Book Review #35 - The Story of Edgar Sawtelle

It's not this book's fault that it suffers from being way overly-hyped. I'm not even sure an author can be grateful to Oprah anymore as her brand seems to automatically make haters out of book critics (heaven forbid a great reader appears to be on an Oprah bandwagon) as well as raise expectations thus leaving very little room for anything that comes short of perfection.

Her brand also makes any author a millionaire so they can't be too upset. But I don't think this book would be nearly as popular as it is if it's front cover weren't emblazoned with the big "O."

Not because it isn't a good book but because it's a really, really sad book. Dramatic and compelling - yes - but so, so tragic at the end. Still, I liked it. What I've been trying to figure out since reading it, is if I liked the book because I liked this story or if I liked the book because I liked the original.

After much reflection, I believe I liked both. As most everyone probably knows by now, this is a re-telling of Shakespeare's Hamlet. Wroblewski doesn't even try to hide the attempt as he calls the main character's mother, Trudy (Hamlet's mother was Gertrude) and the evil uncle, Claude (Hamlet's evil uncle...Claudius). Some of the other mirrored characters were more disguised but most were there. And if you know the story of Hamlet, you understand that a son goes nearly insane trying to prove his beloved father was murdered by his uncle, who sinisterly and without remorse takes his father's place in both profession as well as in his mother's affection. It's a known tragedy and the ending is not happy. No apologies.

I can handle an unhappy ending. However, I think at Sawtelle's end, the author thought his book would become a tragedy if he simply ending everything as horribly as he possibly could. I felt sad, bad and mad compared to the more desperately ironic tragedy of Hamlet's demise. Furthermore, even though I knew the bad stuff was coming, I stopped expecting it because Edgar was just a kid. A mute kid. A mute kid responsible for beloved dogs. You don't write kids and dogs in despair without some kind of silver lining in modern day books. You just don't.

I know it seems like I'm spoiling the ending but I don't know how you separate The Story of Edgar Sawtelle from Hamlet and I can't be blamed for including spoilers about Hamlet. Because the skeleton of Edgar Sawtelle's plot is not original, I don't think Wroblewski gets credit for it. Shakespeare does. Sort of like the movie Clueless with Alicia Silverstone. Cute movie. Funny. But it's really Emma: Jane Austen's brainchild.

Wroblewski does get credit for making Edgar mute, a brilliant angle to writing the young and confused protagonist's inability to effectively communicate. In that, he created a unique Hamlet character that managed to be separate from the original. I believed in Edgar Sawtelle. I believed in his innocence, his loneliness and why he runs away. The author also gets credit for its stark midwest setting and the fantastic dog characters, which certainly creates an effective emotional response. You absolutely believed that those dogs loved Edgar without condition, particularly Almondine, an ability which seems lost to most human relationships these days.

In the end, I think it's a good book because Shakespeare is a genius and created an interesting plot and Wrobleweski didn't ruin it with his modern interpretation and more than competent writing. But he didn't make it any better either. Three stars for being a decent copycat.