Foley's Book Review: The Story of Edgar Sawtelle

I had been planning for the last few days to blog about the wonderful book I have been reading.

Yes, humans, I read. What, did you just think I wrote? Does that make a lick of sense? I don’t mean to beat a dead horse (why would someone do that, cruel and senseless, just a waste of time) but I am here to do what I best, complain about how humans screw up a good thing.

The book I was reading is called The Story of Edgar Sawtelle and it is a wonderful story about a mute boy who lives on a farm where they raise a special breed of dog. The boy can only communicate by signing, and he can sign to the dogs. Plus there is one pup, Almondine, who is the best fictional creation of a dog ever. After 463 pages I was going to order all of you to read it.

Then came the end, and the author, David Wroblewski, like most humans, completely ruined the book, and I can only recommend that you read the first 463 pages and my improved ending, which is this:

Edgar came back to the barn. Almondine ran to him. With Essay at their side they chased after Claude and evicted him from the home with a sharp bite on the butt. Then they moved back in the house with his Mom and they lived happily ever after.

There. A much better ending: and I saved you about 100 pages of reading.

But the author, he based the whole book on Hamlet. And if you know Shakespeare you know what happens at the end of Hamlet. (Pocket and I often put on Shakespeare’s plays while Mommy is at work. We wear our fancy dress. For you dogs from New Jersey we wear our queeah clothes. I play one mean Lady Macbeth. Pocket usually plays someone who gets off’d in the first act.)

Here is my much better ending for Hamlet: Hamlet comes back with a bunch of Great Danes and chases the bad man from the castle and they all lived happily ever after.

Now I don’t know if you’re a creationist and believe that man has been screwing things up for 2,000 years or a Darwinist and believe man has been screwing thing up for tens of thousands of years (did you ever think monkeys evolved from you?) all I know is you screwed up a really good story for me.

So, in closing, let me say this about The Story of Edgar Sawtelle. Buy it, read it, it is funny, it is heartbreakingly sad, it is pitch perfect in depicting the relationship between dogs and their people, and then, after page 460, take the book back to the store and demand your money back.

Yours truly,
FM
(No Static at all)