I wish I could give this book higher than a five. Or I wish I could go back to all the other books I've ever rated and knock them down a notch. Nothing I've read before quite matches up to this book. I browsed through some other ratings online, before I started reading the book, and was surprised at the amount of people who rolled their eyes at the topic. I immediately knew it was a good topic for me. So many times I've wanted to know what my own dogs were thinking, and I think it was a nice, fresh subject that hasn't been covered in every other book before. I think I was hooked before I even opened the book. Many people balked at the fact that Paul would try to teach his dog to talk, or that he would call a psychic. I immediately thought that he should call a pyschic, so none of this was shocking to me. I think the story was beautifully written. The only part I could have done without is the story about (and friends of) Hollis Wendel, but not because I don't think they add something to the book, but because I personally cannot handle any type of animal abuse. I loved the flashbacks into how Lexy and Paul met and how they became married, and all the flashbacks into their marriage. I think it really leant something special to the book, though I will admit that sometimes I just wanted to get back to the story at hand just beause it was so good or it was at that special point where you just have to know what happens next. But take that with a grain of salt, it's not that the flashbacks weren't good and weren't worth reading, just that I was so drawn in by the story, that I would think, "Can't we put off this flahsback for a chapter or two until I find out what happens to...?" The cover of the book says it rises to a point of stirring, peaceful grace, and I hoped I would know when that point was, and of course I did. I wish I could say it was as peaceful for me though. It wasn't. I haven't cried over a book in years and didn't expect to anytime soon. I think I've never gotten to "know" the characters as deeply as felt I knew Paul, Lexy, and Lorelei. I started crying when Paul found out what Lorelei was trying to say all along. I started crying again when he finally found out what the books meant. I started crying again when I found out the importance of the steak. My heart broke more than once for Lorelei, not only when you find out what she did for Lexy (when Paul decided to see what the view was like), but also, for how she must have felt when she got out of that doggy door. She must have been confused and scared, and I just wanted to be there to console her. I know how odd this all sounds. Again, I can only stress just how entrancced I was by this story. I will also confess that a lot of my tears stemmed from my own fears and wondering how I could continue to go on if I were to lose my husband. It seems unfathonable, and in that way, my heart also broke for Paul, for Lexy, who got to "that" point, and for the love that they shared and was lost. At the end of the book, after deciding not to open the front cover and start reading it all over again, I thought about starting a different book, even though I'd already been reading for four hours and it was almost midnight, and way too late for me, but I just couldn't do it. I felt it would be "disrespectful" to how amazing this book was, and I know that may seem odd, but all I can say is that I got to the point where I thought Paul and Lexy and Lorelei were real people out there somewhere and my heart broke for their story. I've never been touched by a book like this before. I had to keep reminding myself after I'd finished reading it, that this was a book of fiction, and there was no reason for me to be so upset. In the end, I didn't go back to the first page and start again, and I do plan on picking up another book today, but none of them quite seem worth reading anymore. It's that feeling when you finish such an amazing book, you just know no other will ever be able to top it, and so you're no longer as excited about reading them anymore. I am though, going to hold onto this book, as I think one day at some point I'm going to start from the beginning again.
The writing style is sweet and sensitive, the emotion real, and the story compelling. Dr. Paul Iverson, professor of linguistics, comes home from work one night to find his yard filled with police. His wife, Lexy, has fallen from the apple tree in their yard and died. The death was declared an accident and Paul, was left alone to nurse his grief. In the days to follow, Paul notices some oddities around the house. Lorelei, the couple’s Rhodesian Ridgeback, was the only witness to the accident. Paul decides that he must use his skill as a linguist to teach Lorelei to communicate so that she can tell him what she saw and solve the mystery of Lexy’s death. Parkhurst’s novel is anything but a mystery. It is a story of love and of coping with loss. Paul narrates the novel bouncing back and forth from present to past. He shares the story of his and Lexy’s romance. How they met and fell in love, and how her death left him broken. Parkhurst descriptions are palpable. Paul and Lexy’s love is sweet, at times nauseatingly so. Paul’s grief is gut wrenching and often truly painful to experience. The novel will make the reader laugh and cry. It doesn’t hammer us with plot detail; but slowly unwraps like a silky fabric releasing emotions from its soft folds. Communication is a major theme in the book. Paul, as a linguist, favors the power of language; Lexy, an artist, is often better able to communicate through her art. Lexy’s inability to communicate effectively through language often leaves her frustrated and depressed. These differences in style often lead to misunderstandings in their relationship. Parkhurst makes all this work. She has an intriguing story. She writes poetically with feeling. She infuses symbolism in her writing: the biblical references to the Tower of Babel and the apple tree in the Garden of Eden, Lexy’s masks which both hide and reveal truths, square eggs which alter the appearance but not the substance of a common item. She addresses fact and faith, honesty and deception, and love and resentment. I loved this book….until… … For some reason, in the middle of this wonderful novel, Parkhurst made a sharp turn and detoured into several chapters of a freakish, sci-fi storyline. This wonderful story of emotion and grief is replaced with an action-mystery about a secret society of men performing horrific experiments on dogs in the name of science. This side story was so out of place with the quiet beauty of the rest of the novel. It distracted me from the beauty of the novel, and I almost didn’t want to finish the book. Including this sub-plot in the book, in my opinion, was Parkhurst’s fatal flaw. When I finished the novel, I was quite disappointed. I spent a few days trying to understand why this horrific sub-plot was included in the novel, and what it added to the story that otherwise would have been lacking. I came up blank. It was only in preparation to write a somewhat scathing review, that I realized that overall The Dogs of Babel is a beautiful novel. If I could have skipped several chapters as I read, I would have been raving about this novel and about Parkhurst’s writing. The inclusion of this bizarre sub-plot breaks the flow of the novel, and I must only give a 2 star rating to the book. However, for the most part I loved Parkhurst’s style and sensitivity, and would like to give her and her writing four stars, perhaps five. So I find myself in the odd situation of recommending this book, even though I can’t give it a better rating. I do think that Parkhurst’s writing is wonderful and should be experienced, but I think that in this debut novel she became a bit too ambitious, and tried to pack a bit too much into the story.
