loyalty and betrayal

book: the story of edgar sawtelle

author: david wroblewski

completion date: 11/08/10

method: borrowed (dad)

the last time i saw my father he asked if i had gotten around to this book yet. and in all honesty, i hadn't even read the back yet. i didn't have any idea what it was about, only that it was pretty thick. and it may have usurped let the great world spin for my favourite book of the summer. maybe.

this book just feels so sad. filled with struggle, but the good kind (at least for the first half of the book). its the kind of struggle that makes you glad because there's something to struggle for. edgar's struggle comes from when he was born, because he is mute. not deaf, just mute. living on a farm with noone for miles except his parents. raising and training dogs. and let me say, i want a sawtelle dog.

the sawtelle's have been raising a very special type of breed of dog. they do not bread to create a german shepherd or a doberman, but the most intelligent, perfect dog they can. they do not sell puppies. they only sell adult dogs, because they believe that it is only once a dog is taught and trained in this special way that the sawtelles can tell what kind of dog they have and where would be a good home to 'place' it. and i wanted one of these dogs so badly, because they sound like exactly what i want a dog to be- a trained companion. one who stays because it wants to for you, not because you have commanded it. as a child and young teen, edgar's job is to train some of the pups and to name them.

i'm actually having trouble writing about this book because the main events aren't things that you want to give away to someone who might read this book (which i hope everyone does, because it is beautiful). what i have to say is that i don't understand the major betrayal in the book. i understand that it is complicated and happened out of a long born hatred, but i have a hard time seeing how someone could do that.

this book is mainly told by a 3rd person narrator from edgar's perspective, but slips behind different characters when appropriate. my favourite sequences were the ones that were told from edgar's main dog, almondine's perspective. dogs see the world so differently and see people so differently, and since the dogs are such an important part of this novel it was wonderful to see trudy and edgar and gar from the dog's point of view.

i loved this book. and so should you.

xo-ellebee