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The Dogs of Babel

By Carolyn Parkhurst

(77)

| Paperback | 9780316001045

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Book Description

Paul Iverson의 삶은 어느날 갑자기 완전히 바뀌어 버린다. 집에 돌아왔을 때, 그의 아내 Lexy가 죽어있음을 발견한 것. 아내의 죽음에서 이상한 단서들을 발견한 그는, 사건의 진상을 밝혀내기로 결심한다. 목격자는 오직 그들이 기르던 강아지, Lorelei 뿐. 애완견의 눈과 귀에 의지해 Paul은 조금씩 진실에 가까와지는데...The Book of the Month Club의 메인 도서로 선정되었던 베스트셀러로, 사랑과 결혼, 헌신에 관해 깊이있게 그려낸 작품. [예스24 제공]

Critics

The Best Reviews: Carolyn Parkhurst, The Dogs of Babel

"Fine thriller" Linguistics Professor Paul Iverson returns home to find his wife Lexy Ransome dead from an apparent fall from a backyard apple tree that it seems she must have climbed up on. Their dog Lorelei is the only witness to the tragedy, but h ... (read full critics)

thebestreviews published on Fri, 17 Sep 2010

The Dogs of Babel By Carolyn Parkhurst

Linguistics professor Paul Iverson's life is turned upside-down when the body of his young wife Lexy is found beneath their backyard apple tree. Did she fall or did she jump? Only Lorelei, family dog and sole witness to the tragedy, knows for sure. A ... (read full critics)

bookpage published on Thu, 16 Sep 2010

See all critics

5 Reviews

Teaching a dog to speak was a very original device to build suspense, the reader doesn't realise until nearly at the end that the book is not a mystery novel, rather an empathetic take on grief and depression. The pain and desperation of suffering from depression came through vividly in the ending, ... (continue)

Teaching a dog to speak was a very original device to build suspense, the reader doesn't realise until nearly at the end that the book is not a mystery novel, rather an empathetic take on grief and depression. The pain and desperation of suffering from depression came through vividly in the ending, in just a few pages, superb piece of writing.

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Fay Ng said on Mar 5, 2010 | Add your feedback

*** This comment contains spoilers! ***

I was amazed about the beginning of the story.
A gang of crazy man try to did some surgery on dogs. They wanted to make dog talk like human.
Sound like interested?
But the whole book is concentrated on the pain of love.
To tell the turth, I don't like the ending although this is ... (continue)

I was amazed about the beginning of the story.
A gang of crazy man try to did some surgery on dogs. They wanted to make dog talk like human.
Sound like interested?
But the whole book is concentrated on the pain of love.
To tell the turth, I don't like the ending although this is the first english book of mine.

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Iamqueenhaha said on Oct 17, 2008 | Add your feedback

*** This comment contains spoilers! ***

This story described a linguistic professor who lost his wife, and tried to find out how she died by teaching her dog talking. The beginning part about how they met each other and fell in love was interestingly attractive. The more the linguist recalled in the past, the clearer what kind of a person ... (continue)

This story described a linguistic professor who lost his wife, and tried to find out how she died by teaching her dog talking. The beginning part about how they met each other and fell in love was interestingly attractive. The more the linguist recalled in the past, the clearer what kind of a person his wife was, and the story gets more suspicious. Along with the story, the story was even deeply sad.... finally, he found that his wife was suicided.
The thought of suicide could be lasting a long time, or just only a moment, everything suddenly becomes untolerable and the world seems to crash.... there may be some broken or sad feeling compressed in our heart for a long time, but it was solved, just forgotten. Sometimes there is a moment we just can't get through it. Human is so fragile... My religion belief is against suicide-- like the slogan, "Think a moment more". I have compassion to the suicided lady in the story, but I hate the feeling of reading it. Something deep inside our soul needs to be solved and cleaned, or we will never get wellbeing in our whole life.

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gingerhsu said on Jan 6, 2008 | Add your feedback

A very original premise, for sure. A linguistics professor tries to teach his dog to talk, compelled to find answers whether his wife's death, as witnessed by the dog, was an accident or suicide. Or maybe he just needed a new hobby. Sounds a bit ridiculous, and at times it gets rather too emotional ... (continue)

A very original premise, for sure. A linguistics professor tries to teach his dog to talk, compelled to find answers whether his wife's death, as witnessed by the dog, was an accident or suicide. Or maybe he just needed a new hobby. Sounds a bit ridiculous, and at times it gets rather too emotional to the point of being embarrassing, like as though you just stumbled upon an acquaintence wallowing in his private grief. Still, following the narrator's painful journey through denial, guilt, acceptance and letting go, you can't help but feel sorry for the guy. Towards the ending, a particular revelation left me feeling rather annoyed, like how we were all set up for the "surprise" ending; but you know, how can you hold that against a grieving widower for long. A small dose of reality suspension wouldn't hurt as well.

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Danelectrico said on Dec 6, 2007 | Add your feedback

Want to re-read.
Summary:
A man comes home one night and finds out his girlfriend is dead. The police rule it as an accident, but the man isn't sure if it was an accident, or if she killed herself (she was mentally unstable and depressed).
The only person who saw it happen was thei ... (continue)

Want to re-read.
Summary:
A man comes home one night and finds out his girlfriend is dead. The police rule it as an accident, but the man isn't sure if it was an accident, or if she killed herself (she was mentally unstable and depressed).
The only person who saw it happen was their dog. The man then becomes obsessed with trying to teach the dog to speak, so he can find out the truth.

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9days said on Mar 30, 2007 | Add your feedback