Ludicrous premise but it's not entirely about the absurdity of a man trying to teach his dog to talk in order to discover the true circumstances surrounding his wife's death - it's about grief, depression and acceptance. There's only brief examples of Paul's efforts to teach Lorelai to talk and, although disturbing and jarring, I felt the Remo sub-plot served as an example for Paul. To show him where grief might ultimately lead him. So it wasn't entirely unnecessary. I definitely didn't expect to like this book as much as I did. Given the weird interview in "Reading Group Guide" at the end of my edition, I guess I may have read more into certain aspects of the book than the author intended but ah, well. I still enjoyed it. ( )

Adult fiction. In this order: strange, beautiful, mysterious, tragic. ( )

From the first page I really liked this book. It was different. The approach was fresh, the style good, and the subject matter grabbed my attention. I usually don’t reveal what happens in a book, but when it happens on the first page I consider it fair game.

The main character’s wife climbs up an apple tree, falls, and dies. The only witness was their dog. Being a professor of linguistics, the bereaved husband decides to take a leave of absence from his teaching position in order to teach the dog to talk, so that he can find out what really happened the day his wife died.

It seems outlandish because it is. At the same time, the characters are so well developed and the writing so clean that you don’t feel like you’re reading something crazy. About two thirds through the book, the plot takes a twist that I didn’t enjoy. It was a necessary turn; it moves the book along and brings the story full circle. However, if the author had found another way of doing this, The Dogs of Babel may have made it to my top ten favorite novels of all time. I would recommend this book, five stars. ( )

romantic and wee bit sci fi. a bit like "so he takes the dog" ( )

I really struggled with this book. I've read this book twice and it did not get better. I really didn't like Paul, the main character, too much and struggled with the storyline about experimenting with dogs. ( )