The Dogs of Babel (2003) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit

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Summary edit see section history

Characters/People edit see section history

• Paul Iverson: Linguistics professor and widower who becomes obsessed with teaching his wife's dog, a Rhodesian Ridgeback named Lorelei, to speak following her death as the dog is the sole witness.
• Lexy Ransome: Deceased wife of Paul.
• Lorelei: Lexy's female Rhodesian Ridgeback

Quotes edit see section history

• “"Hey slow down a little," I said. "What's your hurry?" I opened my eyes and in the moonlight from the window, I saw that Lexy wasn't wearing the lioness mask. She was wearing Jennifer's mask. The mask of the smiling girl.”

  Paul

• “"Well, I mean, everyone knows that they're going to die, right, but most of the time you let it slip from your mind. I mean, it's always there in your head, and if anyone asked, you'd know the answer. But then there are some moments when all of a sudden you just KNOW it, you know? It suddenly hits you that you're going to die someday, and you say, 'Oh, my God, this is the biggest fact of my life, and I'd almost forgotten.' "”

  Lexy

• “When I was a little boy, my mother, who was given to hyperbole, used to tell me that if the world were to come to an end, her last thought would be of me, and she would fling my name out to the heavens as the mortar of the earth burst apart and the ground fell from beneath her feet. It is only now, when I am surprised to find that I am growing older every day, it's only now that I am beginning to believe that my mother was not just speaking extravagantly. I think every one of us carries with us a name like this, a name whose importance may not be clear to us until we find it on our lips in those final moments. I don't think it is ever, perhaps not even for my mother, who we expect it to be.”

  Paul

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• Perhaps she saw before her a lifetime of walking on the ruined earth and chose instead a single moment in the air.

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• If they could tell us everything they have seen, all of the gaps of our lives would stitch themselves together.

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• The sad truth of dreams is that they rarely let you travel to the same place twice.

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• For just a moment, it doesn’t matter that you’ve got people who love you and the sun is shining and there’s a movie coming out this weekend that you’ve been dying to see. It hits you all of a sudden that nothing is ever going to be okay, ever, and you kind of dare yourself:

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• It’s gratifying to know that you’ve appeared in someone else’s dreams. It’s proof that you exist, in a way, proof that you have substance and value outside the walls of your own mind.

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• ‘Had I known but yesterday what I know today, I’d have taken out your two grey eyes and put in eyes of clay. And had I known but yesterday you’d be no more my own, I’d have taken out your heart of flesh and put in one of stone.’

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• You tuck it away in your brain like sour candy tucked in your cheek, and the puckering memory it leaves behind, the rough pleasure of running your tongue over its strange terrain, is exactly the same.

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• It’s not the content of our dreams that gives our second heart its dark color; it’s the thoughts that go through our heads in those wakeful moments when sleep won’t come. And those are the things we never tell anyone at all.

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• I touched her and it felt like coming home. What more is there to say?

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• It suddenly hits you that you’re going to die someday, and you say, ‘Oh, my God, this is the biggest fact of my life, and I’d almost forgotten.’”

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First Sentence edit see section history

Series & Lists edit see section history

List the series to which this book belongs.

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Carolyn Parkhurst (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: PS3616.A754 D6 2003
• Dewey: 813.6

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Mystery & Thrillers › Mystery
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Literary
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Contemporary