Status
Available
Publication
London: Granta, 2012
Description
Set in Cambodia during the regime of the Khmer Rouge and in present day Montreal, Dogs at the Perimeter tells the story of Janie, who as a child experiences the terrible violence carried out by the Khmer Rouge and loses everything she holds dear. Three decades later, Janie has relocated to Montreal, although the scars of her past remain visible.
Media reviews
If for each season there is a book, then Dogs at the Perimeter belongs to winter -and in particular to the sullen clouds and ever-looming darkness of November. Depicting a "broken world [that] finally fell apart," Madeleine Thien's sophomore novel is mournful, gloomy, despairing and
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monochromatic. Not a novel with a reader's enjoyment anywhere in its agenda, Dogs can be instead witnessed, puzzled over and, on occasion, merely endured.
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In stark, beautiful prose, Thien (whose first work of fiction, Simple Recipes, was a finalist for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Book) shows that it’s through these characters’ relationships with others—like James’s complicated bond with his brother, or Janie’s with her
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husband and son, and the connection between Janie and Hiroji—that a more permanent identity is created.
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Among the numerous episodes of mass murder characteristic of the 20th century, the reign of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia stands out as one of the most bizarre and horrifying. Overrunning Cambodia in 1975, this revolutionary army waged war on half the population of the country — anybody educated,
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middle class, living in a city. Before the Khmer Rouge or the Angkar (the organization) were finished, well over a million Cambodians had died at their hands.
“Families are a disease of the past,” ran one of their tenets, as quoted in Madeleine Thien’s novel, Dogs at the Perimeter, and so families were split apart and individual members driven into rural communes where they worked the fields and perished from disease, starvation and execution. Interrogators extracted confessions from these forced labourers, detailed written accounts of their lives. If the accounts were deemed unsatisfactory they were rewritten several times. It was a highly organized attempt to reduce every person to zero...This is harrowing stuff, but before absorbing it, a reader must come to terms with certain structural and stylistic aspects of the novel. Her sentences tend to be poetically constructed, with idiosyncratic use of language...I do not mean to be picky, and there are certainly striking passages throughout the novel, but it is fair to say Thien’s language does tend to call attention to itself in ways that are not always fortunate...Narrative becomes disjointed, impressionistic, almost incoherent
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Thien strong enough to let ambiguity stand....
MONTREAL-BASED Madeleine Thien's second novel is a fractured and fragmented story that inhabits both 1970s Cambodia and modern-day Montreal...Thien conveys the sense that both Janie and Hiroji might be able to cobble together enough of the pieces of
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themselves to stay sane.
But they might not. And Thien is a brave and strong enough writer to let that final ambiguity stand
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The beauty of Madeleine Thien’s prose doesn’t reside only in its clarity and elegance. She’s a surveyor of damaged lives, and her characters no longer possess the requisite layers of skin to protect them from what they have endured, and what they remember. Thien, a deeply empathetic writer,
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enfolds her wounded creations in morally precise language, offering the consolation of, in effect, storytelling.
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User reviews
LibraryThing member dalzan
Amazon summary: One starless night, a girl’s childhood was swept away by the terrors of the Khmer Rouge. Exiled from the city, she and her family were forced to live out in the open under constant surveillance. Each night, people were taken away. Caught up in a political storm which brought
Three decades later, Janie’s life in Montreal is unravelling. Haunted by her past, she has abandoned her husband and son and taken refuge in the home of her friend, the brilliant, troubled scientist, Hiroji Matsui. In 1970, Hiroji’s brother, James, travelled to Cambodia and fell in love. Five years later, the Khmer Rouge came to power, and James vanished. Brought together by the losses they endured, Janie and Hiroji had found solace in each another. And then, one strange day, Hiroji disappeared.
Engulfed by the memories she thought she had fled, Janie must struggle to find grace in a world overshadowed by the sorrows of her past.
