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 enlarge | Author: David Wroblewski
Publisher: Ecco
Category: Book
List Price: $25.95
Buy New: $12.00
You Save: $13.95 (54%)
New (49) Used (23) Collectible (19) from $12.00
Rating:  856 reviews
Sales Rank: 27
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 576
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.3 x 2
ISBN: 0061768065
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN: 9780061768064
ASIN: 0061768065
Publication Date: September 19, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Ten-Star Review August 17, 2008
0 out of 3 found this review helpful
How could anyone give this book less than five stars? I'd give it ten if I could.
As I read this book, I felt like I was reading one of the classics, except this one was unputdownable. It's not just a great story; the writing is beautiful.
I cried when I finished this book because I finished it.
 A dissapointment August 17, 2008
10 out of 10 found this review helpful
For all of the praise and excitement generated around this read, I really was expecting a lot more than what was delivered. While there are passages that will take your breath away, there are vast sections that were redundant, plodding, and downright in need of smart editing. In fact, that might have saved this story if some judicious editing were employed. Again, so many excellent descriptions, but excessive pages of unnecessary, if not hallow, details bogged it down for me. I can't totally ditch this read for the good points it has. But I must say, there was a consistency with these excesses throughout these 560 pages.
I am also with many here who really disliked the ending. Not that I was expecting unrealistic resolution, but I came away depressed and a bit annoyed that I had bothered with the entire book altogether. Yes, you can have a downer ending, but make it mean something. If Mr. Wroblewski would've given me this, then it might have been worth my while. What this tells me is it surely seems that there isn't much in the way of truly gifted storytelling these days. And what strikes me is with all the hoopla around this novel, I have found so much better in books that are not as well known and actually, should be taking the place of something like this.
 Life of Pi for the Dog Lover August 17, 2008
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
The story is set in the 1970's in Wisconsin near the Chequamegon National Forest. The novel is centered around the Sawtelle family, which breeds, trains and sells litters of "master" companion dogs. Gar and Trudy Sawtelle give birth to Edgar who can hear but cannot speak - he learns to sign with his family and finds that he has a supernatural ability to connect with the dogs. Gar's brother Claude enters the picture (without a clear understanding of where he was and why he entered). Gar and Claude argue constantly - Gar suddenly dies and Edgar suspects that Claude is responsible for his Father's death. Edgar then begins to dig to find evidence about Claude's role in his Father's death leading to some foreseen events forcing him to flee and live off the land. He eventually returns home to try to bring closure...
The book's strengths:
1) If you love dogs, you'll enjoy this book - the breeding, the training, the dog's reactions and behavior, etc.
2) If you enjoyed the "Life of Pi", you'll likely find this book for you as well. Author similarly works the magic of nature and the supernatural into the plot.
3) The author does a marvelous job in visually describing the dogs and the natural world the story moves through. For example: "for a few weeks each spring, the creek was transformed into a sluggish, clay-colored river that swept along the forest floor for ten feet on either side of the fence posts. Any sort of thing might float past in flood season - soup cans, baseball cards, pencils - their origins a mystery, since nothing but forest lay upstream."
4) The author gets us into the mind and thoughts of Edgar so you live the story through his eyes. "They were a small family living in a small farmhouse, with no neighbors and hardly any time or space to themselves. If he managed to share one secret with his father and a different one with his mother and yet another with Almondine the world felt that much larger.
The book's shortcomings:
1) Ending fails to tie up the story line and simply ends. Very disappointing.
2) Except for Edgar, you learn little about the other leading characters including his Mother, Father and Uncle. You also learn little about the relationships between the characters. (For eg, exactly why did the two brothers argue and fight?)
3) Concur with many reviewers that the book while exceptional in parts, is tedious and slow moving in a number of others - and could have used some editing and description reduction particularly on the nature settings (rivers, trees, skies, roads, lakes etc)
4) If you are not a dog lover, I would imagine that this book would not be all that appealing for you.
 Overhyped drudgery; glacially slow, a huge disappointment August 16, 2008
10 out of 10 found this review helpful
I wanted to like this book; I really did. I'd read all the hype about it being a masterful modern re-telling of Hamlet. And that's pretty obvious, certainly, but it doesn't make for compelling reading. It took me over a month just to get through this book, because it didn't engage me at all. I kept putting it aside to read something else - something better. Yeah, I know: Edgar=Hamlet; Trudy=Gertrude; Papineau=Polonius; Claude=Claudius, etc., etc., blah, blah! But hmm ... Where was Ophelia? Was that Sweet Almondine? If a dog is supposed to replace a human character, you've lost me there. Almondine was more like the St Bernard Nana from Peter Pan, but a much deeper "thinker," of course. And that whole idea of the "special" Sawtelle dogs just never developed. It started out pretty vague and it ended up the same way. I kept waiting for an explanation about just exactly why this kennel operation was so unique. But it wasn't there. I guess you just had to "believe." (Was this supposed to be a fantasy?) While I will admit there were flashes of beautiful prose here and there, the story seemed to just drag on and on until I thought it would never end. And because of all the very contrived Hamlet-esque parallels, there were no real surprises. The characters were not very likeable and not particularly believable, and the ending was kind of a foregone conclusion. Oddly, I kept thinking of one of the last lines from Romeo and Juliet, not Hamlet: "All are punished!" Including the poor patient reader. The actual ending was appropriate - "gone to the dogs." I like a good novel and I like a well told dog story. But this was neither; just a rather boring overblown - and way overhyped - groaner. Want a good novel about dogs? Read Eric Knight's Lassie Come Home, or London's Call of the Wild or White Fang.
A very satisfying read. August 16, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
This modern work is an entertaining and well-written modern version of Shakespeare's Hamlet. A page-turner.
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