Capital Offense

A DOG'S HEAD (149 pp.) Jean Dutourd--Simon & Schuster ($3).

When Madame Du Chaillu gave birth to a son with a puppy dog's head, she was understandably distressed. "What will people say?" she cried.

Except for his spaniel's head with its "long, flapping ears [and] wide, gaping jaws," little Edmond was a normal child. In moments of optimism, his father, M. Du Chaillu, saw no reason why Edmond should not take up law, for instance. But even as a youngster, Edmond developed some disturbing manners--such as fetching the daily paper between his teeth. He had, it seemed, "the soul of a man," but he was dogged by what his father called "canine predestination."

School was a trial for Edmond. "Your classmate has a very fine dog's head," said the teacher to his class on Edmond's first day. "He has no reason to be ashamed of it, and you have no reason to tease him. I rely on your good manners, your charitable natures and your kind hearts." But these virtues are not well developed in schoolboys. Edmond's colleagues chained him to posts in the school yard and forced him to bark. "Who takes you out before breakfast," they asked, "your mother or your father?"

Shaved to the Hide. After his schooling came military service. "Ah-ha!" barked the first sergeant when Edmond reported. "He's trying to be smart ... He wants to attract attention. Very well! He shall learn . . ." Edmond's head was shaved to the hide, a forage cap was set atop it. "Eyes . . . front!" bawled the sergeant. "Du Chaillu, keep those jaws shut . . . D'you want a bone? . . . I'll learn yer . . . I've broken in tougher bastards than you!"

Edmond's parents were so happy without him that when he returned from the army they pressed some money into his hand and begged him never to come back. But a kindly bank manager hired Edmond as a clerk, and Edmond did so well (the customers appreciated his "good breeding") that he might have remained a bank clerk forever, had not a female employee played tag with his trusting, spaniel-like affections. Edmond began to gambol in the stock market, and soon became wealthy. He bought a painting by Rosa Bonheur called Sheepdog Pursuing a Sheep and Woman with Dog by Matisse.

Edmond was prominent in high society. He discovered that "ninety per cent of women are for sale" and proceeded to buy them. Thanks to the bank notes in his hip pocket, his head began to seem attractive rather than repellent to fashionable people. Above all, he found a woman who genuinely loved him.

And Taught a Lesson. French Author Dutourd might well have dropped his story at this point, had it been his intention simply to excoriate the human race for its treatment of those who are physically afflicted. Instead, he presses on in his terse, deadpan prose to teach a lesson to the afflicted of the world as well. The happier Edmond becomes, the more worried he grows. The more his mistress, Anne adores him, the more convinced he is that she must be mad to love a man with a dog's head. He sends her to a psychiatric hospital for treatment; when she comes out, she is as bad as ever.

Not that it matters; by then, Edmond too, has lost most of his wits and all of his money. He has also put his psychology into reverse: instead of trying to behave like a normal human being, he now struggles to become a normal dog. French and English reviewers of this blunt and ferocious book have likened 32-year-old Author Dutourd to Voltaire and Jonathan Swift, and have sifted out various interpretations of the Dutourd message. Dutourd himself is no great help: "I am not trying to prove anything," he says-- "merely to tell a story."

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