| Title | : | The Dogs of Babel |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0316778508 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780316778503 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 278 |
| Publication | : | First published June 13, 2003 |
The Dogs of Babel Reviews
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Ah, where do I begin reviewing this book? Let me start by saying that this book is not about what it's promoted to be. It's marketed as a book about a grieving widower who tries to teach his dog, the sole witness to his late wife's death, to talk. And yes, this book is about that, but it is not solely about that.
This novel is an intense exploration of one man's profound and painful experience of grief - especially when it's over a mysterious death. Did she die accidentally or did she kill herself? And why? It's haunting, heart-wrenching, suspenseful, and bitter-sweet, but also warm, and romantic.
Paul and Lexy are almost quite opposites of each other. He is very reserved and conservative; she is spontaneous and quirky. The two of them genuinely fall in love, but Paul learns soon that Lexy's spontaneity has its dark side. And then one day, he returns home to discover his wife has died after falling from a tree.
The plot is an intricately and meticulously woven narrative that culminates in a superficially shocking conclusion. I say 'superficially' because its conclusion reminds me a lot of the film, The Sixth Sense. Many viewers were wowed by the stunning revelation at the end, but when you look at the film a second time, all the clues to solve the mystery were in plain sight all along. Every single apparently insignificant detail played a part, and this role was right on the surface for us to see. This, however, does not detract from the power of its ending, and the meaning that this holds for Paul, and how he will now have to go on with his life.
I recommend this wonderful book to anyone who is prepared to go on a journey of the innermost expressions of the soul. You will not regret it. Another reviewer said this is the kind of book that stays with you, and it's true. I encourage you to discover why. -
** spoiler alert **
Suicide is just a moment…For just a moment it doesn’t matter that you’ve got people who love you and the sun is shining and there’s a movie coming out this weekend that you’ve been dying to see. It hits you all of a sudden that nothing is ever going to be okay, ever, and you kind of dare yourself: Is this it? You start thinking that you’ve known this was coming all along, but you don’t know if today’s going to be the day. And if you think about it too much, it’s probably not. But you dare yourself. You pick up a knife and press it gently to your skin, you look out a nineteenth story window and you think, I could just do it. And most of the time, you look at the height and you get scared, or you think about the poor people on the sidewalk below—what if there are kids coming home from school and they have to spend the rest of their lives trying to forget this terrible thing you’re going to make them see? And the moment over.
Paul Iverson returns home one day to find his wife, Lexy Ransome, dead, apparently fallen from a tree in their back yard. Their dog, Lorelei, was the only witness. Bereft at the loss of his beloved, Paul tries to learn the story of her death from the only witness to the event. He takes a sabbatical from his teaching position, determined to teach Lorelei to communicate. His life becomes an obsession.
Carolyn Parkhurst - from her FB pages
Parkhurst reveals, in flashback, Paul and Lexy’s relationship, showing the signs of trouble as well as the moments of splendor. Paul finds clues and tries to see what they tell him. Was her death an accident or not? He goes too far, beginning to fall apart, his home becoming a shocking hovel, his mind willing to speak with unspeakable people in his search for answers. We learn of Lorelei’s origins as well as Lexy’s end.
This is a sad, quirky and beautiful novel, offering a gentle and understanding look at some of the dark seams that fit, spoon-like, right up against our more luminous selves.
Published – June 7, 2004
Read – November 2005
Review Posted – November 2008
=============================EXTRA STUFF
Links to the author’s
personal,
Twitter and
FB pages -
This book, in a word, stinks. And now I shall tell you why.
The main character marries a woman named Lexy. Lexy is terribly mysterious, and vibrant, and creative, and such and so on. Okay, whatever, she dies by falling out of an apple tree. Now that I have been browbeaten with the symbolism, let's go to a flashback so Parkhurst can work up some sympathy for this dead chick. By having her suggest that they take a spur of the moment trip to Disneyland! Which I hate! Which should be firebombed! While Mickey screams in agony! Seriously, Disneyland? And then she has a fit when someone cuts the line at "It's a Small World?" I hate this woman.
Lexy is an artist. She paints
death masks for grieving people. She pulled all her own hair out then had Medusa's snakes tattooed on her scalp. She never wants to have children because she thinks she will be a bad mother. She makes her husband have sex with her while she wears someone else's death mask. Can we guess what really happened in the tree? The apple tree? Hey isn't there an apple tree in some other book? And snakes? What?
