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| Property of Ecco |
Born mute, speaking only in sign, Edgar Sawtelle leads an idyllic life with his parents on their farm in remote northern Wisconsin. For generations, the Sawtelles have raised and trained a fictional breed of dog whose remarkable gift for companionship is epitomized by Almondine, Edgar's lifelong friend and ally. Edgar seems poised to carry on his family's traditions, but when catastrophe strikes, he finds his once-peaceful home engulfed in turmoil.
Forced to flee into the vast wilderness lying beyond the Sawtelle farm, Edgar comes of age in the wild, fighting for his survival and that of the three yearling dogs who accompany him, until the day he is forced to choose between leaving forever or returning home to confront the mysteries he has left unsolved.
My rating: 3 out of 5
A few months ago, a friend of mine was moving, and she was going to throw this big beautiful hardcover book away. I can't stand to see books thrown away, and this one had a dog on the cover, so I claimed it. I promptly forgot that I had it until this reading challenge.
Now that I've read it... I can kind of see why she didn't care to keep it. It has a big sticker on the cover that says "Oprah's 2008 Book Club Selection," so I'm guessing that's why she bought it, and I can imagine many people putting this one down after the first 100 pages or so.
At first I loved this book. I mean, I really loved this book. I actually said to my dad one point, "I wish the Sawtelle family was real so I could marry into it!"
I loved the almost magical portrayal of the dog farm in the American Midwest. I fell in love with Gar and Trudy Sawtelle and their mute son, Edgar.
Of course I fell in love with their dogs, and I was entranced by the details of dog breeding, whelping, caring, training, and placing. It stirred in me a desire to breed dogs someday.
But then, about halfway through, this beautiful happy memoir about a kid and his dogs suddenly took a nosedive into despair and confusion and trauma that left me thinking, "Nevermind! I definitely don't want to marry into this family!"
I still had hope that the book would turn out great in the end and it would become one of my all-time favorites. I devoured it in just a few days, hardly able to put it down, tearing through the pages as if my life depended on it.
Then I finished it today and... Wow, I am so disappointed. It has a poetic kind of ending, and is in fact supposed to be a modern retelling of a Shakespearean tragedy, like Hamlet or King Lear. So I guess some might like that kind of thing.
I do not. Sure, have things not go right. Throw in all the despair you want. But at least make it a satisfying, meaningful ending!
I got the feeling that the author was trying too hard to be symbolic and poetic about it all, but it just left me confused and cheated. There needed to be some good (not happy--just good) resolution to at least one of the plot lines. But nope.
If anything, this felt to me like one of those books I would have to read in high school--the kind of book my teachers would make us analyze and find beautiful meaning in, but the kind of book that left me feeling angry and depressed.
Gah! I so wanted to love this book! The writing is fantastic. I wish everyone could read just the first 100 pages or so and read the amazing descriptions of dogs and Midwestern farm living and all that. Even during the ending, the writing was amazing. Every sentence was beautiful. The problem was that the sentences taken together didn't form a story I liked.
So I'm really torn. On the one hand, I loved the writing. On the other, I don't think any of my friends would like this book, so I can't really recommend it. So... two and a half stars out of five?
Seriously, if you've read this book before, tell me what you thought about it in the comments. I wish I just had someone to talk to about it who understood my frustration and could help me understand. Maybe there's just something I'm missing.
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