The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski

Wroblewski was very fond of the stories of Shakespeare as a kid, if not necessarily the actual text, and it is clear that he carried with him the knowledge of tragedy. This is an extraordinary novel, Hamlet in the North Woods of Wisconsin. The more I think about it the more connections I am finding to King Lear.Įdit: From the author, this is actually a retelling of Hamlet. It's not, this book is a tragedy pure but not simple. I thought this was going to be a warm, fuzzy, boy & his dog coming of age story that would be a fun summer read.

Right now I really wish there was someone else around who had read it so I could talk about it. I wanted a happy ending, or at the very least redemption & feeling good, and that's not where I am. If I wasn't reading on an electronic device I might have thrown the book across the room after finishing the last paragraph. The ending is very heavy on the Shakespearian side of the scale.

It's what you might get if you crossed Hamlet or King Lear with Old Yeller. This book is a tragedy more than anything else. Yes, it's everything that sounds like a really good boy/dog animal story should be. Yes, it's a story about a 13 year old mute boy living on a dog farm/breeding kennel in the early 70's. I went into this book thinking it was a YA type (and this may be one of the downfalls of a Kindle, you can't tell how really long a book is, or else I don't yet have the right feeling for interpreting the dots that show how far you've read in a book.) But. I would give the first 500 pages five stars and the last 66 pages one star. It is well written, and very evocative of the time (early 70's) and the place (far northern Wisconsin.) This was a book that I had a hard time putting down, and indeed I stayed up too late several nights, and played hooky on chores an entire afternoon, so I could read it instead. I'm torn between giving this book 5 stars and 1 star.

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski