- Hardcover: 216 pages
- Publisher: Crown Pub (Mar 1999)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0517702029
- ISBN-13: 978-0517702024
- Product Dimensions: 21.1 x 15 x 2.3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
The author of the critically hailed Half a Life steps boldly into world-class literary territory with this tightly structured yet richly expansive literary thriller that will call to mind the work of Graham Greene and Paul Bowles's The Sheltering Sky.
Thomas, a renowned American anthropologist, his much younger wife Helene, and Finster, a young, culturally shipwrecked AMR (American mercantile riffraff), as he's known locally, enact a tense personal drama of love and tragedy against the much larger historical drama of the Melanesian island of Vanduu, a steaming crucible where East and West, fundamentalist piety and free market fire, decay and sterility augur the future of the world.
Helene has lured Thomas to Vanduu in the desperate hope that its tropical splendor can miraculously heal the fracture that has cleaved their lives: Thomas's health is failing, and Helene simply can't accept that she might lose him. Unable to cope with the gulf of loneliness that his illness has opened between them, Helene finds herself growing more and more desperate as they tour this lush, clamorous paradise that turns out to be no paradise at all. And then Finster appears--young, louche, popping up everywhere Thomas and Helene happen to be, dogging Helene like a lovesick puppy. When a tragic mishap caused by their dance of three accidentally takes the life of a Vanduuan child, Helene, separated from both men, becomes a fugitive left to fend for herself on this troubled, surreal, inexplicably foreign speck of land in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
With a distilled emotional power and prose so tactile you can feel the eroticism and heat on every page, this riveting tale enacts large themes--the inevitable consequences of the hegemony of the American dream, the inexorable loss of a deep, adult love compared to the hopped-up sex-for-sale enticements Finster offers in its place, and a glimpse into what progress, with its spiraling allurements, has truly forfeited.
Thomas, a renowned American anthropologist, his much younger wife Helene, and Finster, a young, culturally shipwrecked AMR (American mercantile riffraff), as he's known locally, enact a tense personal drama of love and tragedy against the much larger historical drama of the Melanesian island of Vanduu, a steaming crucible where East and West, fundamentalist piety and free market fire, decay and sterility augur the future of the world.
Helene has lured Thomas to Vanduu in the desperate hope that its tropical splendor can miraculously heal the fracture that has cleaved their lives: Thomas's health is failing, and Helene simply can't accept that she might lose him. Unable to cope with the gulf of loneliness that his illness has opened between them, Helene finds herself growing more and more desperate as they tour this lush, clamorous paradise that turns out to be no paradise at all. And then Finster appears--young, louche, popping up everywhere Thomas and Helene happen to be, dogging Helene like a lovesick puppy. When a tragic mishap caused by their dance of three accidentally takes the life of a Vanduuan child, Helene, separated from both men, becomes a fugitive left to fend for herself on this troubled, surreal, inexplicably foreign speck of land in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
With a distilled emotional power and prose so tactile you can feel the eroticism and heat on every page, this riveting tale enacts large themes--the inevitable consequences of the hegemony of the American dream, the inexorable loss of a deep, adult love compared to the hopped-up sex-for-sale enticements Finster offers in its place, and a glimpse into what progress, with its spiraling allurements, has truly forfeited.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Hardcover
"Teeth of the Dog" is vividly written with respect to details of landscape of the out-of-the-way island, but it's finally disappointing. FINSTER, the pot-smoking California guy residing on the primitive Indonesean island, who's living the life of a druggy beach bum and small-time hustler, succeeds in his dream of bedding the confused tourist HELENE STRAUSS, whose sterile marriage to her cancer-stricken, dying husband makes her vulnerable and vaguely available to this weakling seducer. But their budding relationship doesn't add up to much, particularly since Helene never takes Finster very seriously. Moreover, Helene's difficulties as she finds herself wrongly accused of a little native girl's auto-accident death, and her subsequent escape from the island to avoid authorities, never give you the sense of a fully-worked out plot that provides thematic meaning. But, as said, the island detail is effectively rendered, and the novel does convey what it's like on exotic vacation islands of the type of Borneo or Java.
Format:Hardcover
The first time I read Teeth of the Dog, I read it strictly for the plot, which I enjoyed and found very entertaining. But the second time I read it, I understood (I think) what it was trying to say about the contemporary culture everywhere around the globe and I found it deeply disturbing, but quite profound. I also got into the language, which had a strange mixture of high brow and low brow, which ultimately only reinforced the message. I highly recommend this book.
Format:Hardcover
This isn't literary, it's "literary." Ciment writes with one eye on herself in the mirror as the great writer, and it shows in every sentence. The plot limps along and everything that happens is signalled a mile away. If you're surprised by anything, it's your own fortitude that you've kept reading.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
A great read!
This novel has much to recommend it. I loved the language and the story. Most contemporary fiction leaves me bored and I've taken to not finishing most of the books I start. Read more
Published on 24 April 1999
not good
I don't understand what all the fuss is about. I agree with the other reviewers here who found this lacking. Too much style, too little substance. Like imitation Graham Greene.
Published on 20 April 1999
Very moving story!
This book is a knockout. The story is about coming to terms with the death of someone you love, and I must say, having experienced grief myself, Jill Ciment got it exactly right. Read more
Published on 19 April 1999
over-written and self-conscious
This is ultimately a question of personal taste, but I found this novel appallingly over-written and self-conscious. Read more
Published on 16 April 1999
What's the point?
This is a baffling book. As someone who has lived in SE Asia off and on for the past 30 years, I found some of the descriptions very well done. Read more
Published on 16 April 1999
It's riveting and will keep you up at night.
Teeth of the Dog is an incredible collage of social commentary and whalloping emotional content. It reads like a skillful thriller. Read more
Published on 3 April 1999
If you enjoy beautiful writing and fast-paced suspense
If you crave beautiful writing, intense emotion, and nail biting suspense, you'll want to check out Teeth of the Dog. Read more
Published on 1 April 1999
A scintillating new novel by a fave writer.
I loved Half a Life, but this book's even better. Not just a thriller or a literary tour-de-force, this novel presents an electrifying portrait of characters caught in a... Read more
Published on 1 April 1999
I couldn't put this novel down.
I stayed up all night reading this novel, I couldn't put it down. The writing was so beautiful, the story really gripping, and very sad, too. Read more
Published on 30 Mar 1999
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