Reviews for Dinosaur Valley Girls

The average rating for Dinosaur Valley Girls based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2016-11-08 00:00:00 John Stevens Jerry of the Islands: A True Dog Story is a book I struggled with from start to finish. The big question: 'is this book racist?' is not an easy one to answer. At surface it seems to be, but the more I think of it, the more it seems that London was portraying the racist views of his time without really believing in them himself. It's definitely a hard book to read or rate. I don't even know how many times I put it down, gave up on it only to pick it up again. I didn't enjoy the beginning at all and if I hadn't read other books by Jack London, I would have surely given up for good at some point- well at many points in this book actually. However, having read London before and being familiar with his at times particularly brutal version of naturalist writing style, I decided to push through and I'm not sorry I did. The story, in my personal view, does get better at one point. It will be really hard to write this without spoilers but there is an event that changes everything and once it happens you feel like you're reading a complete different story- and then there are more shifts. Nevertheless, this is not a book I would go about recommending. It is not my intention to defend the author or to push my particular point of view with this review I'm about to share- because it a possible reading of this book and NOT THE only possible one. In other words, I'm not sure is my interpretation correct or even should others experience it in the same way. I don't know who Jack London really was or what he really thought. However, I don't is not fair to judge a historical book by todays' politically correct points of view. You cannot judge a past work by today's linguistic standards either, if we were to do that, we might as well burn all historical books and admit we want the dystopia described in Fahrenheit 451 or Brave New World where all the books are banned and burned and nobody reads. Alright, we're close to that dystopia but hopefully not quite there yet. That all being said, there was a lot to take in, too much at first for sure. Jerry is a dog basically breed to be a racist: a racist dog- and he is the hero of the story. All the horribly insulting racial terms and description set aside, there is no denying that this book has a racist premise. Jack is a white man's dog, he will never be anything else. It's repeated at nauseum. The world of the blacks, the ingenious people of the islands, is described as brutal and loveless, the one of the whites as civilized. Nevertheless, once I read the book, I couldn't notice a few things and correct me if I'm wrong (medium SPOILER Alert): - The main white characters in this book are soft and stupid, they get killed all the time and only time they don't get killed is because the dog saves them. The whites are often not only unjust but also terribly naïve and sentimental. In other words, they are full of flaws. The author repeats the racial superiority theory many times, but he doesn't seem to believe in it himself or else why portray the whites in this negative way? - The main black characters (the chief and two of his tribes' members: the little boy & the old blind man) are incredibly intelligent, cunning, brave and strong. - The world of the black is described in a very negative way but at the same time you have a feeling that London admires them, especially particular individuals. - It is the black man who sees the true value of Jerry. The blind black man who teaches Jerry to count to five and to communicate with him in language signs establishes a bond that no white person ever could. Despite the fact that Jerry's breed and raised to only trust whites, the old black man is the only person Jerry ever could communicate with. Jack learns to admire the blacks too, seeing them as a sort of Gods as well, but he never feels like he really belongs to them. It is hard to understand why? Is it simply because he has been breed to? Is the difference between an animal and a human? An animal cannot go past his instinct and breeding and a person can? One thing I have to give to this story- it sure made me think. It might be messy, I might hate the beginning, I might cringe at almost every line, but it made me think and that's always a good thing. So, is this book racist or not? Honestly, I'm not even sure. It's an odd book. It's like five different books in one. Many times in this novel, it is repeated that whites are superior to blacks, but when it comes to actual characters, it is the black characters that ask metaphorical questions about life and death, the afterlife and so on and all the whites do is fulfill the English stereotype. You know that stereotype about how the only creature that an English person can love is his or her own dog. It is only upon finishing this book that you get this feeling- or at least I did- that the real hero of this book isn't Jerry the racist dog, but rather the ingenious Machiavellian chief of the tribe who keeps outsmarting the English Empire at every move. This cruel but brilliant chief sits alone and asks metaphorical questions, he wants to know what happens after death but at the same time he lives in the present (so much so that he doesn't have any problems outsmarting a whole army of English men). The main reason why I'm giving this book three stars is because there's just so much to stomach and the plot is a bit messy as well. I wanted to know more about characters but also more about Jerry, I was left somewhat hungry after finishing it- and that's ironic since I struggled so much with reading it. Moreover, I don't feel that I understood it completely, because really this is either a brilliantly anti-racist book or a subtly racist book that got out of hands of its author and ended up not being as racist as it should have been. I just don't know which is it! I find it harder to believe it is a racist book (even if Jerry really is a racist), the more I think about it. If you hated it, I get it but if you loved it, I get it too because it's one of those books that can be read in more than one way. Perhaps it is for everyone to interpret it for themselves. It's not the best work by London, but still quite strong and interesting. I'm certainly glad I read it.

Review # 2 was written on 2012-03-13 00:00:00 Tim Zitzelberger Eskimeyen kitaplar yazanlardan biri daha.. Jack London'ı okumak her zaman çok keyifli.