FLUKE
by James Herbert. (1977)
Encapsulate the book in one sentence?
What
starts as the episodic life of a super-intelligent mongrel scrounging food and
looking for love turns into a quest to solve his own supposed murder by a man
reincarnated as a dog.
When
did I buy it? Why did I buy it?
There
was a New English Library paperback on my parents’ wall unit bookshelves ever
since the late Seventies and I would dip into it now and then as a kid. I don’t
think I read it all, though. I bought my own copy several times over the years,
intending to finish it and to thread all the episodes I remembered together. I
wanted to know what was going on. The old tagline made it very ambiguous: is
Fluke a man who thinks he’s a dog, or vice versa? Actually the book is a whole
lot less ambiguous than that. We’re told the state of play fairly early on. But
I remembered it being vivid and very well-written. I remember the dog’s point
of view being very realistic, and that was enough to make me buy it again and
to set it aside for a revisit some day.
What
year or edition?
I’ve
got a 1987 paperback (as well as a much earlier one, somewhere.) Black cover
with gold laminate on James Herbert’s name, making it look very much like a
horror novel. The list of other titles by this author has that very endearing
thing – tiny ticks in biro by the book’s original owner. They’d read eight out
of eleven Herbert novels published by that point. The most recent was ‘The
Magic Cottage’, which I remember reading at that time, more or less, in a
similar edition, with huge relish.
This
copy is inscribed ‘To Carl. Happy Christmas 1988. Dad.’
What’s
your verdict?
I
loved it. I think it’s his best. The writing is more sensual, grounded, vivid
than anything else he wrote. There’s no apocalypse on the horizon but there’s
more at stake for Fluke than for any of his other characters. There are
wonderful secondary characters, too – which Herbert is always good at. I
especially like the psychotic old lady who sets her cat alight, the mentor
figure Rumbo, and the wise old badger who tells Fluke a thing or two about
Buddhism. I didn’t realise the book was going to get so mystical, but I loved
that too.
What
genre would you say it is?
It
was packaged very much in the horror genre, selling alongside Herbert’s tales
of rats and strange, dark powers, but this belongs to a tradition of
allegorical animal stories. It’s closer to ‘Watership Down’ than anything else.
It’s in a tradition of British whimsy and mysticism and pastoral fantasy
perhaps more than it is the Gothic…
What
surprises did it hold – if any?
The
savagery of some of the scenes, such as the fight to the death with the
extra-intelligent rat – and the fact that the rat seems like a guest star from
Herbert’s famous trilogy. The whole-hearted embracing of reincarnation, and the
fact that it’s a badger who knows and understands the key to all existence
(just as one seems to in ‘The Wind in the Willows’, too.)
What
will you do with this copy now?
I
think I have to keep this. I’m sure I’ll return to it again. If I find my
nicer, 1970s edition – the same as the one we had when I was a kid – I’ll keep
that, and give this one to someone I think would like it.
Is
it available today?
Yes,
in print and as an ebook. Herbert’s whole backlist is available very cheaply as
ebooks. More or less the same price as they were in 1987.
Give
me a good quote:
From
the very start, when he wakes up for the first time, and finds himself
transformed into a dog:
“The
warmth from the sun beat against my eyelids, soft persuasion to open them.
Noises crept into my ears then burst through to my consciousness, confusing
sounds, a gabble broken by strident pitches.”
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