By JEAN DUTOURD (The University of Chicago Press; 1951/98)

A children’s book?  That’s the designation given this 1951 French novella by translator Wendy Doniger in her forward.  Specifically, she compares A DOG’S HEAD to ALICE IN WONDERLAND, as “both are and are not for children, resorted to by authors who wish to write lightly about subjects they fear may be too heavy to treat in adult literature without becoming Maudlin.”  I’d reject the children’s book label altogether, as despite the childlike simplicity of its prose and overall mood of unquestioned fancy, A DOG’S HEAD by Jean Dutourd is a grown-up entertainment in virtually every aspect, being tough-minded and bearing a trajectory that’s quite bleak.

The subject is Edmond, a child born with the head of a spaniel bearing “long, flapping ears, wide, gaping jaws, and long hairs, masses of yellow and white hairs.”  Edmond’s body, however, is that of normal person, which renders him a freak (a trip to a barber to shave off his fur is “A cruel ordeal” that leaves him looking even weirder than before).  His bourgeoise parents are horrified but try their best to keep an even keel around Edmond, whose schoolmates, as you might guess, aren’t nearly as polite.  Even a pet dog shuns him, running away because, apparently, Edmond shows too much canine affection.

This is very much an outsider narrative (of a type that encompasses OF MICE AND MEN, THE ELEPHANT MAN and FORREST GUMP), but has one standout element: it’s a rare example of outsider literature that doesn’t turn the hero into an impossibly virtuous saint faced with an uncaring world.  Rather, in A DOG’S HEAD the deformed protagonist is every bit as petty and selfish as his tormentors, bullying people he views as beneath him and becoming into a greedy businessman.  Ultimately Edmond ends his days just as he began them: as an outcast, with a madwoman for a wife and a bevy of hostile neighbors.

THE METAMORPHOSIS this slight tale isn’t, and nor is it FREAK THE MIGHTY.  Rather, A DOG’S HEAD stakes out its own category, being a sui generis example of big-hearted fantasy spiced with unsentimental magic realism.  Kids are advised to steer clear.