bAXTER Is sUch A sWeEt doGgiE! yoUR hEart wILl Just meLt oVeR thIs LiL cuTiE!!
The book is a chilly wind blowing away all of those notions that humans are truly capable of compassion, selflessness, thoughtfulness, altruism. Life is essentially meaningless. All of our various gestures that pretend to be reaching higher, to be connecting with others in real ways... all of those gestures are actually rooted in sentimentality, nostalgia, and a need to be perceived by others that we are acting in a way that is appropriate to the given situation. Human nature itself is an example of pointless form over genuine meaning. All we really want to do is live in our boxes, our compartments that we have built for ourselves, burrow into our little holes, stay safe within our little minds.
dOgs eXisT tO ProVidE prOtecTion anD cOmPaniOnsHiP tO loNely huMAn BEings. aLL tHey Ask foR iN reTurn iS yoUr afFectiOn!!
The book laughs coldly at your notions that animals are here to provide us love and affection rather than simply needing a warm place to live and food to eat. The book smiles condescendingly at your idea that humans are able to understand each other, let alone animals. The book is not sentimental, to say the least. The book is... dark.
wHen BaxTer looKS aT yOu, hE's lOOking aT yoU wiTh noNjudgmeNtal LOyaLty aNd deVotIon, likE aLL DoGs dO!
My understanding of the basic difference between "psychopath" and "sociopath" is that the former is able to blend into society by hiding their inability to empathize, while the latter is unable to blend. The book provides two examples of the former: the not so loving dog Baxter, and his third owner, the loveless child Carl. Both murderous, both nihilistic. A match made in, well, not heaven.
aniMAls bRinG oUt thE beSt in huMaNity! ouR FurRy coMPanioNs reMinD Us aBouT whAt Is moSt imPorTanT iN liFE:
My favorite part of the book (probably the same for most readers): those passages from Baxter's perspective. Some ingenious writing there. Baxter's thoughts are by turns dryly amusing, sadly accurate, hilariously inaccurate, disturbing and threatening (Baxter's plans often made me surprisingly tense), and eventually for this reader, entirely sympathetic. Sympathy for a psychopathic killer? Yes!
humANs and AniMaLs arE aLL gOD's cHiLDren! NuRture wILL cHanGe nATure! aS The sOng goEs, "alL YoU neEd iS LoooOOOOooooVe!"
I am far from a nihilist and I certainly don't share the dire perspective of this icy novel. That said, Hell Hound was all of the things I love in a book: gripping, thoughtful, mordantly witty, and full of ambiguity when it comes to the human condition and why we do the things we do. I admired its circular structure, the terrible inevitability. Greenhall is a phenomenal writer: sardonic, unsentimental, elegant with the prose, clever with narrative, and both damning and subtly empathetic with the characterization. This is a very smart and layered book, one that gave much food for thought - albeit food that was bitter to the taste. It is not about showing off that intelligence in a way that calls attention to itself. Ambitious but modest, slim and trim, decidedly a "genre" novel. It is also a perfect work of art.