Rating: 
Summary: must have missed it.....
Review: I almost didn't finish this book. I was disappointed because of the lack of development of the characters and it felt like the author was trying to herd cats with as many directions the story traveled. The way it was written gave me the impression that the author was just trying too hard to make it work.
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Summary: Gone to the dogs
Review: For some reason, there seems to be a plethora of books about dogs or books with dog "themes", and all are bestsellers. Did I miss something? Is it the year of the dog? I first encountered "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime" which is bizarre, excellent, and a must-read. Then I read "Bark of the Dogwood" (yes it does have a dog theme) which is one of the funniest and most entertaining books I've come across. But the latest was "Dogs of Babel." This wonderful, fun, disturbing, and well written book is tops on my list, whether its a list of dog books or not. Parkhurst is an immense talent and should not be missed. Highly unusual and guaranteed to be like nothing you've come across before
Rating: 
Summary: ----------- Unique, Moving, Enchanting ------------
Review: A book doesn't have to be perfect or "five stars" to have touched the heart & soul as this one does.
Granted, yes, the plot did get a little loopy, but I think that grabbed me a bit more. The twists & turns were odd, but then again, life can do just that as well.
Any animal lover, I think, will find this book bittersweet & touching. I found myself looking up Lorilei's (our canine heroine) breed on the net just to have a mental pic of her as I read. :)
I do see the correlation with "The Lovely Bones". It has that same feel.
You won't be disappointed in this at all!
Rating:
Summary: A Unique Blend of Writing
Review: "The Dogs of Babel, by Carolyn Parkhurst, is--in my opinion--a unique blending of the writing styles of Nicholas Sparks and Stephen King, however unlikely that may seem. Unlike any other book I remember reading, Ms. Parkhurst's book is one of many surprises... perhaps even with a dash of "The Twilight Zone."
Highly recommended!
--Ron Howe
Erskine, Minnesota
(rchowe@gvtel.com)
Rating:
Summary: Don't Listen to the Naysayers -- This Book is Wonderful!
Review: I found this book to be so romantic in the telling of Paul and Alex's love. And it was one of the saddest books I've ever read, although also one of the most wonderful. It's about love and loss and dealing with all the things that come in between. And yes, the dog in the story is so sweet and I was on the edge of my seat hoping and praying everything would turn out okay. I loved this book and am all the better for having read it.
Rating:
Summary: Attention dog lovers!
Review: Only a true dog lover could fully appreciate this book. The book focuses on the experience of loss and aid of the company of a dog, a true companion. The author has an exceptional way of allowing the reader to fully experience the emotions that run through the main character, a linguist who tries to teach his dog to "talk" so that she may reveal the mystery behind his wife's death. His attempts lead him in a completely different direction than he intended, but they ultimately accomplish his goal. It was difficult to put this mystery book down once I began reading it.
Rating:
Summary: Please don't miss this wonderful novel
Review: Please don't pass on reading this book. To say that it is a book about dog abuse does it a terrible injustice. There are a few mentions about a group of people who abuse dogs and there is a graphic description on ONE page of the book but that is all. This novel is in fact a very moving tribute to the close relationships most all of us enjoy with our pets and how sometimes we may actually know them better than we do the people closest to us.Paul Iverson is a linguistics professor who calls home one day to say hello to his wife, Lexy, only to be told by a man who answers the phone that he needs to come home immediately. Lexy has been found dead in their backyard, lying on the ground next to an apple tree. Their dog, Lorelai, was home with Lexy at the time but of course she can give Paul no answers as to what happened. In his grief, Paul loses touch with reality and decides that he will try to teach Lorelai to talk. The premise here may sound far-fetched but Paul trying to teach Lorelai to communicate with him is a small part of the novel, something that runs in the background. The bulk of the story centers around Paul and Lexy's relationship as told in flashbacks as Paul recalls the day he first met Lexy, their courtship and their life together as a married couple. Through reflection as well as certain clues that Lexy leaves behind Paul comes to the realization that he didn't know his wife the way he thought he did. And through his grief the presence of Lorelai is truly a comfort to him and in the end provides him with the knowledge he needs to be at peace with his wife's death.
Rating:
Summary: I love Paul Iverson. . .
