A dog’s purpose by W. Bruce Cameron
Hello! I’m Connie. A dog’s purpose had been adapted into a movie released on 2017. The movie was funny, happy, and sometimes heartbreaking. I really liked the plots and the ending in this film, which moved me a lot. This story teaches me that love never dies, and our true friends are always with us. Deciding to pick the novel to read, I consider that it must be as wonderful as the movie. In addition, I’d like to find out the differences between the novel and the movie since there may be more details in a book that a movie is unable to cover.
The author assigns human-like characteristics and emotions to the dog, using the dog’s point of view to tell the stories. So, it makes me ponder what might be really going on inside a dog’s head. The book can be described as a collection of four short stories, spanning the lifetime of one dog with the same soul. With each new life, the dog not only searches for its identity and purpose but also learns new lessons. And it’s kind of similar to reality, that is, the dog doesn’t settle but find out the most important thing in its life until it has neared the end of its life. I think the author aims to let the readers consider the big questions of life, which are “Who am I?”, “Where am I going?”, and “Why am I here?”
Starting with the life of a stray dog, the dog lived wildly and spent most of his time looking for food or keeping away from the road, which was a danger place for dogs. Spending time hanging out with the dog’s siblings, and “the beautiful shape with the long wonderful tongue” mother seemed to be the happiest time in his life in the wild. However, one day, the dog and his family were caught by a man who took them to a “yard”, crammed with other dogs. Being in a new place, the dog also received a new name called Toby. Toby loved the place he was living for he got more playmates, toys, and even better nutriment. There Toby discovered his purpose of life, which was making the owner of the yard, Senora, happy by squirming up to her and licking her palms. However, being unadoptable, Toby was euthanized, and thus not able to do this again…… Though I haven't finished reading this novel, I know that Toby will then start his new life as Bailey in the following chapters.
After reading a few parts of the novel, I’m wondering what is the meaning of life. Every creature on earth is born with a purpose. Take the pet dog I used to own named 小豆 for example, I believed that the purpose of him was to keep company with me and make me happy. Frankly speaking, I couldn’t clearly recall what had been done with him because I was too little to remember it. All I remembered was that I had a glad time when being with him but he died a natural death in the end, which made everyone in our family depressed. If I could turn back the clock, I really hoped to save as many memories as possible in my mind and tried to understand what he wanted to tell me. Since time waits for no one, I should seize the day and enjoy every moment.
To sum up, I should follow the dog's spirits in this story, which is searching the purpose and meaning of life all the time till the end of life. And it comes up to me a quote said by Steven Jobs, that is, "Keep going. Don't settle" Only by doing this can I really find the purpose in my life.
Hi,Connie!
ReplyDeleteI also watched the movie as you did, and it also touched me a lot as well. I think your pet dog would be happy to know you remember him although you don't have the clear memory of him. My family also had a pet dog named Michael, he came to my home at the day I was born, passed away when I was 11years old. I remembered when I came back home, he was always excited and welcomed me. I was sad when I knew he passed away.
About A Dog's Purpose, I want to share my thought with you. My favorite story was that the dog became a police dog and be shot. I felt very very sad because he (or she? I forgot) tried to protect his master. When his master cried and screamed, I also cried a lot.
I love dogs because if you are kind to them, they will love you back, I think dogs always remember how nice humans treat to them. As long as you don't bully them, they will treat you nice. That's why I love dogs!
Thank you for your sharing.
Sorry to comment 3 times, I don't know what happened 🥲
ReplyDeleteI also want to read this book after viewing your ideas about it because it is write in that dog's point of view. I had read a book that is in a cat's perspective to know the life about this cat and "her human", this book is so touching that I cried when I read it although I couldn't recall the title of this book because it was been a long time. When we are keeping a pet , we may dream if we could communicate with our pet that we can take care of it more, so I imagine how my pet may view me while reading this kind of book.
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