Let's cut to the chase here. The only worthwhile character in this book is the dog. When the narrator managed to put this dog in mortal danger by being a complete idiot, I kept reading just to see what happened to it. Plus, I was more than halfway through. Plus, my brain had just died from reading Ghost Wars (it was so hard). Don't read this book. -
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. -
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
At various points in the book I was convinced of different theories: that Lexy had killed herself, that she had been murdered, even that the dog, Lorelei, had killed her. My mind ran wild with all the possibilities. I really enjoyed this, and the book was a mystery of sorts - you and Paul are trying to "solve" Lexy's death. You know that there are clues, you just don't know how to piece them together or what they really mean.
This book also really goes into some dark places regarding animal abuse, specifically the abuse of dogs. Paul is a decent guy - he loves Lorelei and doesn't abuse her. But there is a rather cultish group of men in this book who are obsessed with getting dogs to talk. They kidnap dogs and get them from the pound, and then take them to the soundproofed basement of their "institute" and do Nazi-like surgeries and experiments on them. It's really, truly horrifying and since I love animals I was very upset and anxious reading about this. Parkhurst doesn't go into gruesome details, but it's very disturbing - especially when Paul talks to the members and you see inside their dark and cruel minds.
Dogs talking was another concept that really interested me in this book. Parkhurst puts enough "perhaps this is possible" hints to make you almost believe that Paul can achieve his goal of communicating with Lorelei. In the book, Paul discusses other experiments in communicating with dogs, and I was thinking that perhaps Parkhurst was going to introduce some sort of fantasy element into the novel. Because, of course, in real life, you have no chance in heck of this actually working. She keeps you guessing, and I really enjoyed it.
In short, this is a suspenseful, edge-of-your-seat book. I thought it was intense, well-thought-out, and captivating. Even though it dealt with some scary issues such as I felt it was overall just the right amount of scary. Also, it didn't cross into depressing. The book's message wasn't "doom, doom, all humans are evil and just hurt each other" like it is in so many other books. I wasn't left feeling sad after reading it, but instead satisfied that the mystery was (relatively) solved. The book isn't a happy, feel-good book - but it isn't depressing either.
Even though it's dark and good, it's not as dark or as good as GONE GIRL. It will never be a classic or a favorite of mine. I imagine a re-reading would not be as emotional once you know the outcome of the book. But it was very interesting and entertaining while it lasted. I recommend it to anyone intrigued by the premise BUT you must be able to stomach the dog abuse in this novel. -
Despite the fact that it's about dogs, it is probably one of the best "dog" novels I've ever read. The creature is seen through a lens, not of cuteness or innate personification, but as an amulet, as an enigma too.
Despite the fact that the couple at the center of this book are, yeah, privileged, we truly believe the love that exists even after one of them dies.
And despite the plot taking a semioutlandish turn... I believe the pain the husband feels for his wife. In the search for answers we get a heartbreaking story of love. -
This is hands down my favorite novel, maybe not of all time, but definitely of anything I've read in the last few years (and that encompasses a fair amount of books). It is so moving and so well written. The language is beautiful. Every sentence made me think, "Damn. Wish I'd written that!" Very lovely, poetic, heartbreaking. I can't say enough good things about this book. Highly recommended. It's about a man's grief and attempts to learn what really happened after his wife's sudden death. Didn't really seem like anything I'd like--it was actually one of my mother-in-law's library books that I picked up while staying a weekend at her house. I couldn't put it down until I finished. I enjoy elements of magical realism, and this one had a bit of that, but focused a lot on the emotions of the characters which just seemed so well drawn, so raw and real. As someone who has battled depression most of my life, I appreciated this author's ability to convey not only the torment of the female character, but also the extreme selfishness--readers really get to see her from the inside and outside, giving a unique perspective on the situation. It's just so complicated and so human. Okay, I've said enough. Just read it, seriously! :-)
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Linguistics professor Paul Iverson comes home one day to find his wife, Lexy, lying dead below the apple tree. The only witness is his Rhodesian Ridgeback, Lorelei. Did Lexy fall from the tree or did she commit suicide? What was she even doing up in the apple tree? After the police rule it an accident, Paul sets out to try to teach Lorelei to speak so she can tell him what she witnessed that afternoon. During Paul's crusade to make Lorelei speak we see events from the past tell a story of how Paul and Lexy meet and fell in love. There are many beautifully written flashbacks, detailing Lexy and Paul relationship.
