≫ [PDF] Gratis The Dog Stars Peter Heller 9780307959942 Books

The Dog Stars Peter Heller 9780307959942 Books

Download As PDF : The Dog Stars Peter Heller 9780307959942 Books

The Dog Stars Peter Heller 9780307959942 Books

It is hard for me to describe the power of this book, and I was surprised just now when I rated the mood of this post-apocalyptic story as "hopeful." But, in its odd, idiosyncratic and special way, I think it is. Even though the journey to that point of hope is a real doozy.

When I read this book, I was reminded of Tolstoy's line - "There is nothing great where truth, simplicity, and beauty are not present." This book hits all three, although they come in atypical and, at times, devastating forms. There are passages in this book that are more beautiful, more achingly honest, about true loss than almost anything else I have read, and they are all the more powerful because of the poetic simplicity of the prose, the sparing and economical word choice - the feeling you get that if anything else was said, it would not only be nonessential or redundant, it could finally crush the spirit beyond the possibility of recovery.

This book reminds you that the end of the world is not only a subjective expression but a completely subjective feeling; for some, the end is not real at all, for some the end happens nearly immediately, and for a few, the end doesn't happen until the person they are is gone and the reason for continuing to struggle to live is merely due to "curiosity." A chilling reason, but perhaps accurate. The mundane everyday drudgery is punctuated by sudden moments of pure horror, disgust, and savagery. During the span of one evening reading this book, I nearly vomited and then later cried harder than I would like to admit.

Some have complained about the clipped, stream-of-consciousness style of storytelling, but I think that is apropos for this tale. After all, when the end comes for the world and pretty much everyone is gone, what else would you have to hear, or listen to, than your own thoughts?

If all civilization came to a shuddering stop, what would enable the survivors to survive long-term? Would it be the homicidal ape that we are, the ability to kill and trap resources the most effectively, or would it be the better angels of our nature? Would it be the willingness to drop the gun, drop the sword, even if we had every reason to shoot or stab? What would really keep us alive? Perhaps more important, what would make us want to keep living?

I hope you have as rewarding an experience reading this book as I did. It will crush you, it will disturb you, but it will also lift you up- maybe you will even soar.


Tags : The Dog Stars [Peter Heller] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. “Leave it to Peter Heller to imagine a postapocalyptic world that contains as much loveliness as it does devastation. His hero,Peter Heller,The Dog Stars,Knopf,0307959945,End of the world;Fiction.,Survival;Fiction.,AMERICAN FIRST NOVELISTS,Action & Adventure,End of the world,Fiction,Fiction - General,Fiction Action & Adventure,Fiction Literary,Fiction-ActionAdventure,GENERAL,General Adult,Science Fiction - Apocalyptic & Post-Apocalyptic,Survival,United States

The Dog Stars Peter Heller 9780307959942 Books Reviews

“Everybody out for themselves, even to dealing death, and you come to a complete aloneness. You and the universe.” ‒ from THE DOG STARS

“… at night you can’t bear to hear your own breath unaccompanied by another … The Pain is lying beside your side, close. Does not bother you with the sound even of breathing.” ‒ from THE DOG STARS

“I still dream Jasper is alive. Before that my heart will not go.” ‒ from THE DOG STARS

“I’d say it was a relief to have at last nothing, but I was too hollow to register relief, too empty to carry it … Nothing to lose is so empty, so light, that the sand you crumble to at last blows away in a gust, so insubstantial it’s carried upwards to shirr into the sandstorm of the stars. That’s where we all get to. The rest is just wearing thin waiting for wind.” ‒ from THE DOG STARS

The world in Peter Heller’s THE DOG STARS is a post-apocalyptic one. The United States, and presumably the rest of Earth, has been drastically depopulated by a variant strain of influenza, and many of the survivors struck with a blood and body fluid-born disease that causes a slow, wasting death. All this against the background, apparently, of a climate warming that’s killing off other species.

Heller’s hero here, known only to the readers as Hig, who avoided both illnesses, lives at an abandoned rural airstrip north of Denver. Hig’s only neighbor is Bangley, a personally uncommunicative older man, a weapons enthusiast, and a firearm’s marksman. Bangley is a take-no-prisoners survivalist whose working philosophy is to shoot any and all intruders who trespass into a defensive perimeter routinely patrolled by Hig in a Cessna 182. While Hig sees the necessity for an association with Bangley and his precautions, the harshness and bareness of the relationship is excoriating the humanity from the former’s soul.

Then, Hig suffers a loss which compels him to re-establish his connection with what may remain of his own diminishing humanity.

THE DOG STARS is perhaps the best novel I’ve read in many months.

The author’s ability to portray, from the perspective of Hig’s stream of consciousness - a narrative device which some reviewers don't appreciate - and experiences, the solitude and despair of an inner Aloneness and a resurrection from such is what makes the story a triumph of writing.

Man is a social animal. To think and/or attempt to live otherwise is an ultimately destructive folly. That is the great lesson of THE DOG STARS.
It is hard for me to describe the power of this book, and I was surprised just now when I rated the mood of this post-apocalyptic story as "hopeful." But, in its odd, idiosyncratic and special way, I think it is. Even though the journey to that point of hope is a real doozy.

When I read this book, I was reminded of Tolstoy's line - "There is nothing great where truth, simplicity, and beauty are not present." This book hits all three, although they come in atypical and, at times, devastating forms. There are passages in this book that are more beautiful, more achingly honest, about true loss than almost anything else I have read, and they are all the more powerful because of the poetic simplicity of the prose, the sparing and economical word choice - the feeling you get that if anything else was said, it would not only be nonessential or redundant, it could finally crush the spirit beyond the possibility of recovery.

This book reminds you that the end of the world is not only a subjective expression but a completely subjective feeling; for some, the end is not real at all, for some the end happens nearly immediately, and for a few, the end doesn't happen until the person they are is gone and the reason for continuing to struggle to live is merely due to "curiosity." A chilling reason, but perhaps accurate. The mundane everyday drudgery is punctuated by sudden moments of pure horror, disgust, and savagery. During the span of one evening reading this book, I nearly vomited and then later cried harder than I would like to admit.

Some have complained about the clipped, stream-of-consciousness style of storytelling, but I think that is apropos for this tale. After all, when the end comes for the world and pretty much everyone is gone, what else would you have to hear, or listen to, than your own thoughts?

If all civilization came to a shuddering stop, what would enable the survivors to survive long-term? Would it be the homicidal ape that we are, the ability to kill and trap resources the most effectively, or would it be the better angels of our nature? Would it be the willingness to drop the gun, drop the sword, even if we had every reason to shoot or stab? What would really keep us alive? Perhaps more important, what would make us want to keep living?

I hope you have as rewarding an experience reading this book as I did. It will crush you, it will disturb you, but it will also lift you up- maybe you will even soar.