How long does it take to read Fifteen Dogs?
André Alexis
Fifteen Dogs by André Alexis takes about 3 hours 13 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 3 hours 13 minutes
A weekend read
First published 2015. 175 pages, about 48,125 words.
7 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 5 hours 21 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 3 hours 13 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 2 hours |
The page count is the median across 8 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
— 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. And so it begins: a bet between the gods Hermes and Apollo leads them to grant human consciousness and language to a group of dogs overnighting at a Toronto veterinary clinic. Suddenly capable of more complex thought, the pack is torn between those who resist the new ways of thinking, preferring the old 'dog' ways, and those who embrace the change. The gods watch from above as the dogs venture into their newly unfamiliar world, as they become divided among themselves, as each struggles with new thoughts and feelings. Wily Benjy moves from home to home, Prince becomes a poet, and Majnoun forges a relationship with a kind couple that stops even the Fates in their tracks. André Alexis's contemporary take on the apologue offers an utterly compelling and affecting look at the beauty and perils of human consciousness. By turns meditative and devastating, charming and strange, Fifteen Dogs shows you can teach an old genre new tricks.
Subjects: Fiction, general, Dogs, Fiction, Intellect, Animal intelligence, Consciousness in animals
