“At home, there are all the smells of the surrounding countryside, I know them well, they never change.” Gus is a small dog from the countryside. He lives in a house with a garden that “Throws a stick three deep, and two broad”. Between Sweet who cuddles him, Little girl who brushes his hair and Game who has fun with him, he leads a happy life with his masters. A happiness that ends the day the family goes on vacation, leaving him alone with Grogne, the 17-year-old who prefers television and his mopeds. “It’s even worse than I imagined. I’m not just going to be on my own, I’m going to have the worst master as a companion. The one who doesn’t love me, who brutalizes me all the time, for no reason. “
Then begins the agony of Gus who does not receive any more to eat and who must sleep outside. “I feel dirty, and abandoned, and angry. It is not a life. Even for a country dog. “ His empty stomach then pushes him to the worst decision: he goes in search of food and runs away in the forest where he is going to get lost. The beginning of a long, intense and exhausting adventure in the unknown. There he meets pretty female dogs that he likes and nasty dogs that attack him. But also different people who interact with him.
Cliché but sympathetic anthropomorphism
Mirza’s mistress, a long-haired black and white female dog, who tries to kick her. Stroller, this old lady who gives him sweets with one hand and martyrs him with the other. Or even Monsieur Frappe Socrates to whom Gus owes his life. A succession of characters symbolizing the treatment that humans inflict on animals. Gus moreover refers several times to the blows, but also to the cries (“It squashes me, it chokes me, it’s as if I was dying”) and the sudden forgetfulness of its existence (in such moments, “They are losing their hearing”).
We would have liked more images like the one on the cover to accompany the story. You have to be content with a small drawing at the beginning of each chapter. But the vicissitudes are linked and there is no time to be bored. If the beginning is a little rudimentary (wee on the tree stump, poo in the kitchen), we then enjoy the life of a dog, the absolute happiness of the smells of the market (“The party to my truffle”), through the discovery of the primary instinct of a domestic animal and the reactions to another beast.
Gus is the narrator and he tells his story like a child. The author also attributes human reactions to him through a cliché but oddly sympathetic anthropomorphism. Those who have a dog will recognize their pet in Gus’ behavior when he goes to pee, waits for food or stops at every smell he sniffs. He is still enthusiastic and his running away frees him. But his adventure of a few days also reminds him that his place is in his house with his masters. As the deer in the forest points out: “I am at home here. You are not welcome there. “ Tired, he ends up wanting to go home to find his family. And when his wish is fulfilled, he especially wishes “That nothing ever changes”.
Olivier Ka, Charles Dutertre (Ill.), Diary of a country dog, Rouergue «DacOdac», 144 pp., 11 €. From 9 years.
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