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starvation to millions, tore families apart, and changed the world forever, she lost everyone she loved. Three decades later, Janie’s life in Montreal is unravelling. Haunted by her past, she has abandoned her husband and son and taken refuge in the home of her friend, the brilliant, troubled scientist, Hiroji Matsui. In 1970, Hiroji’s brother, James, travelled to Cambodia and fell in love. Five years later, the Khmer Rouge came to power, and James vanished. Brought together by the losses they endured, Janie and Hiroji had found solace in each another. And then, one strange day, Hiroji disappeared.
Engulfed by the memories she thought she had fled, Janie must struggle to find grace in a world overshadowed by the sorrows of her past.
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LibraryThing member Suzannie1
I found i couldn't follow this book at all, wasnt sure if she was in the past or the present and who she was relating to at times. The description of the genocide was horrifying spoken from a child's point of view , and this was probably the most engaging thing about this book, I was a bit
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dissapointed in myself as I thought I would get more from this author's story. Show Less
LibraryThing member JenBurge
This book is beautifully written and completely engrossing. It is not a typical book about war, nor was the war in Cambodia typical in any respect. It is an analysis on "identity" both personal and national and how people can move intentionally or unintentionally between those identities. As a
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student of many cultures, I found it fascinating to have some light shed on this tragic wound of Cambodian history which is too deep and too fresh to heal. Show Less
LibraryThing member Ameise1
Janie recalls her childhood while she is looking for a good friend. It is the childhood at the end of the war in Cambodia as families were torn apart as brainwashing took place as one could only survive with an illusory spark to see his loved ones again. For those concerned it was about the naked
The language is strong and nevertheless the feelings are very sensitive. Even if it is a fiction, many people have experienced this and have great difficulties that this sad destiny does not hinder them in today's everyday life.
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survival, even if one for others has betrayed.The language is strong and nevertheless the feelings are very sensitive. Even if it is a fiction, many people have experienced this and have great difficulties that this sad destiny does not hinder them in today's everyday life.
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LibraryThing member Beamis12
Janie is a researcher at the Montreal Neroulogical Center, but she was once known by different names in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. She once came from a middle class family, had a father, mother, brother, until War came, and Cambodia became the killing fields. Made to leave their home by the Khmer Rouge,
Haunted by the memories of the past, and the atrocities committed at the hand of the Khmer Rouge, Janie falls apart. Leaving her husband and young son, she seeks shelter at the home of a friend, he too has ghosts haunting him from the past. We learn of Janie's backstory, what happened to her family, and what life was like under the Khmer Rouge. Where nothing is ever the same, loyalties shift, and there is no firm ground. Eventually the two stories will combine, Heroji, searching for his brother and Janie trying to come to terms with her past.
Such a devastating time period for so many, separations, the uncertainty, the brutality, all hallmarks of this horrendous time. The writing is sometimes repetitive and fragmented, but I found it very effective. We do get a clear understanding of what these people went through, and even what Phnom Penh, looked like after the Khmer Rouge were driven out. A difficult book to read, these type of stories always are, but not told dramatically nor overly emotional. I thought this was quite well done, combining memories, trauma, with the two leading characters studying the brain in the present, but realizing that the past is never quite gone.
ARC from Edelweiss.
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her life and family will never be the same.Haunted by the memories of the past, and the atrocities committed at the hand of the Khmer Rouge, Janie falls apart. Leaving her husband and young son, she seeks shelter at the home of a friend, he too has ghosts haunting him from the past. We learn of Janie's backstory, what happened to her family, and what life was like under the Khmer Rouge. Where nothing is ever the same, loyalties shift, and there is no firm ground. Eventually the two stories will combine, Heroji, searching for his brother and Janie trying to come to terms with her past.
Such a devastating time period for so many, separations, the uncertainty, the brutality, all hallmarks of this horrendous time. The writing is sometimes repetitive and fragmented, but I found it very effective. We do get a clear understanding of what these people went through, and even what Phnom Penh, looked like after the Khmer Rouge were driven out. A difficult book to read, these type of stories always are, but not told dramatically nor overly emotional. I thought this was quite well done, combining memories, trauma, with the two leading characters studying the brain in the present, but realizing that the past is never quite gone.
ARC from Edelweiss.
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Awards
Globe and Mail Top 100 Book (2011)