Paul is a pretty tragic character. You can see him working through his grief and it makes him change and do things he might not consider doing otherwise. For the most part, this is a story narrated by Paul and he and Lorelei are the main characters. There are other side characters in this book but Paul and Lorelei are the ones to tell the story. The whole plot was the mystery of Lexy's death, but I think that it also included the emotions and grieving process Paul was going through. It shows what a person devastated by grief might do to find out what happened, even trying to teach his dog to speak. Desperation makes people do strange things.
There are some tough subjects in this book including suicide, animal cruelty and violence. The writing was very emotional and a week after finishing it, I'm still thinking about it. In the end the mystery is solved. Paul understands the truth behind his wife's death and comes to terms with it but I continued to wonder if the real victim was Lorelei.
I thought the story was beautiful and heartbreaking. It had an interesting concept and one I've never thought of before. It's part mystery and part love story and the author entwines both of them in a very convincing way. The story explores relationships at their best and often worst moments. More than a love story between Paul and his wife, it's also a story about a man in the depths of despair and the comfort he gets from his only confidant, the family pet. -
Okay,
a) I identify with the longing for a lost love that becomes a tangible being in and of itself, for the yearning, the way that loss and the bitter want fills your mouth and your hands and every part of you. BUT
b) NOTHING, FUCKING NOTHING, NOT ART OR GRIEF OR WHAT THE HELL HAVE YOU, IS AN EXCUSE FOR TORTURING A DOG. EVEN A GODDAMNED FICTIONAL ONE. This is one of the major issues I had with Watchmen (aside from, you know, the epic slaughter and rape and all that) - dude, it's not the damn dogs' fault; leave the dogs alone. AND
c) DUDE, I GET THE GODDAMNED SYMBOLOGY; STOP BEATING ME OVER THE HEAD WITH THE APPLES AND THE SNAKES AND THE FUCKING WEARING OTHER PEOPLE'S DEATH MASKS. CHRIST ON A BIKE.
Ugh. -
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. -
A delicious debut novel intellectual enough to bypass labels like ‘women’s fiction’ and ‘mystery’, though it has touches of both. One thing that sets it apart is how successfully Parkhurst writes from the perspective of a male narrator, Paul Iverson, who’s been knocked for six by the sudden death of his wife Lexy, a mask designer. While he was at the university where he teaches linguistics, she climbed to the top of the apple tree in their backyard and – what? fell? or jumped? The only ‘witness’ was their Rhodesian Ridgeback, Lorelei, and in his grief Paul uses his sabbatical to research efforts to teach dogs to communicate, hoping one day Lorelei might tell all she knows. Meanwhile, he talks with psychics, tries to decode a message Lexy left in their rearranged books, and gets caught up with a macabre club that uses surgical methods to try to get dogs talking. Woven through are scenes from Paul and Lexy’s courtship and marriage; though Lexy struggled with her mental health, their dialogue is fun and zippy, like you might hear on The Gilmore Girls. Starting with their first date – attending a masked wedding, followed by a spontaneous drive from Virginia to Disney World – you’ll fall in love with this odd couple.
[I was reminded of Unsaid by Neil Abramson, Swimming Lessons by Claire Fuller, Strange Heart Beating by Eli Goldstone, and What I Loved by Siri Hustvedt (all of which I’ve reviewed here). Make of that unusual quartet what you will!]
I read this at Reagan and JFK airports and en route between the two on a brief layover while travelling back to the UK from the States. -
The Art of Racing in the Rain meets
The Time Traveller's Wife. An exploration of marriage, communication, love, loss, grief. Kind of sidles up to canine-human communication as a metaphor for the difficulty of knowing someone else, understanding who they are, what they're saying, what it means as a relationship begins and develops. Going in, I thought this was the central theme but it evolved differently than I expected.
The book is manipulative, there's no getting around it, in the same way as RITR and TTTW. And, the writing starts off kind of clunky, but then that fades into the background as the characterization (quite good) takes hold, and the plot takes off. There's quite a bit of subtlety here in theme and imagery that pulls it up from 3-star territory for me.
So yeah, it made me cry and made me a little mad that it did -- not, surprisingly, because of anything to do with the doggie. Ok, well maybe a little. And, although that bit of it presents quite an odd plot twist near the end - - it also is a catalyst and symbol for Paul's journey through grief. Which is really what what the tear-jerker side of this is all about, so kudos to Ms. Parkhurst for not taking the easy way out and writing what, I have to admit, is quite a nuanced look at grief and loss.
