While I found this book eloquently written, I was incredibly disappointed with the ending. The book drew me in and captivated me. The ending was disconcerting because it was not inline with the characters that were developed. Disappointing at best. ( )

A story about some amazing dogs and the boy who loved them. The ending will jerk you around a bit and does remind one of classics. High drama at its best. ( )

Read this book for our September 09 meeting with 5 new members. We met at
Most liked it, but some felt the ending wasn't right. ( )

A wonderfully touching book. The story loosely tracks Shakespeare's Hamlet. Well-written, quick-paced, and moving. Highly worthwhile. ( )

This story about a deaf child draws you into a loving family who raises and trains special dogs. When the family allows a reprobate relative into their lives, calamity results. Although I did not like the ending, the story is well written and makes one pause to think a little deeper into their own life and choices. ( )

Reviewed by Laurie Hoff (A+ Program Coordinator)
What an engaging story! Edgar is born mute but learns to sign when he is just an infant. His parents breed and train a special type of dog that is incredibly perceptive to human needs and when Edgar is born, they "assign" one of their best dogs, Almondine, to be his protector. She ends up becoming his best friend. The book truly makes you think about what it's like to be different and to find your own way when you no longer feel like you belong and it does this on a number of levels...with Edgar, his father and his uncle. It also makes you ponder how people can love one another and yet be blind to their needs, especially if they, themselves, are consumed with their own issues. Such "blindness" can cost them everything. It's a must read :) ( )

Not for the feint of heart! A good story but with way more information on the training of dogs than I cared for. I found the story sad and without really any justice in the end. ( )

quite disappointed in the ending.. was expecting more from the character... left me hanging ( )

I was unable to get into this book--I only got through perhaps 150 pages...I'm not sure why I found it so dull. The writing was very good, I think the pace may have been slow, but the characters and the story just didn't pull me in. I know there is a big turning point where all this action happens, but I couldn't even get there. I'm not a dog person, so who knows maybe that had something to do with it. ( )

This book left me feeling profoundly depressed - the mark of a great story teller. I was completely engrossed and would have greedily gobbled the book up in one sitting if events such as eating, work and annoyingly, sleep hadn't torn me away from it. An absolute page turner and I can't wait for the next book by this author.

Strangely enough, I don't think I could bring myself to read it again with the knowledge of the ending - I won't be able to enjoy the richness an depth of the characters in the same way now knowing what their fate is. I've insisted my husband reads it and have given no hint of the ending. I hope he isn't as heart broken as I was, but he is currently enjoying it thoroughly and I feel a bit guilty as if I've given him a sweet with an extremely sour centre.

Phenomenal book! One of the best I've read. ( )

I, of course, had no idea until someone told me that this was based on Hamlet. Guess I need to go back and read the play again. The story was engrossing and I was fascinated by the dog breeding and training. That the dogs became more difficult to train with succeeding generations didn't seem surprising - in becoming better companions the dogs became smarter (reminds me a bit of I,Robot and 2001 Space Odyssey.) I was also intrigued by Edgar's muteness, tho his prescience seemed an irrelevant diversion. I hated the tragic ending and tried to mentally re-write it, which led me further & further back into the plot until I realized I was being ridiculous!

Excellent. Hamlet with dogs. The soul of dogs. Absorbing. Beautifully written. ( )

This is another book that I learned about by listening to the Diane Rehm Show on the radio. The author was on for an interview and aroused my interest because Diane, David Wroblewski and I are all dog people. Wroblewski has written a novel set in an unusual dog breeding kennel which produces unusual dogs and the dogs are central to the story he tells. The founder of this kennel, the grandfather of it's central character, had the idea to breed dogs based on behavior instead of conformation. He took dogs of many, and sometimes no breed, that had performed unusual and sometimes heroic acts, dogs that got written about in the newspaper, and he created his own breed of dogs. He clearly researched both breeding methods and obedience and service dog training for the book, although the results achieved by this fictional kennel are probably not possible.

