Well, I wasn't really asking, "how would you summarize this book", that would be a bit of a classroom question for me. I guess what I am asking, may even go back to when you first thought about the story, or first started writing it or maybe it came as you went and you weren't sure till the end. It is different for different writers, but the question is really, what would you want someone to take away with them from this book and that could be either something of meaning to the readers, something you really had to say and wanted to make sure they got that, or it could honestly be, well I hope they just come away from it having enjoyed a book with no particular message but interesting enough for them to tell others about. You said about the closest you have gotten before was to say that our connections with dogs is worthy of close serious attention. I do believe that after reading two books about it.....as an opening line to the answer of what then about this book would you like to have us take away from that idea?
To say, or summarize it as a boy and his dog book for adults, well, hmm I am searching for words to express what I am saying now but "a boy and his dog" books usually do have very meaningful messages for the younger readers. To say this is an adult version of that still leads to the question of why, in this book? Adding life and death situations, which in the book seem meaningless too, to make it more an "adult book about a boy and his dog", without meaning, without message, or even then without just a being a lighter entertainment book, is to me anyway, like adding bloody scenes to a PG-13 movie just to get that R rating and draw in adults, tho it doesn't lend anything to the story, its just there for that rating.
I am trying to figure out, I guess especially from the ending, because I was willing to take the journey, tho sometimes arduous to get there, with you because I was just sure this was leading up to a more understandable and meaningful ending, something I would know I have gained about that opening line of the explanation, of taking the connections seriously, what happened? I felt like a bomb was dropped in the end of the book, right on the farm, killing the people, ending the story,leaving unanswered questions about the dogs and if they even have or need that connection to us anymore. It felt like after 550 pages, something just had to end the story and so lets kill them all in a very melodramatic way, but saves the dogs, that will appease the dog lovers. I do ask and also say these things in all sincerity, not to put down the author, but to try to understand what he, you, wanted us to get from that. The answer that you really don't know either, is unsettling. If anyone were to ask me about any book I have or would recommend to them, Vivian, you don't have to tell me the story, let me read that, but what do you think I will take away from this, what did you? I can tell you exactly what about each one, the others become forgettable to me or meaningless. This would be true of every book from serious reads about the holocaust, to fun adventure books that are just a good fun ride of escapism to take!
I really felt the question was one that was right to what I was trying to figure out about this book and one the author would know and could help me with, as I can't find it. Well, thank you for your response anyway.
David_Wroblewski wrote:
vivico1 wrote:
David,
If there is one thing you would like us to take away from reading this book, what would it be? What would be the one thing you think would be the most important thing you hope readers get from this book. Thank you, Vivian
Hi Vivian, interesting question, I've been sitting here thinking about this. I guess I don't hope readers get anything in particular except for the pleasure of immersion in a story, which is the highest goal of a novel -- to occupy your thoughts as a kind of double-life as you read. I certainly don't think of this novel as having a message, or a lesson, partly because using a novel to deliver a lecture damages the story, and partly because i don't think of stories as being summarizable -- they are an experience to be had, and are irreducible. Most of the novels I love I find impossible to summarize in any meaningful way.
I'm not trying to be evasive here, I'm just at a loss for words. What I can tell you is that, when I first started writing Edgar's story, I was quite aware of the fact that stories that took seriously the relationship between people and dogs (or any animal, for that matter) had been for a long time relegated to children's lit, and I thought that was all wrong. (Things have changed a bit since I started writing TSOES, which was back in thre 1990's.) I've often said on the book tour that I think of this novel as "a boy and his dog story for grownups", because that's the only reduction I've considered even half-right.
But if I push myself a little, I suppose I'd say there is this take-away: that this story takes the relationship between people and animals seriously; and by making it the center of a dramatic story, with life and death consequences, there's a implicit claim that our connection with dogs is worthy of close, serious, adult attention. It is, after all, one of the oldest projects of humankind, living with dogs.
Sorry for the ramble -- we could talk for hours on this. On the www.edgarsawtelle.com website I list a few books that meant a lot to me, including Vicki Hearne's Adam's Task, Vilmos Csanyi's If Dogs Could Talk (terrible title, excellent book), and several others.
Please feel free to follow up if I somehow went into the weeds answering your question, as I suspect I have!
-David
Message Edited by David_Wroblewski on 08-25-2008 05:16 PM
Vivian
~Those who do not read are no better off than those who can not.~ Chinese proverb
I've been ignoring in favor of more entertaining reads.
