When B. pulled The Story of Edgar Sawtelle out of her bag at last
month's book club reveal there was a silent sigh of dismay. I know
I felt it. Despite the fact that the book has garnered heaps of
praise and was flying off the shelf at Indigo last summer, I had no
desire to read it. When my friend said she was going to take it
with her when she went to England with her mom I said: "Don't do
it; this book weighs a ton!"
As it turned out, of the ten members of my book club I was (along
with B.) the only person who read it. Er…finished it. One person
got about half way through, a few others read 50-100 pages. The
book is l-o-n-g…562 pages but lest you think I actually judge a
book by its length, let me say that The Story of Edgar Sawtelle is
very well written. I would have said that dog lovers would eat this
book up- but this wasn't the case with the dog lovers in my book
club; none of them finished.
It's hard to put my finger on exactly why I didn't love this book
in the way most others have- well, the critics at least, who have
compared this book to Shakespeare, an "American Hamlet" even (Mark
Doty). The book concerns the Sawtelle family, parents Trudy and Gar
and their son, Edgar, who is born mute. They live on a farm in
Wisconsin where they breed dogs known as the 'Sawtelle' dogs,
remarkable because they can read Edgar's signs. When Gar's younger
brother, Claude, returns to the farm Edgar's idyllic life starts to
unravel and when his father dies suddenly, Edgar's grief is
palpable. As Claude grows closer to his mother and assumes more of
a role on the farm, Edgar becomes obssessed with proving that
Claude had something to do with his father's death.
Things don't work out quite as Edgar plans though, and he leaves
the farm, taking three 'Sawtelle' dogs with him. Eventually,
though, he returns to the farm to confront his uncle - with
dramatic results. (I actually thought the ending was spectacularly
melodramatic.)
Why do some books work and others not so much? I can't fault
Wroblewski's writing. In some ways I felt like he jammed the book
with every possible theme, like maybe this debut might mark the
beginning and end of his literary career. Ultimately, though, there
was just too much 'dog talk' - sits and stays and day-to-day kennel
business that just wasn't of interest to me and, in some ways,
diluted the book's larger themes of revenge and love. It wasn't
that I had a hard time reading the book…I just never really
invested my heart in Edgar's story