What do You think about The Dogs Of Babel (2004)?
Above and beyond any opinions formed, Carolyn Parkhurst takes an incredible risk in her debut novel: a series of risks that in and of itself sets this book apart from others, in this reader's experience. And while the risks the author took worked for my reading preferences, for some they won't. While this book is by no means a difficult read as far as word choice and literature goes, even the most sensitive of readers upon turning the last page will have missed at least one thing that makes this book so beautiful. I say this not to insult anyone, but only because this book respects its subjects, characters, and devices so earnestly that the full spectrum of just how delicately each aspect of its organization is created can not be fully reached in just one read. And yet, despite this (or perhaps because of it), the book is deeply satisfying and whole if the reader chooses to visit it once.After scanning the first page of reviews, I find it vastly important to address how a book can be received so well by some and shunned by others. The best way I know how to put it is approach. Those who have been spared the struggle of deep grief, or have never felt so deeply about something to find rationality in the irrational, or have been taught that the world of mental illness is a lesson in histrionics and manipulation rather than a physiological complication that can not be cured but managed ... well, they would find this book almost childish and even repulsive. And what I find tragic about that is that the very essence and substance of the novel told through its bulls-eye messages some just simply not wont hear but can't. And is that a failure for that person? Absolutely not. There is no innate personality or intellectual problem with the readers who hit the one star.But for those lucky (and unfortunately simultaneously unlucky) readers who are able to humbly give this 5 stars, this is the signature of a person who can not imagine giving it anything less. Simply because it's that good. I couldn't possibly know for sure, but I'd guess maybe they were wowed by the simple poetry of the writing, the use of symbolism pulled off, the careful decisions to make the experience not too heavy in emotion for the reader but not so intellectual that it's flat. Or maybe they will be amazed by the author's uncanny ability to pull off first person POV in a way that doesn't even seem to read as first person. Or maybe it's the nuances of the characters, how they develop and why they must develop and how naked and vulnerable they are in their humanity or how true to life even the simplest thing they do is. Or maybe the light, and at some times profound layers upon layers that this book offers will delight a reader who loves to read between the lines for hidden truths, at times more profound than the ones that are right in front of them in the story. There is another theory - perhaps people will simply love this book because they will catch a subtle (or not so subtle) glimpse at themselves in the characters. And yet, some may be repulsed by this notion: we don't want these characters to be real. We beg that they aren't because there's a bit of them in us, too. We are breakable and strong. We are all joined together by this ridiculous and hideous and miraculous thing we call "life" and its horrors and dreams and beauty. And we wish that this book could be something else; perhaps something that promises that we can escape our humanity some how. But this book will not waiver in speaking its truth no matter how much we might not want to face it. No, it will grab the reader by the shoulders, show them strange haunting suffering of its characters and command the reader to become a little bit more aware of what it means to exist in this world.Lastly, I do not take it upon myself to review this book simply because I read it. I must review it instead because (and I say this with the upmost respect and honesty) it is the most brilliant piece of work I've ever read. Enjoyable, tragically beautiful and real and strangely compelling and hauntingly familiar. The brightest gem I've read and one that I'd recommend to anyone.
—Katherine
Why do we give one book 5 stars and another 4? I would have to say this one intrigued me from the moment I found it at the library in the used book sale. No one had read it, the pages hadn't even been flipped through, but the small bit I read made it impossible for me to put it down. I found it heart breakingly sad and beautiful at once. I give it 5 stars over 4 because it was written in a way that felt like waves on the shore. It rushes forward with the current story, it pulls back with the flashbacks. Each rush forward takes you closer to the end of the book, yet each flashback became more and more engaging. I was never bored, never irritated and although the beginning premise was farfetched, it was written so well that you can't say, "Oh, give me a break!". Well, maybe you could, but I never did. A truly beautiful read for me.
—Jennifer
This book was NOT what I thought it would be. And that's a compliment.Paul's wife Lexy is dead. She fell out of an apple tree. The police have ruled it an accident. Paul is devastated. He's in mourning. Why was she in the apple tree anyway? Soon, he starts noticing strange circumstances surrounding her death. An empty frying pan on the floor and a steak missing. All their books have been rearranged. What does it mean?The only witness to Lexy's death is her dog, Lorelei, an 8-year-old Rhodesian Ridgeback that she'd had before even meeting Paul. Paul is a professor of linguistics. Can he get a dog to talk? Can he teach Lorelei a way of communicating and finally get to the bottom of his wife's death?When I first heard about this book and it's premise, I was expecting something a bit lighter. A man was grieving, but perhaps a bit of comedy interspersed with the mourning, and then in the end coming to some sort of understanding of it all, la-dee-dah (a la GOOD GRIEF by Lolly Winston). NO. This book was dark, scary, and full of turns that I didn't see coming. I was anxious while reading it, wondering where it was going, and questioning everything I thought I knew about the characters. In this way it reminded me of GONE GIRL.Neither Paul nor Lexy were that likeable. I found Paul to be wishy-washy, desperate for Lexy's love and approval. He was rather spineless and acted like a child frequently. And Lexy was another story. Paul's drawn in by her spontaneity, creativity, and imagination. It's only slowly, bit by bit, that he and we (the readers) figure out that she is (view spoiler)[ rather seriously mentally ill. (hide spoiler)]
—Carmen
