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Summary: close to the (dog) bone
Review: Ok, that is a ridiculous opening for such an amazing book...but the point I am making is that when I first read the premise, and that people were referring to this amazing work as "the lovely Dog Bones" I was a bit put off. But this book is not about talking dogs. I feel it is about how people respond to grief. Grief tears you apart, makes you unreasonable...This is a book about a man who responds to grief and through the set up it is almost plausible.
Beyond that, I think I held my breath a few times, wondering if the book would take weird turns. I didn't want Paul to get involved with Hollis...but I really don't think the book goes off track. Yes, Paul, a fairly rational man, is taking up with weird underground cults and phone psychics but these are the tools of desperation.
I would also like to say that, though the book has moments of graphic description about animal mutilation, it is obvious pro-dog. Some of the reviews seem to imply that Parkhurst is some kind of horrific dog mutilator. No...her characters are, again to show the depths of Paul's journey. These passages are here to show you how far people will go.
I will tell you that this is a painfully close to the bone novel,filled with brilliant insight, amazing symbolism, and skillful writing about relationships, being left and the search for answers when you are left suddenly.
I thouroughly can recommend this wholeheartedly, it is a beautiful piece, risky and wonderful. Go with an open mind. It is not the lovely bones...it is something quite different. Dig up it's beauty for yourself
Rating:
Summary: This is one of the best I've read since Life of Pi
Review: Wow!,- what more to say? This is, without a doubt, one of the best books I've read in a long time. I found myself laughing out loud on one page and a few paragraphs later had tears in my eyes. The writing flows so smoothly the book is hard to put down. I think this one is going to be big.
Rating: 
Summary: The male narration sinks this novel
Review: Ultimately, this clever idea fails to go beyond just an idea; and the great pace and writing of the first 30 pages dissipates. Others have commented on the play of the arrangement of books on the shelves at the narrator's home, and I agree that it comes across as forced. The caper with the underground dog people is a silly and belongs in a different novel. But what really brings this novel down is the "male" narration which is never male enough to deal with the female lead, Lexi. Paul admires her in the way that a woman wants a man to admire her, and not the way a man would. Save your money and buy the used copies. There will be enough of them.
Rating: 
Summary: Too Precious
Review: I don't understand why this book earned such glowing reviews. The author is definitely a talented writer, but the story doesn't have much depth, certainly not that of Lovely Bones, which it has been compared with. The story and its characters are neither tragic or comic, but just edging on a bit dark, a bit quirky, and a little too precious as a result. So as events unfolded, I found I really didn't care that much about the outcome, only curious to see what the author would "invent" next as part of the narrative. The two lead characters, Paul and Lexy never really never rang true for me as a fully developed characters. For example, the "tortured" Lexy isn't even sympathetic because she has so little dimension. Author did okay in capturing the dog's character, but then again, it really never learned to talk, so no dialogue was required.
Rating: 
Summary: Big disappointment
Review: ...I...bought this book because I am a huge fan of Anna Quindlen. After finishing the book, I also wondered why in the world Quindlen would recommend this novel. The characters are unsympathetic and unbelievable, particularly Lexy. Frankly, I found myself not caring that Lexy had died. My reaction to this book was totally different from Lovely Bones, another novel about death that Quindlen recommended. Read Lovely Bones instead.
Rating: 
Summary: Haunting
Review: The story of each of the characters, Paul, Lexy and Lorelei are tragic and heartbreaking. They and their story have stayed with me for some time now. It is story of death of Lexy, the wife, and how it impacts - consumes - her husband, Paul.
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Summary: "BABE" MEETS ''FIGHT CLUB''
Review: When I first heard about this book's plot--bereaved professor tries to teach his dog, the sole eyewitness to his wife's suspicious death, to speak--I rolled my eyes, shook my head, tsked my tongue, and gyrated any other orifice that could show smug contempt. What a stupid premise, I supposed. Boy, was I wrong!THE DOGS OF BABEL is not light summer reading, rather it's like a swift, unexpected summer heat storm. It is fast, intense, relentless, and unabashedly refreshing. Its hero, Paul, is a kind man with an unenviable mission--a desperate need to become a real-life Dr. Dolittle ... Lieutenant Columbo. His hesitant, embarrassing, compulsive lessons with Lorelei, the Rhodesian Ridgeback, are never played for laughs, chuckles, or cheap theatrics. His self-conscious attempts to spark some kind of memory in Lorelei are a tribute to just how much his deceased wife, Lexy, meant to him, and to the faithful animal companion. It is a beautiful, befuddled attempt to bridge the gap between the here and the Hereafter. The story line is an exploration of just how far one man, indeed any mourner, will strive to recover a loved one, a lost memory, a destroyed future. It is a heart-wrenching blueprint of how grief can envelop and enervate even the most intelligent, most reasonable figure. The talking dog aspect is not just an attention grabber. The author's writing style is fetching (pardon the pun) and her imagination takes readers willing to follow her lead into the labyrinthes of an emotional and mental meltdown, plus into the corridors of a frightenting underground society of canine mutilators. It is truly terrifying and each sentence is anxiety-ridden. Coming out in the summer, with its hook being that a dog just might end up talking, this novel may attract starry-eyed fans of ALL CREATURES GREAT AND SMALL. Reader, beware, though. This truly is BABE THE GALLANT PIG meets FIGHT CLUB. Not for the tender-hearted, but rather for the reader who is willing to have his or her soul touched, bruised, stomped on, regenerated, and ultimately restored. A great debut because it is so audacious, crazy, brilliant, overreaching, and finally human. Forget about the "man bites dog" or "dog walks into a bar" aspect, this is a novel that really is just that: novel. What a rare treat!
