Bonita Avenue by Peter Buwalda

Abstract

While Apollo and Hermes constantly argue over the relationship between intelligence and happiness, the dogs face betrayal and loss of loved ones, continually fight over power and positions in the pack, and experience a new type of fear: of the world and humanity. Despite the burden of consciousness and social awareness that the dogs’ human intelligence brings them, there is a welcome reassurance as Alexis’s fifteen dogs discover the beauty of language, love, and human generosity along the way. Fifteen Dogs proves its brilliance as the dogs encounter much more than conflicts imposed by conscious awareness but individual , emotional, and uniquely human experiences. Despite the self-serving, pretentious, and unfavorable aspects of humanity that this text uncovers, Alexis leaves readers with a glimpse of our better nature, as the dogs experience some of our species’ most exceptional qualities: the ability to communicate, connect, and learn from one another. André Alexis’s fifteen dogs discover much more than human intellect in this novel: a consciousness deeper than intelligence, love different than loyalty, compassion unique to humanity,andanewperspectiveontheworld. Ryann Gordon University of Oklahoma Peter Buwalda. Bonita Avenue. Jonathan Reeder, tr. New York. Hogarth. 2014. isbn 9780553417852 Do we control our fate or do the fates control us? That is the question that Dutch author Peter Buwalda examines in his entertaining novel, Bonita Avenue. The plot involves an unconventional love triangle: Joni, young, beautiful, and ambitious; Siem, her stepfather , a famous mathematician; and Aaron, Joni’s loyal but insecure boyfriend. By all appearances Joni and Aaron are a wholesome young couple, but in fact they clandestinely operate a lucrative website that features pornographic photographs of Joni. When Siem coincidentally discovers Joni’s photos, it triggers a cascade of events, each more horrible than the last, which jeopardizes the threesome ’s close relationship. The novel skips back and forth through time, allowing the plot to be unveiled at a deliberate, suspense-building pace. One of the most satisfying aspects of the novel is that Buwalda gives us sufficient material to sink deeply into the psyche of the three primary characters, with one exception— we are offered almost no insight as to Joni’s motivation for becoming involved in pornography , a perspective that would allow a fuller appreciation of both her personality and the unfolding story. While the secret of the website solidifies the bond between Joni and Aaron, another secret collaboration strengthens Joni’s and Siem’s already close ties: Joni’s acquiescence to Siem’s plea that she provide false testimony against his son, Wilburt, which leads to Wilburt’s incarceration. Siem lives in a state of denial regarding his moral culpability toward Wilburt, preferring instead to rely on his academic training for an explanation of the terrible things that happen to him: “a mathematician’s job is to judge the bizarre on its quantitative value, that is: to strip the coincidence down to its bare probability instead of assigning it some magical significance.” As for Joni and Aaron, they choose to believe that their misfortunes are somehow brought about by a freak explosion at a local fireworks depot rather than accept them as the repercussions of their Joaquim Amat-Piniella K. L. Reich Robert Finley & Marta Marín-Dòmine, tr. Wilfrid Laurier University Press Based on his experiences in a Nazi concentration camp, Joaquim AmatPiniella ’s novel shows what life was like in the camps for Spanish prisoners. This novel tells the little-known story of the Spanish Republican exiles who were taken in the Nazi occupation of France while simultaneously unveiling the depths of suffering in the camps for the prisoners. David Albahari Learning Cyrillic Ellen Elias-Bursac, tr. Dalkey Archive David Albahari’s collection of twenty short stories detailing the experience of living as an immigrant are rife with intense beauty regardless of whether the ending is joyful or sorrowful. Exploring the difficulties of adapting to a new culture without losing the old, the stories weave together lives and moments in their quest for an answer to the struggle of belonging (see WLT, Sept. 2013, 12). Nota Bene WORLDLITERATURETODAY.ORG 57 58 WLT SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2015 deeds: “a blowup of those proportions sets unforeseen mechanisms in action, produces shock...