A worthwhile way to spend a Saturday afternoon.
ETA: dropped to a 3 because .... well, it doesn't fit with my 4s. -
This book is a really beautiful and rather gentle portrait of grief. It's about a linguistics professor whose wife falls to her death out of their apple tree in their backyard, with only their dog as a witness. In the year following her loss, the professor copes by trying to teach his dog to speak - knowing full well that it's a little nuts - in the hopes of learning if she really fell, or let herself fall. He's not crazy, nor is the story cheesy, but as complex and difficult as real life and loss are. In the process of unraveling the mystery of small clues she left on the morning of her death, he retells the story of how they fell in love, and slowly learns to live without her. It's more focused on appreciating the time you had instead of the times you lost; it won't depress you, but it might make you cry a little. I've reread it twice in a year. Highly recommended.
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*****There may be some spoilers, but this review is not a synopsis****
I'm not sure why I decided to make this my first written review on GR. Maybe it is because this story conflicts in defining mental illness, artists and Tarot cards so harshly that it sandpapered my brain, or maybe it's an easy way to get my feet wet. Recently I've shied away from reading best sellers and books with 'O' stickers on them for varied reasons. It's been a slow summer and I haven't been sleeping well so I thumbed through a stack of books my daughter brought home from library sale and this is the jewel I pulled from the stack.
I would have given it one star, but I understand grief and I understand suicide. Real suicide, not the apple tree tumbling suicide that fairy tales and talking dog stories are made of. Grief can make sane people do a number of inconceivably mad acts. I applaud the author's attempt of working her story through the husband's grief, so I added a star.
My biggest beef with the book is that it is entirely too contrived for my taste. All stories, for the most part, are planned and prepared, but I crave development that blossoms organically. Force feeding a baby bomb trick that the narrator knew from the beginning is not clever, it is just plain sneaky and bad writing. Weren't we in this story together? Cutting and gutting doggies to talk could have been an interesting tool that led to a fascinating window of something truly unique to peer into, instead it was used as a device to get the collar off the dog and an avenue for Paul to meet his new girlfriend. Isn't that kind of a cheap shot at Lexy?
Let's take a look at the inconsistencies of Lexy's character. She is supposed to be crazy, I guess. But her mental illness doesn't really add up from what I can gather in the story. She sort of behaves as an eccentric-borderline-bipolar would, but the author doesn't give us any medical history of mental illness. I am bothered that the author chose to make Lexy an artist and further stereotype the art community as wrist-cutters and capricious one-week Disney-daters. The history we do get is framed ever so sweetly in her husband's odd nostalgic dialog of her senior year in high school. Later when they are married, she has a few tantrums, but am I to believe that this character is suicidal and so utterly delusional that she sees apparitions? Some may argue that she is suicidal and that she has a dark side. I couldn't find it in the book or the character. It simply didn't jibe for me. I guess I must live in a much darker world than Paul or Lexy ever did. The query that racks my noggin the most though is why? Why wouldn't someone so mentally unstable for so many years get some sort of help. She'll talk to a psychic? Why not a psychiatrist?
In short I found the husband's character too often had a feminine voice. Altogether he irritated me, but he was grieving so I'll let it slide.
Finally this book had a lot of potential and if the author had taken the time to be more thorough in her research she could have written a very good book. There were some fine ingredients, but it lacked any real flavor and was terribly under-baked. -
"We're getting nearer, We're nearing the end, of course you've known that, you've known that since the beginning, from the very first sentence I spoke. I'm tensing up as we get closer, I can feel myself wanting to slow down and and speed up at the same time."
This is a quote from the next to last chapter of this book - and I feel these words capture my exact feeling toward the end of this emotional book. I picked this book up, because in the 30 seconds it took me to peruse the back of the paperback, it sounded like it might be interesting.
It proved to be wonderful, emotional, lovely and sad, all at the same time. It proved to me, that other people must feel the same way that I do, and fight the same battles with themselves, that I do, on a daily basis. What terrified and comforted me, were that from page 280 "What's it like, Lexy?" to page 283 "and you fall." truly captures how most of my days feel. Which - - is a bit messed up, but at least it is the truth. It is truthful.
