Edgar Sawtelle

I tried reading The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski at first, but it was hard to get into. Even so, I heard a lot of great things about this book, so I got the cd's so I could listen to it.

This story starts with a mysterious exchange between two men, who exchange antibiotics for a potion that kills with one drop. A life for a life. We then span back two generations, in the life of the Sawtelles. We learn how they acquired their land and build the house and barn on their property. How they started raising a special breed of dogs and trained them. We learned how it was handed down to the next generation, and finally how it came to be Edgar's father's, Gar. Gar and Trudy try desperately to have children and suffer through a miscarriage and a still born child. They finally have Edgar and worry that even though he can hear, he cannot talk. Almondine, their dog, realizes that Edgar is her purpose in life, since she is the one who can talk to him and truly understand him.

Mr. Wroblewski does a decent job of telling a story. I was taken in by the story, for the most part. There were things and scenes that were thrown into the story that lead to nowhere and seemed out of place, though. And sometimes the characters did things that seem out of place for how he developed them.

Overall I would give this book a 2 out of 5.

To learn more about the story, you can read on...but be warned...

**spoilers **

Edgar, Trudy and Gar have it all it seems, until Gar's brother, Claude, comes back to the farm to stay for a while. Claude is a troubled soul and not quite trustworthy. He stays to help until one night the brothers get into a fight and Claude storms off. Soon after, Gar dies unexpectedly and under curious circumstances. Trudy and Edgar suffer greatly and fall into depression. They lean on each other and become very close, until Trudy becomes very sick. Unable to take care of the dogs and the chores, Edgar calls on Claude. Claude worms his way into the family. Edgar is visited by his father's spirit and realized that maybe Claude had something to do with his untimely death. Trudy and Almondine both seem oblivious to Claude's dark side. Edgar has a plan to expose Clause, but it all goes wrong and Edgar is forced to run away with three of the dogs, leaving Almondine behind, feeling she had betrayed him by getting close to Claude. At age 14 Edgar travels through the wilderness where he happens upon a lonely man. Henry invites them into his house and here Edgar is visited by another ghost. At some point Edgar feels he must return home, leaving behind two of the dogs. He returns home, determined to expose the true killer. It all goes wrong and this book ends with the most depressing scene e-v-e-r.

I felt like I wasted 18 hours of my life when I got to the end. I think I should have read the dust cover before I went through this. It is compared to a Shakespeare tragedy. I know all stories do not have happy endings and I hate it when an author forces a "happy" ending when it doesn't ring true to the plot; however, to have a tragic ending just for tragedy's sake sucks! There wasn't any reason, no deep reflection or morals to consider.

I don't understand why David wrote Edgar to be a very intellectual person yet had him come across as crazy when he was trying to tell his mother that Claude was bad. There were a lot of disconnects like this. He also introduced a story line about the dogs they were breeding and a certain special dog they may have been descendants of. He steered the story into a direction where this could have been a driving force as to why Claude may want to get rid of Gar, or that this was a special breed capable of something special, but he completely dropped it. It was like he had so many ideas for this book and put them all in there. I could go on and on about scenes and events that didn't have any place in the story and how I was confused by actions of the characters that were so out of place, only put there to force the story into a direction that seemed too far fetched.

Did anyone read this??? Share your thoughts.