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A tale reminiscent of "Hamlet" that also celebrates the alliance between humans and dogs follows speech-disabled Wisconsin youth Edgar, who bonds with three yearling canines and struggles to prove that his sinister uncle is responsible for his father's death.
LDVoorberg: If you read and liked The Maestro as a teen, as an you'll probably like at least Part 2 of The Story of Edgar Sawtelle because of the adventure/survival aspect to the plot.
I read this book because everyone gave this one raving reviews. Well, it was good entertainment, but,if you know your classics (in this case, Shakespeare's Hamlet), it kind of made it predictable. I only read on to see how the author would solve the story. Hamlet taught you that they will all die in the end. So, good reading for a long winter's evening, but if there is a new episode of "House" on, it is probably more entertaining (and we all know House solves the case, so that is not it). ( )
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle is a dutiful procession through the main events of [Hamlet]. The Mousetrap scene, in which Edgar trains his dogs to act out his father’s murder in front of Claude, is marvelous—Wroblewski loves writing about dogs and he’s great at it—but the other pages are still covered by translucent drafter’s blueprints. Here’s Polonius, the meddler, here’s Laertes, the avenging son, and so on. (The Laertes figure isn’t introduced until page 489 and he’s as puzzled as the rest of us about why he’s supposed to kill a fourteen-year-old boy.) Wroblewski is only at pains to apply himself when there’s a chance his characters might become complicated and unsympathetic.
High literary art from a talent that bears watching.
toegevoegd door Katya0133 | bewerkBooklist, Ian Chipman(Jun 1, 2008)
This is the best book I've read in a long time.
toegevoegd door Katya0133 | bewerkPublishers Weekly(May 19, 2008)
[A] spellbinding first novel . . .
toegevoegd door Katya0133 | bewerkKirkus Reviews(Apr 15, 2008)
The novel succeeds admirably in telling its story from a dog's-eye view that finds the human world very strange indeed.
toegevoegd door Katya0133 | bewerkKirkus Reviews(Apr 1, 2008)
Ultimately liberating, though tragic and heart-wrenching, this book is unforgettable; overwhelmingly recommended for all libraries.
toegevoegd door Katya0133 | bewerkLibrary Journal, Henry Bankhead(Mar 15, 2008)
Sustained by a momentum that has the crushing inevitability of fate, the propulsive narrative will have readers sucked in all the way through the breathtaking final scenes.
toegevoegd door Katya0133 | bewerkPublishers Weekly(Feb 18, 2008)
Informatie afkomstig uit de Engelse Algemene Kennis.Bewerk om naar jouw taal over te brengen.
There is a grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved. ~Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species
Opdracht
Informatie afkomstig uit de Engelse Algemene Kennis.Bewerk om naar jouw taal over te brengen.
For Arthur and Ann Wroblewski
Eerste woorden
Informatie afkomstig uit de Engelse Algemene Kennis.Bewerk om naar jouw taal over te brengen.
After dark the rain began to fall again, but he had already made up his mind to go and anyway it had been raining for weeks.
Citaten
Informatie afkomstig uit de Engelse Algemene Kennis.Bewerk om naar jouw taal over te brengen.
High in the crown of a charred tree, an owl revolved its dished face, and one branch down, three small replicas followed.
He thought of his father standing in the barn doorway peering skyward as a thunderstorm approached, while his mother shouted, ‘Gar, get indoors, for God’s sake.’ That was how it was, sometimes. You put yourself in front of the thing and waited for whatever was going to happen and that was all. It scared you and it didn’t matter. You stood and faced it. There was no outwitting anything. … It was not a morbid thought, just the world as it existed. Sometimes you looked the thing in the eye and it turned away. Sometimes it didn’t.
He’d left in confusion, but his return was clarifying. So much of what had been obscure while he faced away was now evident. … So much of the world was governed by chance. … Life was a swarm of accidents waiting in the treetops, descending upon any living thing that passed, ready to eat them alive. You swam in a river of chance and coincidence. You clung to the happiest accidents—the rest you let float by. … Some things were certain—they had already happened—but the future would not be divined. … The future was no ally. A person had only his life to barter with.
Most people thought training meant forcing their will on a dog. Or that training required some magical gift. Both ideas were wrong. Real training meant watching, listening, diverting a dog’s exuberance, not suppressing it. You couldn’t change a river into a sea, but you could trace a new channel for it to follow.
Laatste woorden
Informatie afkomstig uit de Engelse Algemene Kennis.Bewerk om naar jouw taal over te brengen.
Essay stepped into the grass. She stood, paw lifted to her chest, nose raised to scent the air, watching it all. For an instant, as the morning light brightened, everything in the field stood motionless. She looked behind her one last time, into the forest and along the way they'd come, and when she was sure all of them were together now and no others would appear, she turned and made her choice and began to cross.
A tale reminiscent of "Hamlet" that also celebrates the alliance between humans and dogs follows speech-disabled Wisconsin youth Edgar, who bonds with three yearling canines and struggles to prove that his sinister uncle is responsible for his father's death.
So, good reading for a long winter's evening, but if there is a new episode of "House" on, it is probably more entertaining (and we all know House solves the case, so that is not it). ( )