I loved this book, maybe because I do find myself relating closely to Lexy, but also because I feel that there is "hope" interlaced through the story and, well, in life itself. -
Enjoyed this book immensely, and finished in two days. It's a contemporary novel, lyrically written. It's a beautiful masterpiece of paper mache masks, linguistics, codes in book titles, incongruities at a crime scene, patterns in language, the love of a dog, canine speech, canine abuse, mental illness, fear of bringing children into the world, marriage, issues of openness and honesty, grief, mystery, and letting go. Ultimately, it's an exploration in how we go through the many stages of losing someone we've loved deeply--despair, analysis, depression, anger, and then ultimately and (hopefully) forgiveness. It really struck me, while reading this novel, that letting go is only fully possible after we've delved so deep into the pain, into the reasons why, into the bits and pieces that we may, in the end, only somewhat understand. It is this analysis that is necessary to releasing someone one--whether in death or in the demise of a relationship--and to reaching an enlightened, calm closure that eases the pain, helps us move on and love again.
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An interesting exploration of grief wrapped in a compelling mystery. This is not perfect -- there is a sideline into animal exploitation that is both tacked on and downright silly (and not in a good way) and a central character (Lexy) who would have benefitted from a bit more fleshing out -- but there is a lot of good here. Thoughtful and enjoyable
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This book is beautiful. Its imagery is rich and captivating. Lexy, the main character's wife, makes masks for a living and this whole book is one long masquerade.
It also contains one of the most poignant and realistic treatments of mental illness I've ever read. I identified with Lexy very strongly and have been in her position many times. As she spirals further and further in to her inner nightmare she acts out impulsively, in rage, in sorrow, never truly comprehending her own actions. She is mercurial, childish, and desperately trying to carve something resembling a normal life from the featureless clay that is her own existence.
Lexy makes masks, fantasy creatures, celestial bodies, larger than life animals not, perhaps, in order to act in service to some trite literary device (don't you see, we all wear masks or some such nonsense) but in order to gain control over the chaos. If she can look at the world as an endless carnival, then it loses its teeth and she can feel as if she's imposed some order, taken away the fear, shed light in the dark corners. When we're children and we're afraid of the bad guy in a movie, our parents often tell us, don't worry it's just a mask.
Paul, the husband Lexy leaves behind after falling to her death, is a sympathetic character. His struggle with grief is authentic, including his increasingly bizarre fixation on getting the family dog, Lorelei, to talk. What I like the most about his narration is that it shows what it is like for the relatively sane partner to live with someone who is seriously mentally ill, and going without treatment for that mental illness. His exhaustion and his anger are communicated well, and yet I always understood why he and Lexy were together.
The other aspect that I enjoyed is that Lexy is, in the beginning, presented as the Manic Pixie Dreamgirl archetype, but the rest of the book is all about the dark side of that archetype. Instead of their lives playing out like a movie where the quirky girl helps the stick in the mud to lighten up, it turns out that such spontaneity and changeableness often comes with a price, that it grows from something dark that invades every part of a person's being and life. Rather than Lexy just existing to whirl through Paul's life, fixing his problems, Lexy is her own person with her own problems.
The mystery such as it is, isn't really the point of the story in that you could never call this a detective novel or anything of the sort. Still, when Paul figures out the "incongruities" of Lexy's death, it makes sense and it's satisfying to know how it all plays out in the end. For example I loved when
The only part I feel ambivalent about is I thought it was almost too weird for the story as told up to that point. However, looking back on some of the opening images in this novel, I think ultimately it does fit in contrast to some of the nigh divine things from when he and Lexy first meet and go on their week long date. -
One of my favorite books ever. I don't know if any book I've read has hit me so hard in the chestal region as this one. I was so emotionally invested in this book, and when I re-read it again recently, it was no different. The entire last 30 or so pages of the book I was just crying, trying to read through my tears. For me, what this book is basically about is a man trying to cope with the death of his wife, and about putting the pieces together to figure out how and why exactly she died. I loved it.
But for a book I love so much, it pains me to say that there is one huge flaw here - the crazy 'underground talking dog group' subplot. When I think about this book and remember it, I don't even remember that whole scene as part of it. And that subplot is the only reason I can't give this book 5 stars, it just was too distracting and did not fit in with the rest of the feelings in the story.
There is so much of what was written here that really speaks to me, passages and paragraphs that I can remember almost exactly when I'm in the right mood, things I can identify with amazingly well. I will read anything else Carolyn Parkhurst ever will write. -
Yes, it's another mainstream bestseller which is actually sf. Slipstream, anyway.
