The Amazon page for Fifteen Dogs by Andre Alexis has a great summary of the story:
“I wonder,” said Hermes, “what it would be like if animals had human intelligence.”
“I’ll wager a year’s servitude,” answered Apollo, “that animals - any animal you like - would be even more unhappy than humans are if they were given human intelligence.”
It reads like a fairy tale and in a lot of ways seemed to me a commentary about what might have happened/ how humans reacted to intelligence being a form of power that works far differently than the way most forms of power work for nonhuman animals.
In many ways it’s quite bleak bleak, but the story lands on a hopeful note about the potential of intelligence to make a life better than it might be without it.
- Read Fifteen Dogs by Andre Alexis