Stop me if you’ve heard this one. Two gods walk in a bar …

Actually, that’s precisely how Fifteen Dogs begins. Apollo and Hermes visit a bar in downtown Toronto and start arguing about humans and whether they’re any better than fleas or elephants, frogs or flies. Apollo argues that humans have no special merit, while Hermes claimed that language and intelligence makes humans special. They decide to resolve this argument with an experiment. Apollo grants fifteen dogs in a veterinary clinic human intelligence. The question: would any of them die happy?

An apologue (the subtitle of the novel) refers to a fable or allegory intended to convey a moral truth. André Alexis uses three levels of intelligence—dogs, humans, and gods—to explore the meaning of love and happiness. I won’t spoil the book by sharing which Grecian god won the bet. Suffice to say that the difference between animals and humans, and the way the fifteen dogs wrestle with their new intelligence, provides a fascinating perspective on the nature of humanity.

Serendipitously, I’m teaching a course on Christology while writing this review. Orthodox Christian doctrine teaches that Jesus was fully God and fully human. Fifteen Dogs has prompted me to think more deeply about how Jesus would have wrestled with his humanity. (Of course, the distance between God and humanity is qualitatively different than the distance between humans and dogs. Still, the analogy is intriguing.)

In the end, Alexis’ apologue, winner of the Scotianbank Giller Prize, is a thoughtful meditation on what it means to be human.

Alexis, André. Fifteen Dogs: An Apologue. Coach House Books, 2015.