Paul's wife Lexy plummets from an apple tree in their yard and dies. There are mysterious circumstances surrounding her death, but the only witness is their dog Lorelei. As in this world, dogs have occasionally been taught to talk, Paul tries to teach Lorelei to talk in order to find out what happened to Lexy.
Flashbacks to their nauseatingly cute courtship and marriage ensue. Lexy (lexicon, get it?) made masks. Masks symbolize the surface which Paul is trying to burrow beneath. They symbolize Lexy's adorable surface which covers up her pain. Paul's travails with Lorelei lead him to a bittersweet understanding of the truth about him, his wife, language, love, death, life, dogs...
Here's how you can tell that the author did not think she was writing sf: although the setting is a world identical to our own except that some people have succeeded in teaching and/or surgically altering dogs so they can talk, and though this single alteration is so central to the plot that the book could not exist without it, the thread of the story which deals with an evil dog-mutilating cabal and with the tragic figure of an altered dog is briefly of crucial importance, then abandoned with no explanation of what happened to the dog-mutilators, the mutilated dog, or why they did something of major significance to the main characters, but which makes no sense whatsoever when you think about it.
I didn't like the book at all. I thought it was over-weighted with obvious symbolism, cutesy, sentimental, and that the sf elements were poorly handled. Also I found all the characters annoying, except for Lorelei, who was boring. On the positive side, it doesn't go into any details about the dog mutilation.
(For non-speaking fictional dogs with personality, see Robin McKinley's
Deerskin
, R. A. MacAvoy's brilliant and little-known fantasy trilogy beginning with
Lens of the World
(the dog in the latter books might be a wolf and is unlike any of my other recommendations in being overwhelmingly creepy and disturbing), Gerald Durrell's hilarious memoir
My Family and Other Animals
, the complete works of James Herriot, and all those YA novels where the dogs die gruesomely at the end.)
Great premise, though. -
I picked this book up in a bookstore last summer, and I began reading it while waiting for my companions. While I've read many mystery novels, this one seemed unique and stuck in my mind even after replacing it on the shelf just a few pages in.
I was surprised when I finally purchased this book nearly a year later to find that it is a lot more than a mystery novel and more than just a story (albeit a great one) about grief and loss. It is also a story about romance, mental illness, fear of bringing a child into the world, marriage, science, animals, animal abuse, suicide, linguistics, art, dreams...
The plot can be a little too much to swallow at times, but there are things in here that will stick with me for a while.
"I touched her and it felt like coming home. What more is there to say?"
"I suppose everyone is a skeptic until they have a reason to believe."
"We never know, do we, what our neighbors might be doing behind their fences, what love affairs and bloody rituals might be taking place right next door? The world is a far more interesting place than we ever think."
"It's gratifying to know that you've appeared in someone else's dream. It's proof that you exist, in a way, proof that you have substance and value outside the walls of your own mind."
"It's not the content of our dreams that give our second heart its dark color; it's the thoughts that go through our heads in those wakeful moments when sleep won't come. And those are the things we never tell anyone at all."
"We would walk through our days together, and the shadow we would cast on the ground would be tall, the shadow of two adults walking together, not the familiar H of adult-child-adult walking hand in hand... There would still be the two of us, and the bright sky of our love. I could do this for her." -
Anyone who has ever experienced an emotional bond with a pet (and who has worked in academia) will enjoy this wonderfully poetic novel. Parkhurst weaves a tale of love, devotion, and grief together with the underpinning belief that 'science' - and scientific research - can provide all the answers. But can it?
-
Η ιστορία ενός καθηγητή γλωσσολογίας που ειδοποιείται από την αστυνομία πως η γυναίκα του είναι νεκρή μετά από πτώση από τη μηλιά του κήπου τους. Μόναδικός μάρτυρας του περιστατικού ο σκύλος της οικογένειας Lorelei κι ο, χήρος πια, Paul, βάζει ως σκοπό να του αποσπάσει πληροφορίες για τις τελευταίες στιγμές της ζωής της.