The book is written from many points of view, sometimes even that of one of the dogs, but never sinks to a level of cuteness or anthropomorphism while doing so.

The difference between us and our animal companions is one of degree and not of kind, Descartes notwithstanding.
The idea of creating these dogs that are intelligent and loyal but able to to make moral choices is a fascinating one. It gives the book a kind of Sci Fi speculative edge. What if you bred and trained dogs for intelligence and judgment? How far could you take them? What part of their behavior is learned and what effect does inheritance have? This question is played out in the dags and in the humans in this story.



This is a coming of age novel, as many first novels are. A young man, Edgar, grows up on this farm, where his parents are engaged in breeding and training these amazing dogs. Edgar is unable to speak, although he hears normally, and communicates with a half made up sign language, to everyone, including the dogs. Edgar is destined to take over the kennel and continue breeding and training these amazing dogs.

But this coming of age novel takes a wrong turn when Edgar's uncle Claude comes home after a long absence. In fact, not until Edgar's father suddenly dies and Claude starts paying unwanted attention to Edgar's mother, does the reader realize the Wroblewski is re-telling the story of Hamlet on a dog breeding farm.

Like the play, the novel ends tragically. I won't spoil it by telling you how. It is a satisfyingly thick book, a good long read, and I highly recommend it.

I'll Never Forget The Day I Read A Book!

I'm sorry to give this book such a low score since so many are raving about it. I think that simply re-writing Hamlet and placing the location in Wisconsin and throwing in some dogs doesn't really make for a compelling story. The pacing of the book is very slow and it runs back and forth from each characters perspective, even the dogs. If you are dog lover or train dogs, you would really like this book. It goes through the emotions and the discpline it takes to train a dog. (For instance, Trudy not responding to a very trying puppy teaches him not to misbehave again. He won't get a reaction and he won't be rewarded.)I think that enough people have read Hamlet that a subtle reference to it is enough. Copying it exactly seems overkill and makes the story very unoriginal. ( )

a beautifully written book. this is hamlet retold in american setting, including variations of character names (trudy for gertrude, claude for claudius, etc.). although long (562 pages), the story flows quickly. worth reading and may be worth re-reading hamlet for comparison. ( )

Why an author would take such care and pride in creating such vivid characters (canine and human) and then do such harm to them is beyond me. Though beautifully written for all of the reasons mentioned in almost every review, I couldn't possibly recommend this book to anyone. ( )

One of the best books I’ve read this year, a real highlight, and yet I’d hesitate to recommend it because it broke my heart a little bit. It was glorious, touching, made of more than a little magic and replete with history, but ultimately The Story of Edgar Sawtelle wanted to be a tragedy, and the reader just had to let it. I was shaking when I put this book down.

Edgar – mute, yet gifted with words, gifted in other ways too, helps his parents run the family breeding kennels; Sawtelle dogs are special, sold as trained yearlings rather than pups, they have a spirit and understanding unmatched by pedigree breeds. When his uncle comes to live with them, the story becomes unavoidably Shakespearean, yet suffused with canine charm and deep with that small-town US family history that so many writers try and fail to express. To say that the characters are ‘lifelike’ is to belittle the author’s accomplishments… I’ve encountered no one who could make the personalities of individual humans, let along dogs, leap off the page; Almondine, Edgar’s companion from birth, has simply one of the most heart-engagingly drawn souls I’ve ever read.

Definitely worth reading, but allow for recovery time. ( )

The Story of a boy and his dog

Okay, it's more complex than that, but every time I look at the cover, that's the line that comes into my head.

I picked up this book because it got favourable reviews on a few book sites, and the first line of the inside cover says that Edgar must communicate using sign language. Hooked! I thought. Well, turns out the author doesn't seem to know much about ASL, and the muteness is just a literary ploy to limit his communication with others. Whenever Edgar signs, the words are English, not ASL language or grammar. My own personal disappointment. The Hamlet connection -- yeah, it's there, but only skeletally.

