Friday, August 24, 2007

Why does my dog ...

Why does my dog lick walls? I know that there is nothing to eat there; I just washed them. Still, she licks them, the paper in my office, the lava lamp, and her favorite bath tub. I can only guess that she experiences the world more profoundly through her sense of taste. Then again, I thought dogs had an underdeveloped sense of taste.

On the note of dogs, what do you think about stories that are told from the prospective of animals, in which they maintained their "animal" nature (i.e. Animal Farm doesn't count, but Startide Rising does)? Are they always a little campy in your mind, or can you think of a story that really pulled it off?

5 comments:

writtenwyrdd said...

Anthropomorphic animals aside, because I don't care for that form of writing in general, the books written in the animals' points of view are fine by me. Possibly noteworthy, I observe them to be children's lit.

Some of the ones I read several tims as a child include "Crazy Kill Range" (horse pov), Black Beauty (horse); Bambi (deer); and "Vulpes the Red Fox" (fox pov)

writtenwyrdd said...

Here's a thought: What about writing a kid's fantasy/horror from the monster's pov. Maurice Sendak look out!

Nicole Kelly said...

I tend to not like animal stories at all. I tend to think that they are silly, campy, or otherwise ridiculous. Of course, one of the guys in my writing group just wrote a short story that was written in a Native American myth form. So, the story was told from the perspective of three animals (each representing some archtype). It was really great!

Nicole Kelly said...

And for the point-of-view monster story, that would be awesome! Of course, Monsters Inc (the movie) did a great job of that.

writtenwyrdd said...

Except book world and movie world are different media and thus the end result is vastly different.