Book review: 101 Dalmatians
Short version: Pongo and Missus are lucky parents of fifteen puppies, but when their evil neighbor, Cruella DeVil, kidnaps them with the intention of turning their skins into coats, the dogs must race to rescue their babies. There’s only one problem; when they get there, they find considerably more than fifteen.
What I thought: We’ve all seen the Disney cartoon of this, and I’ll say that what the movie stuck to, they got perfect. They changed a bit, and considering that the book came out in 1956 and the movie in 1961, I can only think of one significant reason for the changes: Women’s Lib hadn’t gotten its feet on the ground yet. But soft! What does feminism have to do with a book about puppies? Well, why don’t I just illustrate the things that didn’t make it into the movie, and you’ll quickly see why Disney chickened out. (bawk bukbukbukbukBAWWK)
1. There are two Nannies, and they are lesbians. Nanny Butler is the butch one, while Nanny Cook is the femme.
2. Cruella DeVil is married...but her husband took her name. He runs a fur trade, but they mostly live on her money.
3. Also she is literally the devil. It’s implied that she has a tail, she gets crazily distracted whenever there’s fire around, she seasons all of her food (including ice cream) with a ton of pepper, her country house (called Hell Hall) is painted black with an all-red interior, and one of her ancestors was burned at the stake for making deals with demons.
4. Pongo and Missus are two of a three-way poly relationship with their wet nurse, a stray Dalmatian named Perdita who is adopted when Missus’ milk begins to run out. She takes her job as surrogate mom very seriously, and when the two dogs go out to save their pups, she stays behind to look after the humans.
5. Cruella DeVil owns a white Persian cat, who has had 100% of her kittens drowned by Cruella personally.
6. The cat gets her revenge by financially ruining the DeVils upon the dogs’ return, with their help.
7. Missus shows many of the classic signs of being dyslexic, especially confusion of left/right, getting lost easily, and difficulty with language (namely english, especially when reading).
8. The male dogs trying to explain left/right to her eventually decide she’s just dumb and I’m quoting here, “Laugh in a very masculine way” while she remembers to herself that she was the one who got them all out of very bad trouble not ten minutes earlier.
9 The puppies all take shelter one night in a church and scare the crap out of the priest the next day when he comes in and finds the church all covered in black soot and paw prints (they are in disguise at the time).
10. There’s only 100 Dalmatians until the very last page.
Anyway, it makes for a delightful read-aloud. One day, we shall see a remake where the good stuff is left in, but until then, hats off to you, Dodie.
Read if you liked: Dogsbody by Diana Wynne Jones, Shiloh by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, Warriors by Erin Hunter, The Plague Dogs by Richard Adams
