Título: Dogs and Monsters: Stories
Autor: Mark Haddon
Sinopse: From the “terrifyingly talented” (London Times) author of THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG-IN THE NIGHT-TIME and THE PORPOISE, eight mesmerizingly imaginative, deeply-humane stories that use Greek myths and contemporary dystopian narratives to examine mortality, moral choices and the many variants of love.
Greek myths have fascinated people for millenia, seeing in them lessons about fate and hubris and the contingency of existence. Mark Haddon digs into the heart of these ancient fables and sees them anew. The dawn goddess Eos asked asks Zeus to give her lover Tithonus eternal life, but forgets to ask for eternal youth. In “The Quiet Limit of the World” Haddon imagines Tithonus’ life as he slowly ages over thousands of years, turning the cautionary tale of tempting the gods into a spellbinding meditation on witnessing death from the outside, and ultimately, how carnal love evolves into something richer and more poignant with time. In “The Mother’s Story,” Haddon takes the myth of the minotaur in his labyrinth, in which the beast is the spawn of the monstrous lust of the king’s wife Pasiphae, and turns it into a wrenching parable of maternal love for a damaged child, and the more real monstrosities of patriarchy. In “D.O.G.Z.” the story of Actaeon, who was turned into a stag after glimpsing the naked goddess Diana and torn to pieces by his hunting dogs, becomes a visceral metaphor about the continuum of human and animal behavior.
Other stories play with contemporary mythic tropes – genetic engineering, trying to escape the future, the viciousness of adolescent ostracism – to showcase how modern humans are subject to the same capriciousness that obsessed the Greeks. Haddon’s tales cover a vast range, from the mythic to the domestic, from ancient Greece to the present day, from stories about love to stories about cruelty, from battlefields to bed and breakfasts, from dogs in space to doors between worlds, all of them bound together by a profound sympathy and an understanding of how human beings act and think and feel when pushed to the very edge. Throughout Haddon’s supple prose showcases his astonishing powers of observation, of both the physical world and the workings of the psyche. His vision is clear-eyed, but always resolutely empathetic.
Contexto da obra
Como livro em inglês, esta obra costuma ganhar também uma camada própria de interesse editorial e linguístico. “Dogs and Monsters: Stories”, de Mark Haddon, publicado pela editora Doubleday, em 2024 e com 288 páginas, integra a categoria Livros em Inglês. Por isso, o interesse da obra tende a se ampliar quando o leitor considera também a relação com a língua em que ela circula.
Editora: Doubleday
Páginas: 288
Ano: 2024-10-15
Edição:
Linguagem: en
ISBN: 0385550863
ISBN13: 9780385550864
Sobre a editora
Os livros da editora Doubleday apresentam uma variedade de narrativas que transitam entre o suspense internacional, a ficção histórica densa e relatos íntimos de transformação pessoal. O catálogo revela obras com enredos que exploram intrigas políticas, espionagem e mistério, ao lado de histórias que mergulham em dramas familiares, descobertas emocionais e questões contemporâneas como relacionamentos e sexualidade. A leitura costuma alternar entre um ritmo tenso e envolvente em thrillers, e uma prosa mais reflexiva e detalhista em relatos de vida e ficção psicológica. Essa diversidade sugere um interesse por textos que equilibram ação e profundidade, com personagens complexos e cenários que vão de ambientes históricos a cidades modernas.