Lots of stuff on training and breeding dogs, though.

I liked Part 1 the most, Part 2 was good, Part 3 not as much. Let's just say the book did not go where I expected it to go.

Minor plot-spoiler alert if you read on.
Big section in the middle reminds me of books like [book:The Maestro] by [author:Tim Wynne] and [book:Crabbe] by [author:William Bell], both YA books. If you loved them, this is an "adult" version of those book, only in that it's longer and detailed and more complex (suitable for teens, still). Adventure and suspense, coming of age, all part of this book.

As I was reading, I disliked the temporary shifts in POV, though at the end those shifts are necessary. Also, the psychic/visionary powers of the storekeeper and then Edgar: not a fan of that inclusion. Perhaps just a personal opinion.

Is it worth the read? If you love dogs: definitely. I'm not a dog-lover or even liker; I found it okay, but not as great as I'd hoped. ( )

I actually got mad at this book/author a few times while reading it. There are sections of this story that are just so unbelievable that they don't fit into the fairly "normal" story being told. Overall, it's a mystery, but it's mostly about Edgar's life and some of his situations and adventures. Visions that are used seem wholly out of place and unrealistic, and don't really add much to the story, but certainly detract - very much a "jumping the shark" part of the content. The author tends to pull the reader down a path of concern for a character, only to rapidly exit that part of the story with a neatly tied up completion. I got tired of caring about the characters such that by the end I simply accepted the way the book so uncerimoniously concluded. ( )

This book came highly recommended so I thought I would give it a try. It is a very long book but I finished it in just a few days. I fell in love (or hate) with the characters especially the dogs. I really liked the authors telling the story from multiple perspectives including that of the dogs. I am a lover of thrillers and mysteries and this was not really either - instead it is a book that defies any genre. Find out for yourself by reading this amazing book. I will look for more by this author in the future. ( )

A bit slow for my taste, although I enjoyed the story in the beginning. A little too much about the dogs. I think if I was more familiar with farming or that lifestyle it would have been more interesting. ( )

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle is really the story of the Sawtelle family and their dogs. The Sawtelle's live in rural Wisconsin and have been breeding and training an elite line of dogs for two generations. Gar and Trudy have one son, our protagonist Edgar, who was born mute (although he can hear), and Edgar has one close companion (besides his parents), his dog Almondine. What starts as a pastoral and beautifully descriptive story about the Sawtelle's and their dogs turns into a Shakespearean tragedy with the appearance of Gar's black-sheep brother Claude.

This is a perfectly pitched coming-of-age story that draws on the isolation and beauty of the Wisconsin landscape as a solid foundation for a re-envisioning of a classic plot. Lovely and perfect and satisfyingly tragic.

[full review here: http://spacebeer.blogspot.com/2009/08...] ( )

A very clever interpretation of Hamlet in a modern day setting. 1960's heartland America ( )

This book was fantastically written and I feel in love with all the characters, both 2- and 4- legged. Well, except for Claude but I don't think anyone was supposed to do that. The author did perhaps one of the jobs I've ever seen of getting the interdynamics of relationships down on paper and not only of those between people but how I would imagine them to be between dogs and dogs and their owners. And he did it with the bare minimum of spoken communication. I wonder if readers who are not dog people will love this book as much as others who are but I hope that no one passes up on the opportunity to read this wonderful story, simply for that reason alone. They would be truly missing out on a great read. I don't always agree with Oprah selections - but this one she got right. ( )

Very slow pacing but the story is magnificent. Dog lovers will especially identify with the relationship between Edgar and his dogs. Because of the similarities to “Hamlet”, I would recommend this only for HS and up. Very few students will have the ability to feel the intensity of Edgar’s emotions or to understand the vocabulary and imagery used throughout the novel. This is a great book for a sensitive, introspective reader.