The 101 Dalmatians

Well-loved books from my past

Title: [THE HUNDRED AND ONE DALMATIANS]

Author: [[DODIE SMITH]]

Rating: 5 stars out of five, because I still love the memory of being rescued

The Book Description: Pongo and Missis had a lovely life. With their human owners, the Dearlys, to look after them, they lived in a comfortable home in London with their 15 adorable Dalmatian puppies, loved and admired by all. Especially the Dearlys' neighbor Cruella de Vil, a fur-fancying fashion plate with designs on the Dalmatians' spotted coats! So, when the puppies are stolen from the Dearly home, and even Scotland Yard is unable to find them, Pongo and Missis know they must take matters into their own paws! The delightful children's classic adapted twice for popular show more Disney productions. Ages 8-11
(This is from a 1996 Barnes and Noble edition)

My Review: Mine wasn't an especially happy childhood. The particulars don't matter all that much, what does is that I was on my own in an adult emotional landscape a long time before that was a good idea. I am lucky beyond luck that I seem to have been born with a love of reading. Both my parents and both my older sisters read to me a lot when I was a kid, which doubtless had a lot to do with fanning the flames of my obsession with books; but there was never a sense in me that there was something else I'd rather be doing, even watching TV.

My mother and I, after the aforementioned sisters left us and my father was removed from our world, had all sorts of books in our house. I was the only kid I knew with a 6-foot-tall bookcase of my own books in his room when there was one digit in my age. And it saved my sanity, that stuffed story-world, so many many times.

One of the books that spoke to me on every level, which I discovered in the Allandale branch of the Austin Public Library, was this book. I was nine, I was miserably angry and unhappy, and I didn't know that anything was wrong. I found this book, this fabulous perfect rescue fantasy of authority figures who don't know their butts from their elbows but who know that they love, and want, their charges to be safe, and who go to extraordinary lengths to make it happen...well! That sounded peachy keen to my abandoned boy self. So I checked it out, and I read it. And I read it. And read it.

Easily a hundred times over the next two years.

No authority figures rescued me. I found some who loved me, but none could, or would, see the emotional hell I was in. When I was about twelve, the fantasy stopped satisfying my need and instead made its unsatisfied nature worse. So I stopped reading the book.

This christmas I decided to read the book again, just to see if there was as much here as I remembered, and to look at the pages with adult eyes.

I can't see it with adult eyes. Just as that desperate child full of reinflicted pain and rage. Oh the poor thing, I'd think, no wonder he re-read the book so often, look at this, or this...everything, really. It was a perfectly ordinary kid's book of its day, misogyny and elitism and racism permeating it with an almost industrial strength stench. But it also rang, and rings, true: Rescue me! It's a cry many kids don't vocalize but they do feel. Sometimes, for the lucky ones, they find stories to crutch them onwards towards adulthood.

For me, this was one fine, sturdy crutch. I still love it, and I still thank Dodie Smith for it, with all its time-and-place flaws. It's wonderfully parenthetical in its style and it's simply deliciously fantastically comfortable and comforting in its plotting.

A grateful salute, then, Miss Dodie Smith, from a forty-plus year distance, from a young redheaded fat kid lost in so many ways, for writing him a star to guide him. I'm here today because you did. show less

I saw the 90s film when I was a kid and it did not make a big impression on me, even though I was a dog person and most of my favourite stories were about animals. It's only more recently, ever since I realised the book is by the author of I Capture the Castle, that I've become curious about the book.

It is silly but surprisingly entertaining. I enjoyed the word play, especially the sort which might go sailing over the head of a child, and the funny explanations for dogs’ behaviour, such as the “Twilight barking”. I also liked the illustrations, because dogs.

