Originally published here, in Italian.

Author: Meg Rosoff

Year: 2011

Editor: Penguin Putnam Inc. (now Penguin Random House)

ISBN: 978-88-347-1841-4

WARNING – THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS

If God is so good, why does he allow Evil to exist and often prevail in Creation?

Very complicated answers have often been given to this question. There is no Dog simply answers: God is not good. On the contrary.

In reality, in this young adult fantasy novel by Meg Rosoff we find a God who, rather than being good or bad, is in a particular phase of his life: he is in fact a teenager. He was a teenager when he found himself ruling the still-forming Earth; he is a teenager today, after something like 5 billion years; perhaps he will remain a teenager forever (or in any case for a time that does not seem perceptible to us in human terms).

The name of God? Bob.

As a teenager, Bob has all the worst in him: short-tempered; prey to hormonal storms that reverberate on the Earth’s climate; eager for girls to possess transformed into an eagle, dragon and the like; in hatred with his mother.

Yes, because Bob is not just a god: he also has an affectionate and possessive mother, Mona, also a goddess, as well as a secretary who acts partly as a conscience and partly as a father figure, Mr. B. He also has an Eck, his pet and last of his kind. Also divine are Emoto Hed, a sort of gangster from the divine world, and his daughter Estelle.

Is he such a strange God?

Of course, he is not the elderly inhabitant of the clouds dressed in a white tunic and sandals that everyone knows, but he is not too different from the gods of polytheism either: in fact they too lived (and live, where they are still worshipped) surrounded by relatives, friends, enemies and acquaintances in what was essentially an ever-expanding pantheon.

And like Bob, Zeus too, as soon as he saw an Antiope or a Danae, transformed into a satyr, bull, swan, rain or into the husband or lover of these in order to possess them.

In myth, then, it could very well happen that any God, for a reason that was often equally any, changed the climate and geography of the Earth and beyond: they unleashed floods, storms and typhoons; they built islands by throwing huge boulders into the sea; they lit stars in the sky to pay homage to the most worthy of mortals.

Here, the divine Bob is a concentration of these characteristics and, although unfamiliar to us modern people, what results is all in all a credible God.

Also very credible are the poker games that Mona plays against Emoto Hed and in which, as is appropriate, Fortune and Chance govern the fate of the gods and their domains, from the assignment of planets to govern to the survival of animal species. This idea alone is worth the book, which however has other strengths.

First of all, a certain irony that pervades everything: sometimes you have the sensation of reading Stefano Benni; other times a certain criticism emerges towards the average Western teenager or his family, obviously dysfunctional in some way; other times the tone is that of Sunday afternoon TV comedy, which many of us watch and it’s not a sin.

Another strong point is a pinch of realism that the characters have to deal with: if they are immortal, how can they always live in the same place without arousing suspicion? So Bob’s family has always migrated from one place to another. And to cover his tracks, Bob usually unleashes natural disasters capable of destroying his places of residence, normally not caring about the consequences.

And who has to fix everything? Mr. B.

He is in fact the second protagonist of the novel and perhaps the real hook for the reader. Characterized by a certain phlegm and distinction, Mr. B is a model employee of the agency that deals with governing the Universe, and has always dreamed of ruling a planet all of his own.

In recent millennia his ambitions have evidently reduced, and he periodically thinks of resigning or transferring. Only one thing keeps him on Earth: whales, the only beings Bob allowed him to create. And unlike the rest of Creation, which Mr. B judges to be chaotic, poorly made, the result of the haste of an ambitious and unrealistic incompetent, the whales are his pride.

Mr. B is also in charge of taking care of Bob’s paperwork, i.e. the prayers of the earthlings and the problems of the planet. While Bob runs after every girl he likes, Mr. B must save the marginalized, cure the sick, limit the damage caused by Bob himself during his outbursts and even during his dreams.

Added to this daily ménage is the new target of Bob’s desire: Lucy, a sweet employee of the local zoo with some problems at work (and she too has disagreements with her mother).

Bob will try to win her over in every way. Trembling with desire, he will first completely forget about his job as God, and then he will unleash a new Flood causing millions of deaths.

Mr. B will patch it up, as long as he can stand it.

Around all this, other characters move on the border between comedy and romantic comedy. Their stories, maybe trivial, maybe interesting, are an opportunity to take a breather from the main plot and its catastrophic implications.

I read the Italian version of the book, not the original one. In terms of translation and editing of the text, the only obscure point would seem to be a “council of state” (in Italian: “consiglio di Stato“) which does not correspond to the original version, where we read of a generic “board”, but without references to a precise state form. Obviously a reading of the complete original version could change this perspective, but even in the rest of the novel there is no mention of a similar organization of the divine world.

However, I have to congratulate Fanucci Editore for having chosen a text that address the theme of divinity with this lightness. Equal compliments must be given to Penguin Putnam for the original edition, of course.

And for identical reasons we must finally congratulate Meg Rosoff, for a courage that one would not like to have to recognize her. Following the publication of If I were God…, Rosoff was in fact forced to suffer a defamation campaign aimed at attacking the alleged “blasphemy” of the novel.

Despite the controversies, Meg Rosoff has no other fault than that of having been able to make the adventures of a classic and modern God, human and divine at the same time, comical.

There is no Dog is a unique book of its kind: in 2011 there was nothing similar in the US young adult scene, and this record still seems unbeaten today inside and outside those borders [translated from the 2017 review, A/N].

Highly recommended for everyone, atheists and believers of all ages, and especially for those who love romantic stories with a pinch of irony, for lovers of satire on religion, for lovers of mythology and fantasy, for those who love the catastrophic genre.

Sitography

Franci Lettrice e Sognatrice – http://francilettricesognatrice.blogspot.it/2012/01/se-fossi-dio-di-meg-rosoff.html (last visit 2017/08/13)

Shmoop – https://www.shmoop.com/there-is-no-dog (last visit 2023/12/10)

Meg Rosoff’s official site – https://www.megrosoff.co.uk/there-is-no-dog (last visit 2023/12/10)

The Guardian – https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/aug/12/no-dog-meg-rosoff-review (last visit 2023/12/10)

The Telegraph – http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bath-childrens-literature/8790650/Meg-Rosoff-event-cancelled-over-blasphemous-book.html (last visit 2023/12/10)