Wild Dog - Serge Joncour translated by Jane Aitken and Polly Mackintosh

With a dual narrative that alternates between 1914/15 and 2017 Wild Dog creates a landscape of repressed tension that fills the reader with an almost indefinable unease. Beautifully translated by Jane Aitken and Polly Mackintosh the two chronologies present with two differing styles which I found interesting. Was that the intention of the author? Or is it the handling of two different translators? Whatever it is, it worked, certainly for me. A secluded region of France is the common denominator in both time frames in this tale of a desire to pare our complicated and convoluted lives down to those things that really matter, but nothing is ever that simple is it? Two very different stories that converge into one allegory with one wild dog at its centre. 

Lise rents a holiday property as she attempts to eschew the modern world and get back to basics accompanied by her less than willing husband, Franck, who is over dependent on the digital world.  Lise is the light relief in the story, positive and practical she is the one character who seems to have it all sorted in her head, naively so it may seem to some, but we need her optimism.  Franck is the complete opposite and you feel his disquiet as he runs the gauntlet between the isolated gite and the town of Limogne, reluctant and uncertain about this vacation.

The brink of war kick starts the early narrative as the villagers cope with the implications of war on its population. Women realise that maybe they can manage perfectly well without men. Or can they? Josephine the doctor's wife, a potential widow, seeks solace in the wild. A lion tamer, seeks to sit the war out in almost solitude except for his caged beasts.

The wild dog of the title I saw as an allegory illustrating the paradox of the human condition. Frank is drawn to him. One can attribute many different psychological interpretations of this relationship with the dog who is both wild and wolf like yet his pack mentality allows him some of the domestic dog’s attributes. It’s fascinating. 

The earlier story lays down a foundation for some of the artefacts encountered by Lise and Franck. The meat of this early story suggests some parallels in intent if not execution. Wildness versus civilisation endures. The past and the present. The complexities of relationships endure in both stories. Characters exist in tandem, the butcher, the blacksmith. Reincarnation almost.

Joncour has created a narrative that veers towards the downright sinister at times; an almost brutal laying bare of the wildness of nature that becomes mesmerising. Lise and Franck,  yin and yang, two opposite characters which creates a balance.  Josephine and the lion tamer, again, opposites, but like magnets. their attraction seeks to unify. 

It’s an arresting tale; curiously hypnotic in its evocative prose. I was reminded in part of James Dickey’s Deliverance, something primeval almost. It's not a book you can forget easily. My thanks to Gallic Books for an advance reading copy.