Έτσι ξεκινάει μια περίεργη ιστορία συμπτώσεων, αναζήτησης, πένθους και τελικά αποδοχής. Το χρονικό μιας σχέσης, με όλα της τα προβλήματα, τις υποχωρήσεις, τα μυστικά και τους φόβους. Δεν είναι πάντα το ζητούμενο για ένα συγγραφέα να γράψει κάτι ρηξικέλευθο, προσωπικά προτιμώ μια όμορφα ειπωμένη ιστορία όπως αυτή που αν και δε στερείται πρωτοτυπίας, μου μίλησε περισσότερο με τη δύναμη της απλότητας και της ανθρωπιάς της. Ίσως αυτό να είναι και το πιο σημαντικό. -
As a animal lover this was a very emotional book for me. There were lots of similarities between my mom and Lexy and Rascal and Lorlei, and Paul and Lorlei to David and Rascal. Anyway, like Lorelei we rescued Rascal who had been sitting in the exact same spot on the side of the road for over two weeks and finally my mom (on our way to Sunday School) stopped (in church clothes) and rescued this dog. He, like Lorlei, had been obviously beaten and then abandoned.
Rascal ended up being one of the biggest blessings of my whole life and I think like Paul, while he loved Lorlei didn't realize what a wonderful asset the animal really was until Lexy was gone. The same thing happened with David. After my mom died, Rascal was his life and I was grateful that David had him.
More than once I would come in and find David lying on the floor, belly down, face to face with Rascal. I think they were talking to each other....
Rascal, like Lorlei, would not ease up when they found their rescuers dead bodies in trying to alert someone that something had happened.
The messages Lexy left behind also remind me of my mom. Sometimes I wonder if somehow she knew she was at the end. After she died, I found little notes taped up under drawers and sticky notes in books she liked that she knew someday I'd read. I also think she knew I'd be a teacher. I was lucky enough to have had a contact of hers at school reach me and let me have all her teaching materials. Why Bonnie Loher kept these I don't know, but I'm so glad she did. In her lesson plan books she had scriptures, quotes she liked, but she also had accomplishments of students and my accomplishments growing up. "Shelley brought home her first spelling test today. She of course made a 100."
Anyway, all this and so much more reminded me of my situation. I bawled through this book and while most of the time I repress thoughts of my mother and my life with her, it felt good to have a good dramatic cry, so it was cathartic at the same time. -
Wow. This may not be everyman's book, but it struck deep chords with me.
-
The Dogs of Babel is a beautiful and tragic tale of love and loss. The slow revealing of the main couple's past is well woven and easily believeable. The completely crazy part was the talking dog theme that Carolyn Parkhurst overreached on...
In the book, The main character (Paul Iverson), devastated by the loss of his dearly loved wife, makes a desperate attempt to make sense of her death by trying to teach his dog to talk. What at first is a poigniant and heart-rending (albeit futile) struggle, quickly becomes super-bizarre. Everyone does things in grief that don't make much sense, and Paul's efforts really bring home his misery. However, Parkhurst's story would have been better served had she abandonded the "talking dog" thing before descending into the absurd. The wierd "scientific" experiments on the dogs were just creepy and really detracted from the story of Paul's journey towards understanding. It was an okay read, and a wonderful work of character development, I'm just not sure that Parkhurst didn't take the gimmick too far. -
After finishing this book, I went into such a funk. Had I seen a Hallmark commercial of any kind, I probably would have started bawling.
However, this is not to say that this book isn't fantastic. It absolutely is. This book made me think and it touched me in an obvious way. This is a quite a different reaction from many of the other books I have read, which are often meaningless ways to pass some time.
This is a story about an incredibly deep romance between two people. The two participants are so different, but yet they bring out the best in each other. We find out about this romance after tragedy has struck.
As you are reading a review of the book, you know that the story occurs after the death of Paul's wife Lexy and that he is seeking meaning to her death. So, the book is also largely about grief and recovering from it.
I didn't want this book to end, and I read it in an afternoon. It was fantastic, hope you enjoy it too!! -
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. -
This book wasn't what I was expecting at all. I guess I was expecting something more along the lines of The Art of Racing In The Rain where the dog, Lorelei, had a more prominent and endearing role. I wasn't expecting what did happen in the book and how Paul tried to get her to talk. I couldn't connect with any character in the book. I did understand Paul's grief and why he needed to know if his wife Lexy's death was an accident or not but the author just took everything too far. By the end I was just skimming to see what happened. I wouldn't recommend this to anyone. There are just too many other better books out there and after looking at the reviews and descriptions of Parkhurst's other novels I don't think I will be giving her another try. This just wasn't very good. I'm glad I got this book basically for free on PaperBackSwap.com because it definitely isn't worth wasting even a penny on. Sorry for such a bad review but this was a bad book...at least for me. 1 star.
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