Review: Paul Iverson is the husband we all want. He loves his deceased wife so much that he has a hard time facing her shortcomings. I love this author's style of writing; and if you listen to the audio version, Erik Singer does an excellent job at the narration. Yes, the parts about the dog mutilation are very disturbing, but they are a stark contrast to how Paul feels about his dog Lorelei. Every time I listened to part of this book, it made me want to hug my dog. You can tell this author loves and appreciates dogs very much. I also liked the sensitive way that Lexy was portrayed. She was mentally ill, but that was only part of the picture--she was also a gifted artist and a loving wife. Her illness was something she could not control but fought hard against. I highly recommend this book.
Rating:
Summary: A book that came along at the right time
Review: The tenacity of Paul's love for his clinically depressed wife -- she was bi-polar probably -- made me have a good look at my own relationship with a difficult friend whom I was about to abandon out of sheer frustration. Message: don't give up on someone you love, and grieve (spectacularly if you wish) when they are gone, whether through death, the ultimate abandonment, or through forced separation. The animal abuse? Well, it happens in many other circumstances, unfortunately, and this time the perpetrators got their just desserts. The love of animals also shone through. A brilliant book which I accepted in the spirit with which it was offered. May the author have a long and successful writing career.
Rating:
Summary: Hated It, A Terrible Book
Review: It seems like a lot of authors are turning to the preposterous in a desperate attempt to be "original." We've had an autistic narrator in THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHTTIME (done skillfully), a time traveling husband in the dreadful THE TIME TRAVELER'S WIFE and a baby born "old" who grows younger with each passing year in the sometimes good, sometimes bad, THE CONFESSIONS OF MAX TIVOLI. THE DOGS OF BABEL, however, may be the the very worst of these trite and "gimmicky" books. What these "new" authors don't seem to realize is that originality springs, not so much from a gimmicky premise as it does from a fresh perspective on universal problems. At their core, people are interested in...people, not literary gimmicks. THE DOGS OF BABEL begins interestingly enough. Paul Iverson, a linguist in suburban Virginia comes home one day and discovers that his wife, Lexy Ransome, has died in a fall from an apple tree. The only witness to her accident was the couple's Rhodesian Ridgeback, Lorelei. Paul, who feels he has to know exactly what happened, makes the outlandish decision to teach Lorelei to speak in "human" language. I could accept this decision at the time it was made because Paul is, strangely enough, grief-stricken (I say "strangely enough" because Lexy was such a hateful character.) Up until this point, the novel seemed to me as though it was going to be a rather poignant and very human exploration into the world of love and loss and how one man (Paul) deals with his grief at losing the wife he loved. Unfortunately, instead of exploring the rich realm of human emotions, the book took a very dark and macabre turn into what seemed to be a desperate effort at latching onto an as-yet-untried gimmick. Part of the problem for me regarding this book was the fact that Lexy was a thoroughly unlikeable and extremely annoying character. Maybe the author simply meant to make her quirky, I don't know, but even most quirky people have good, endearing qualities. Lexy, however, did not. Lexy, even filtered through Paul's love for her (for that is the only way we "know" her), comes off as a selfish, self-centered, destructive woman who's filled with rage and loathing. Paul, in loving her, simply comes off as supremely stupid...a total fool. I suppose he and Lexy really were "made for each other." Like a lot of other readers, I couldn't stand the animal abuse in this book. Not only was it painful and difficult to read, it was twisted and totally unnecessary to the story. The book would have been so much more poignant and better without it. THE DOGS OF BABEL was obviously written with an extremely heavy hand. Parkhurst seems to want to beat her readers over the head with her heavy-handed symbolism and metaphors. And it simply doesn't work. Symbols and metaphors need to be handled with a light touch. In this book, they're so heavy they pull the whole story down even further than it would have been without them. Even Lexy's profession as a mask maker was highly symbolic (and far too heavy-handed.) Then there's the prose. I hated it. I thought it was "sketchy" and made the book sound like one of those mass market novelizations of films. In the end, I found THE DOGS OF BABEL to be trite, shallow, dishonest, extraordinarily gimmicky and so filled with heavy-handed symbolism it made me groan. The only book I've read recently that I thought was as amateur and juvenile in its execution was THE TIME TRAVELER'S WIFE. In that book, there were no likeable characters. In THE DOGS OF BABEL, we at least have one likeable character, but only one...Lorelei.
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