I don’t know if the dogs’ society is intended to be a parody of a particularly mid-twentieth-century, conservative, British idea of What People Are Like, but it seemed show more rather tongue-in-cheek to me. After I Capture the Castle, with its insightful portrayal of an unconventional family and its sympathy for the challenges Cassandra and her sister face, it’s hard to imagine that Smith thought people were, or even should be, as conventional as her dogs are. Furthermore, the human characters - and not just Cruella the villain - conform less to traditional gender roles than the dogs do. Nanny Butler decides to be butler in role as well as name - in trousers, with a frilly apron for “a note of originality”. Mr Dearly is the one who ends up in the cupboard, bottle-feeding puppies (while making business phone calls!), and Mrs Dearly is the one who goes out with the car to find a foster mother for the dogs.

So when two male dogs laugh “in a very masculine way” over Missis’ difficulty determining her left paw from her right (she says it’s “one of the front ones”) I wondered if, by giving these sorts of sexist attitudes to dogs, Smith was trying to highlight the ridiculousness of such attitudes, rather than deliberately reinforcing, or even unconsciously reproducing, them. The trouble for a child reader is that they’re very unlikely to pick up on this and instead come away with the idea that, yet again, the girl isn’t as smart as the boys.

… anyway, I wasn’t planning on writing a whole essay about it.

“We'll call her Perdita,” said Mrs. Dearly, and explained to the Nannies that this was after a character in Shakespeare. “She was lost. And the Latin word for lost is ‘perditus’.” Then she patted Pongo, who was looking particularly intelligent, and said anyone would think he understood. And indeed he did. For though he had very little Latin beyond ‘Cave canem’, he had, as a young dog, devoured Shakespeare (in a tasty leather binding). show less

I had been a fan of Dodie Smith's novel for (sort-of) adults, I CAPTURE THE CASTLE. And in grade school I remember reading THE STARLIGHT BARKING, the sequel to the famous 101 DALMATIANS. I also loved the movie when I was a kid; I must have been 10, since I see in Wikipedia that 1979 was the year of one of the theater re-issues. I remember going through a bit of a 'dog phase' afterwards.

But I don't believe I had ever read this, the original first book, till now. I was able to call out most of the changes that the movie made - such as getting rid of an entire dog (they upped the number of puppies to make 101). In the book the dog couple are named Pongo and Missis; and since Missis can't nurse 15 puppies, another dog, Perdita, is brought show more in to take on seven of them. The whole wet-nursing thing was probably deemed too graphic for Disney. They named the couple Pongo and Perdita, with no third dog brought in, and didn't go into how an animal with eight nipples could nurse 15 puppies. Which is all well enough! Anyway...

This book was written in 1956, by a woman, and I was startled by the sexism - yes, sexism, in Dogdom! Missis is kind of an airhead who literally can't tell her left paw from her right. Pongo is the leader, who figures out everything and has all the great ideas. I was raised on 1970s Girl Power. Girls were always the clever ones in fiction by the time I came along. Once the censors get a hold of this one, it's going to be Missis who is figuring everything out. Oh - also it's the GIRL puppies who are too weak to make the journey without riding in a cart. Not the later-born or weaker puppies - the girls. Craziness.

Back to the clever Pongo. Male chauvinism aside, he's a clever pooch, all right! When his 15 kids go missing, he knows what's going down. "All through the long December night, he put two and two together and made four. Once or twice he almost made five." For although he had little Latin beyond "Cave canem," "he had, as a young dog, devoured Shakespeare (in a tasty leather binding)."

I was honestly riveted by the climax, as our hundred dalmatians (only 100 at this point - there's a surprise twist at the end) are racing down a road with Cruella di Vil bearing down on them, with wire netting on either side of the road making escape impossible! Drat those humans and their fences!

All turns out well. show less

This book had the potential to be quite vapid, but it turned out to be equally as charming as the Disney film version. Disney may have simplified some of the characters (and improved others in a few cases), but I feel like the general tone of the book was retained quite well. Pongo and Missis Pongo’s mad flight across England and back to London to rescue their stolen pups was an absolute thrill, and the horrid Cruella de Ville remains a creepy spider who definitely belongs under a rock! Obviously we humans can only understand so much about the inner thoughts of our canine companions, but Dodie Smith takes an admirable stab at the subject and comes away with a charming little glimpse into the lives of our pets.

