The Story of Edgar Sawtelle [Paperback]

David Wroblewski (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Ecco/Harper Collins; Advance Review Copy edition (January 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061790974
• ISBN-13: 978-0061790973
• Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 4.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1,706 customer reviews)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

745 of 816 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Could have been a great one--Don't read if you haven't read book, August 18, 2008

By 

Little Angie "Little Angie" (Midwest) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Story of Edgar Sawtelle: A Novel (Hardcover)

Sometimes a book just has the wrong ending, not a sad or loose end trailing kind of ending--both of those endings are just fine if they are the right ending for the story, but the wrong ending. 'The Story of Edgar Sawtelle' is a book with the wrong ending, making it a frustrating read.
Unanswered threads such as how Edgar's parents met or why Gar and Claude hated each other or exactly how Almondine died don't really affect the quality of the story; the author has given us enough clues to let us fill in those blanks on our own. Edgar's parents had created a lovely game of giving Edgar misinformation about their courtship. The truth, although good, as his mother said, would only be a letdown. Any tale of sibling rivalry goes back to Cain and Abel. We can fill in how Claude was jealous of Gar and how Gar resented Claude getting away with things. Almondine died because she was old and old dogs die and she died because she was Ophelia and Ophelia dies. It doesn't matter whether the car hit her (which I don't think happened) or whether she just died on the side of the road waiting for Edgar to return. Her fate was to die while Edgar was away.
But a wrong ending is a completely different matter. It can make us resent the time and emotion we have invested in a story. And the ending is wrong for this book whether you see it as a retelling of 'Hamlet' or as a dog story. 'The Story of Edgar Sawtelle' follows the plot in 'Hamlet' so closely that it is wrong that Trudy/Gertrude doesn't get the poison intended for Edgar and wrong that Claude/Claudius getting trapped in the burning barn doesn't feel more satisfying and dramatic. To leave Trudy out of the ghostly group hug at the end is, as several people have commented, just cruel. Why leave Trudy alive and destroyed at the end without the redemption of an afterlife with the ones she loved? What evil did she do to deserve a worse end than Claude? Remember, she didn't even ask Claude back. Edgar did when he realized that his mother would die if she didn't get help with the kennel.
If you look at the story as a dog story, then the ending is wrong as well. John Sawtelle picked dogs that had a special connection to their humans. Gar and Trudy carried this on in their dog breeding. That is the importance of the Haichiko story, in addition, of course, to its relevance as a ghost story in the 'Hamlet' parallel. Essay chose Edgar. So to have her choose to lead the other dogs off instead of coming into the barn to defend and protect Edgar, as Almondine did with the rabid animal, has her make an incomprehensible (and enormously wrong) choice. If Wroblewski wanted to show us that you can't breed loyalty, then why did the rest of the story show us that you can. Trudy has spent the entire book trying to get Edgar to understand what makes the Sawtelle dogs special and as soon as he gets it, the next step in the evolution of Sawtelle dogs, Essay, shows him that Trudy was wrong. To have Edgar go to the trouble of saving the kennel papers just to show us how worthless they are--the dogs have gone wild, Edgar is dead and Trudy catatonic--is a pretty nihilistic and wrong-headed conclusion, given the loyalty and love that have filled the rest of the story.
Are we supposed to believe that Edgar would allow Claude to get so close given his understanding of Claude's intentions? Are we supposed to believe that Trudy whose love for her son kept her from irrecoverable depression would not have found some way to get into the barn, even if she had to maim Glen further to break free?
'The Story of Edgar Sawtelle' frustrates so many of us posting on this site because the ending feels so wrong. Could Wroblewski have just gotten tired of telling his story and wanted to be done or perhaps his editor was up against a time crunch and needed to get the book to bookstore shelves quickly? Whatever happened, it's a shame because the characters deserved a proper ending and so did we, the readers.