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Summary: More than meets the eye
Review: A short blurb in a book club circular first piqued my interest in Dogs of Babel. "Grieving widower attempts to teach family dog to talk." One of my favorite books of all time was Watchers by Dean Koontz. I instantly wanted to jump into this book, hoping for another taste of that level of fantasy; what would it be like if our family pet could really speak? After reading the PW review, I realized that I might not be getting what I had hoped for, but even so, I am very glad I chose to go ahead and read this book. As others have already mentioned, the story is about Paul Iverson's attempt to teach his dog to speak so that he could learn the secrets surrounding his wife's sudden death. As I read, I realized that teaching the dog to speak really wasn't Paul's focus, at all. It was just his way of coping, grieving, and remembering his wife. There is an element of poignant romance in the story as he tells the story of his wife from their first meeting to that fateful last day, but it is done in a way that is moving rather than sloppy sweet. In his narrative, you can clearly see Paul's shortcomings and his wife's mental instability, from their bizarre first date through to the end of the book. These are not perfect people, and that is what makes the book all the better. I have to admit that my favorite character in the book is Lorelei, the dog. The only places where I really cried were when she grieved in her own way the loss of her master. I did like reading about her take on Paul's attempt to teach her language, particularly in the scene where he is trying to get her to say "Wa" for water, withholds her water to make her ask for it and she (logical and intelligent) goes and gets a drink out of the toilet when she is thirsty. Very smart dog. As for Paul's side trip into the world of Cerberus; That was the only point in the book where I really hated that guy. But that brings us back to the fallibility of people and how grief affects each person differently. It seemed he'd go to almost any length to discover the truth about his wife's death, even at the expense of a very trusting companion. In short, I enjoyed the story (finished it in a day) and found the characters compelling and real. Two thumbs up!
Rating:
Summary: My Heart is Broken
Review: This book is by far the most poignant book that I have read in a very long time. I felt so drawn into the main character's grief that I was consumed by the story. I could feel the love Paul felt for Lexy, and his desperation to find out what happened to his beloved drove me to finish the book in one sitting. Some topics in this book may be upsetting to animal lovers, but perservere...you will be richly rewarded. I wish that there was a rating of infinite stars, because I am just in love with this book. The writing skillfully weaves the past and present to tell this tale of love and loss, and I am forever touched by all of it's messages.
Rating:
Summary: A good book that goes a little too far
Review: Paul Iverson came home from work one autumn afternoon to find that his wife Lexy was dead, having fallen from an apple tree in their backyard. Forensic evidence suggested that the fall was accidental, but certain incongruities in Lexy's behavior--she had rearranged the books in one of their bookcases, for example--suggested to her husband that "the day of Lexy's death had not been a usual day." The Dogs of Babel tells the bittersweet story of Paul's attempt to recover from and understand Lexy's death. Was it a suicide? There was only one witness to his wife's fall, the couple's Rhodesian Ridgeback, Lorelai, and Iverson, a trained linguist, undertakes to teach the dog to talk. His interactions with Lorelai are sometimes comic, sometimes heart-rending (as when he tells her to "Go get Lexy"--a command she had never heeded previously--and she runs off, manically sniffing throughout the house for evidence of her dead mistress). The story, narrated by Iverson and written in pleasingly short chapters, jumps gracefully from these training sessions to Paul's attempts to unscramble the riddle of the reordered bookshelf to his memories of his wife--their charming courtship and the unsettling bursts of rage to which Lexy was subject. In the end, Paul's various memories and his detective work coalesce to form a comprehensible narrative of their relationship and of Lexy's last moments. Left at that, Parkhurst's novel would have been highly successful, but the author has also included in her book a section that does not quite fit with the rest. Iverson's interest in canine linguistics leads him to become involved--briefly, and somewhat against his will--with a group of extremists who will stop at nothing in their pursuit of canine speech. This section of the book is horrifying in its details of surgically altered dogs, and one is terrified at the prospect of what may happen to Lorelai. But these shocking chapters are also unrealistic (or so one dearly hopes), and thus out of keeping with the rest of the narrative. They are also not necessary to the story, which could stand on its own as an admittedly less dramatic but no less moving tale of love and death and dogs.
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