Dogs and Monsters

Weaving together Ancient Greek fables with more recent dystopian narratives, Mark Haddon jump starts the heart of these legends told and retold for millennia, and demonstrates their lasting relevance again, in new and unexpected forms.

The lover of a goddess, Tithonus is gifted eternal life, but without eternal youth he must stare into a future of endless old age. The myth of the Minotaur in his labyrinth is turned into a wrenching parable of maternal love for a damaged child – and of the more real monstrosities of patriarchy. Actaeon, changed into a stag after glimpsing the naked Diana and torn to pieces by his hunting dogs, becomes a visceral metaphor about how humans use and misuse animals.

From genetic engineering to the eternal complications of family, from fear of the future to the cruel world of the English boarding school, Haddon showcases masterfully how we are subject to the same elemental forces that obsessed the Greeks. Whether describing Laika the Soviet space-dog on her fateful orbit, or St Anthony wrestling with loneliness in the desert, his astonishing powers of observation are at their height when illuminating the thin line between human and animal.