I just finished Edgar Sawtelle's story with relief this morning. I had begun listening to it on CD as I drove back and forth to work. Considering that the drive is less than 20 minutes per day, I picked up the book (actual words on pages) when I was about 2/3 of the way through because I simply had to move the story on along. I couldn't listen fast enough. I had to know what happened to Edgar and the dogs.
I found the story to be beautiful though painful. The opposites in life come to mind as I contemplate the complexities of what I've just been through with Edgar... Love and indifferent selfishness. Honesty and dishonesty. Good and evil. Happiness and sorrow. Family togetherness and lone survival. Strong and weak. There were 3 times in the first 2/3 of the book that I said I could not continue listening because I could not bear what might be coming. One afternoon, I sobbed all the way home from work as I listened to the story.
I'll never forget Edgar and the Sawtelle family. I'll never forget the beautiful stories about the loyal and faithful dogs. I have joyfully shared my life with dogs, and I felt that the dogs' souls, unconditional love, and intelligence were more aptly captured in this book than in anything I've ever read. Am I glad I read this book? Yes, very glad. At the same time, I'm very glad to set it aside and have it completed. I'm glad I didn't miss it and will definitely recommend it to others.

I really loved this book. This was the best book I've read in a long time and I wish the Sawtelle dogs were real because I would buy one so fast. :) I loved the character of Edgar in this book and his experiences with his home, family, and dogs. I think it's an interesting mix of an almost ordinary, routine life with alot of mysterious things that happen. This book had alot of things I love to read about- survival and the outdoors, dogs, growing up. I was just really intrigued by this book and I didn't want to like it because my mother pushed it on me, but I did love this book very much. I hate that it ended.

Edgar Sawtelle never quite delivers. This isn't apparent for the first 2/3 of the novel as the story develops and the artful language and tactile sense of place pull you in and keep you engaged. Unfortunately, the the return of Claude to the family sets loose the myriad of untold stories that litter Edgar's Wisconsin Woods like old dirt tracks, tracks that peter out with a gnarled apple tree and a broken down stone fence. They eventually leave too many questions unanswered.
I am not opposed to the fantastic but the visitation of ghosts is too contrived in this case and never satisfies or is sustained. Further, Claude is too cookie cutter in his resident bad guy role. Is it Hamlet with a good measure of Cain and Abel? I don't know but I read it all the way through and I wanted to like the story as much as I liked Edgar and Almondine.

The writing is beautiful, really, really beautiful. The story is detailed and compelling. Once I had read a couple of chapters, it was hard to stop. And if, like me, you love Shakespeare and really love Hamlet, this book will be a great joy. I know Shakespeare's Hamlet backwards and forward and have studied it and seen every film ever made. I attend as many celebrated theatre productions as I can. And yet-- this book is a revelation. This book provides a backstory of Hamlet, with inspired detail and motivations of character that even truly inspired productions of the play can not provide. Like Shakespeare, Mr. Wroblewski, even working in novel form and with much detail, does not spell everything out for the reader. Parts of the plot are described from a dog's point of view or otherwise impressionistically, but the alert or astute reader will figure out what is going on. Unlike Hamlet, the reader gets deep inside the characters; the depth of their emotions nearly crushed me. This novel is heartbreakingly sad. "Edgar Sawtelle" a work of pure genius and I only wish it were longer. I wanted more. Once Fortinbras comes in and takes back his country, the story's over. But I did hate for the novel to end.

I was smitten with this novel- to the point that I became sleep deprived as I tried to read it at any possible time in between kids and job and home and husband. Dave Wroblewski has a spare, evocative style that drew me in and kept me transfixed. I honestly didn't see the Hamlet connection- I haven't cracked Hamlet since high school, so that was no help to me. I think the best word to use is frustrated- I loved the beauty of the prose, I loved Edgar and Henry, I feared for Gar and Trudy, I hated Claude, I suspected the doc and wanted to see and touch the dogs with an almost visceral need. But then almost everyone dies, even Almondine-agh! I HATED that part. Maybe I'm just too middle-class sports mom, and not intellectually ready for this novel, but I wanted a resolution so badly- PLEASE explain this to me!