My Dog, the Meat Eater

Too fast we forget about the important things in life, what's right, and what we care about most. My Dog, the Meat Eater is a tale of life and the art of survival. The sly setting of a small family farm provokes readers to see from an agricultural viewpoint the realization that people must deal with the effects of change--life moves on even if we don't. And no matter what happens to us, whether our life takes a turn for the worse or better, we just have to keep on living.Daniel Trask's first novel reads light as four young boys with the help of an old Puerto Rican named Louie embark on the discovery of what it means when they realize that the only way to survive in this world is to experience the death of another. The dependency of living beings on one another is what enables us to live and move on. The novel depicts the essence of the circle of life provocatively through the dreams and stories of the boys on the farm.I've read this book numerous times and each time, it brings on a new and different meaning on life.If you're looking for a good summer reading book or any season book, I highly recommend My Dog, the Meat Eater.You won't be dissapointed.

What starts out as a simple coming of age story about college boys working at a farm-written by an author possessed by an obsession with life cycles and eating-quickly becomes something far more complex, disturbing, and ultimately profound. Not in recent memory has a book so repeatedly challenged and escaped my expectations.Mr. Trask refreshingly discards complex prose in favor of more direct and intuitive language. His descriptions are so sharply defined that the printed page quickly fades out of view and the reader is engulfed in imagery that is powerful, personal, and unpretentiously metaphoric. Trask is a visionary author in the literal sense of the word. He creates and weaves imagery with real clarity and a wisdom inherited from dreams. Like few other authors Trask understands the unique way in which writing can manipulate the visual world. Sometimes his transitions from reality to dream are completely seamless. Yet, he divides the novel into short section, each of which continue the story chronologically, but seem like they could each exist on their own as independent short works. The sections are so full of reality and symbolism that the novel as a whole reads like a book of poetry. It reads at times like a film as well-like a series of vignettes, complete with carefully controlled visuals, cuts, and fade-outs. All of this-the accessible language, short self-contained sections, and visual style-makes "My Dog the Meat Eater" very readable. You can read it in a single evening and allow yourself to be swept up by Trask's deep connection with the landscape, the quick movements in time, and the succession of increasingly dreamlike imagery. But equally well, you can pick this book up in short installments and give yourself time to savor the individual scenes. I've found out first hand, like the reviewer above, that this book rewards multiple readings. I couldn't possibly understand the complete significance of Trask's story until I had reached the end. Revisit the story and you'll see how impeccably interwoven it is. I recommend that everyone read this. This looks to me like the first work of an important author.

This experimental novel takes the reader into the heart of life. It forces a confrontation with the meaning of food, for one thing, a fascinating subject that lies at the heart of religion. What is the significance of the fact that we have to consume other sentient beings to sustain our own lives? Do vegetables love their lives as we animals do? The georgic setting is a small farm on the edge of an industrial city in its sunset stage. You can feel the angst of the farm-owning family as they cling somewhat desperately to land bequeathed to them and manage to eke out a living from the soil.But there's much more to this little book, the first effort of a young author with considerable talent for observation and description. The hopes, the dreams (literally), and the disappointments of a diverse group of young men working under the guidance of an older Puerto Rican farmhand make for an unforgettable literary experience."My Dog, the Meat Eater" is a book that will reward any reader who finds him or her self questioning the meaning of it all.

I didn't think I'd like it at first, too many emotions, too fast, too much shifting from reality to obscure-dream sequence. But after reading through the book twice, I started to identify with the characters, the mood, the area, and the themes. This is what being young is all about.. and I'm glad someone has written it down in such a raw, immediate way. This book understands reality, and thats the most anybody could ask from a book.

I just finished this book. I loved it. I'm totally impressed that at such a young age (21), Daniel has managed to write a long text that's so full of insights and hangs together beautifully.Somehow the book manages to lay out a kind of Thoreauvian stark naked vision of reality as if it had been filtered through Shel Silverstein.There were a number of great lines, but the following two were myfavorites, the second in particular:"Killing weeds and fighting to keep vegetables alive all day can bring out the venom in a person.""Their hearts all glowed like separate burners on the same electric stove."In addition, I really liked the following sections: pp. 98-99; 128-132.At any rate, this is a really great book. I'm looking forward to his next one.I encourage everyone to check it out. You won't be disappointed.