles through a desertlike environment with a stuffed bear strapped to his backpack. The bear is both a source of companionship and the target of frustrated outrage. Wild dogs pursue the traveler; after fending off their attack, he joins the pack, sleeping among them and walking alongside them as they march toward the empty horizon. The journey is punctuated by dreams of a vast ocean, illustrated in muted and ashen blue tones. The sparse narrative leaves many questions unanswered, offering no explanations for how or why any of this has come to pass. Events are depicted with an eerie sense of detachment, underscoring the bleak circumstances in which the young man is trapped. Nilsen conveys a sense of isolation, loneliness, and alienation within a loose framework that leaves itself open to myriad interpretations. Teens interested in independent comics or independent film will be attracted to it.
—Heidi DolamoreCopyright 2006 Reed Business Information.