977 of 1,082 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointed - Not worthy of quesionable hype, July 21, 2008

By 

A. Kocher (Phila, PA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Story of Edgar Sawtelle (P.S.) (Kindle Edition)

I'm having a really hard time believing that all these 5-star reviews are legitimate. Some of them don't even seem to be by someone who READ this book as they are full of factual errors. I cannot recommend this book, but will try to provide some insight into what you'll REALLY be getting if you buy it.

What's good: Author is a gifted wordcrafter, with an ability to pick poetic and unusual phrases to capture an image or feeling. The dog interactions in the wild are inspired and inspiring. The evoking of a time and place (rural Wisconsin in the 50's) is powerful.

What's not: Pacing is virtually unchanged throughout. There are dozens of plotlines that occupy pages and go nowhere and are never resolved or tied in (dog breeding debate, Forte, stray puppy, town fortune teller, role of Dr. Papideau, Henry and the dogs - for just a few). It's sort of like a long poem or a set of song lyrics that makes you sit back and appreciate it's beauty, but scratch your head at the point. Presented as a tragedy, but just disappointing, not cathartic. Evil personified (Claude) is just sort of grey and strange - no convincing explanation for source of his evilness or his motivation for ruining everything. No clear personal flaws presented in Gar, Trudy or Edgar to make them deserving of their fate - in fact quite the contrary. About 90% of the way through, all these threads have been spun and you're waiting for the author to work his magic of pulling them all together into a beautiful and coherent ending, and instead he just quits and literally burns it all down. It's not that I insist on a happy ending, but I insist on one that makes me feel there was a point to my journey.

In short, if you love Russian novels, go ahead. DON'T buy if you think you're getting a "dog story" or a "kid story".

=============================================
Christmas Day, 2008

Thank you to all who took the time to read my review and comment so thoughtfully. I guess a book that inspires this much discussion must have something going for it.

In response to the comment that I got the time wrong; you are all correct. I think that the extremely rural setting made it feel more old-fashioned than the 70's, so that was why I mentally settled on the 50's as I read it. I grew up in the 70's in rural Pennsylvania, and this did not feel at all the same. But, I'll be more careful with my specifics if I post any more reviews.

My comments about other reviews being inaccurate related to a series of five-star "customer" reviews posted in the first month or so after Stephen King gave his gushing endorsement. No fewer than three of these "customer" reviews contained exactly the same substantial errors about Forte and characters in the book. (Even the wording of the reviews was only subtly different. I'm having a hard time finding the reviews now because there are so many.) At the time, I was deeply suspicious that the publishing house was manipulating the review system to push sales of this book. The whole Oprah/Stephen King/5-star review combo is incredibly powerful in driving sales, and I'm not sure it's completely objective.

And I'm a "she", not a "he." :) Keep reading and posting!

330 of 377 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Author Torches His Book As Well - Save Your Money, November 3, 2008

By 

Walter Scott (Atlanta, GA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Story of Edgar Sawtelle: A Novel (Oprah Book Club #62) (Hardcover)

If you enjoy spending hours immersed in promising prose that concludes with one of the most dreadful endings in the history of American literature, then by all means buy this book. You will become invested in the characters, mesmerized by the setting, infatuated with the dogs, and absolutely sickened and enraged by the cop-out of an ending. It is as though the author expended all his artistry and had nothing but venom for the story at the end.
I understand tragedy, and I do not require or expect happy endings, but of all the ways this story could have ended, the worst of all possible worlds was chosen. The good guys lose, the bad guys lose, the marginal characters lose, the dogs lose, and ultimately the reader is the biggest loser of them all. The reader is left to resent the time spent getting to the conclusion. A refund of the cost of the book would not repay time wasted reading it.
At times, Wroblewski writes so well that he approaches the level of a Hemmingway or a Steinbeck; but he finishes so wretchedly that he falls far short of an amateur King. The reader is left to wonder why the author hated this story so much that he torched it too at the end.