Every once in a while, I come across a novel that causes me to throw some side-eye the author’s way. The most recent novel to do this is The Dogs of Babel by Carolyn Parkhurst.
The Dogs of Babel is the story of linguist Paul Iverson, who calls home one day to find out his wife Lexy is dead. The only witness to her death is their dog, Lorelei, and so Paul sets out to teach the dog to speak so he can find out what really happened.
Now I’d first heard of Babel on a screenwriting website. It seems someone adapted the book and the resulting screenplay was so good, it made that year’s Black List. Reportedly, they were looking for an A-list actor for the role of Paul and blah blah bliggity blue. The way the story had been reported, I thought Babel was going to be a comedy of some sort. Anyway, when I’d found the novel at my new favorite book store Book Off, I decided to pick it up. What the hey, the premise was certainly intriguing. Unfortunately, what made for an intriguing premise turned out to be a patience-testing exercise in banality.