I read this so many times as a child after buying it because of the Disney movie. I mean, animals! Puppies! Adventure! England! What's not to love?! What I remember are the 15 puppies, the two parents traveling through England to find them, and an elderly Cocker Spaniel feeding them toasted bread behind a fire screen from his elderly master. And the conveying of news through the Twilight Bark.

And I read this as a challenge, half dreading the thought of re-reading it because not every child's book translates well into adulthood. But lo and behold, this one did! There were even parts that I had not really understood in my 7 year old self: calling on the Splendid Vet at midnight, how Mr. Dearly earned his living, how Pongo and Missis made show more their travels (the Golden Retriever was particularly well-written). The honeymoons that both couples go on, and how Perdita tried to marry her beloved, Prince.

Including elements like these are what have helped this book stand up from childhood through adolescence and into adulthood. I finally understood how Cruella De'Vil's need for constant warmth was indicative of her, um, origins. The change in travel plans that Pongo and Missis make during their journey lend a bit more credence to it, and the so very kind Great Dane who helps start their Twilight Bark messages was just a delight. All in all, a remembered favorite that remains a current favorite. show less

This was one of the most sexist books I have ever read. Worse, I first read it when I was ten or so and didn't notice the sexism, which means that its ridiculous list of 'male' and 'female' attributes went into my psyche unchallenged.

According to Dodie Smith, men and male dogs are stronger, don't feel the cold, understand both numbers and words better, have a sense of direction, possess deductive powers, are inventive, loyal and brave.

Women and female dogs can't tell their left from their right after a page of instruction in how to do so, feel proud of not getting lost while heading in a straight line, can't count - even one's own puppies, don't understand either human or dog speech as well as a male dog, get tired about four times as show more fast as male puppies, are jealous, vain, proud of their clothes, are hysterical, silly, distracted, and generally ridiculous. But they are pretty.

What a steaming pile of crap.

Also, there's a scene of "thieving gypsies", and one can speak either Romany or "normal". Ugh.

I really wanted to like this. It's a charming story, in parts. But it is choc full of blatant, unchecked sexism, and I am boggled that Disney seems to have done a better job than the source. show less

To be honest I’m presuming that the majority, if not all, of you are well aware of the plot of Dodie Smith’s novel. Perhaps more from the Disney films than the books, but most people know all about Cruella De Vil and her plans for Dalmatian fur coats.

Life for Mr and Mrs Dearly and their dogs, Pongo and Misses, is going well. They live near Regent’s Park in London and are very comfortably well off, Mr Dearly having helped the government out with its sums, he doesn’t really have to worry about money any more. But one day they bump into an old school-friend of Mrs Dearly, Cruella De Vil, and she takes quite a shine to Pongo and Misses. She loves their wonderfully spotted Dalmatian coats, and when the dogs have puppies she becomes show more even more interested.

One day returning home from a walk the Dearlys and the Pongos are distraught to realise their fifteen puppies have disappeared! Stolen!

Mr Dearly at once offers a reward, but the dogs are not prepared to sit around and wait for their “pets” to find their puppies, they get the news out on Twilight Barking and pretty soon learn where the puppies have been taken to. Then they are off to Suffolk to rescue them.
I would say I haven’t read this book in more than twenty years, if not longer than that, but as I was reading it I could remember it all so well. Every new dog that made its appearance was an old friend. I have no idea how many times I read and reread this book as a child. I know it was a lot.

But my familiarity with it did nothing to lessen my enjoyment of it. I simply love this book. Smith’s way of telling the tale is just such a delight to read. And while the gender roles might date this book quite a lot, I can’t see any reason why a modern reader wouldn’t enjoy this book. Especially if they were a dog lover. And Cruella, although not on stage a huge amount, is a wonderful villain. The threat she poses looms over the dogs and the whole story the whole way through. If you get a chance you really should pick up this classic and give it a go. If only for the illustrations. They are simple, black and white, but so effective.

This is my first book for this year’s Once Upon a Time reading challenge, it may not be an old folk tale or fairy tale, but it has that wonderful fairy tale atmosphere that I think is such a part of OUaT. Plus, you know, talking dogs really is fantasy fiction :) show less