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Parrot & Olivier In America (2009)

by Peter Carey(Favorite Author)

3.41 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

1441729755 (ISBN13: 9781441729750)

languge

English

genre

Historical Fiction

publisher

Blackstone Audiobooks

review 1: Peter Carey is a good writer and this is a clever story. It's about a young French aristocrat who comes to America in the early 1800s a la Tocqueville, in order to escape the political turmoil in France. His servant and traveling companion, the "Parrot" of the title, is a brilliant English engraver who has had a sad and peripatetic life. I wondered if the voice of the novel was something Carey came up with specifically for this book, because it really seemed to suit the time. But no, all his books sound this way. It's an appealing voice, although...I don't know, it's kind of glib. Anyhow, there was a review of this book in the Guardian by Ursula Le Guin, and I would agree with everything she said about how enjoyable it was and that it was hard to figure out what it w... moreas about. That's exactly what I thought when I closed the back cover. The other thing that bugged me was Olivier's last speech about how American individualism and other values will cause a coarsening of the culture and lack of intellectual life. That's just ridiculous. It's the sort of thing my mom would have said, my PBS-watching, "figure-skating-is-the-only-worthwhile-Olympic-sport-and-classical-music-is-the-only-good-music," lovely anglophile mom. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Last time I looked, we have high art here in the States.
review 2: Whimsical and epic, occurring in a place so magical but which really truly existed. There are forgeries and revolutions, dynamics of brotherhood which bring to mind Chabon's "Kavalier and Clay", and a style and tone which reminds me, at its height, of Ackroyd's "Hawksmoor."But it truly is demanding upon the reader-- THIS IS NO SUMMER BOOK-- like an even more labyrinthine work by Saramago. The title is misleading (a crime for which an artist, I truly believe, should suffer dearly) for "America" apparently stands for "the voyage to" (with ships grand and not) and very few of the adventures being kept land-locked. I mean, wtf. Yep, it's also symbolic-- it's a European foreigner's unique take on the Land of the Free. (Olivier surveys various prisons of the New World... egads!) It is optimistic and alive, but sorta like the two or three movies that escape your attention each year now that more categories have been added to the Best Picture race. "Parrot and Olivier" stands to be the perpetual Oscar movie novel you never will bother with, will not bother to sit down and watch.Let me go further, making an additional analogy (I know, I know). The novel, a contender for the Booker, is like a mountain of rocks... somewhat like one of the fantastic hiking trails found in Las Cruces, NM. Rocky and uphill, it's a total workout in nature for the city-locked individual. Carey's words are the crazy rocks... polished, harsh, resolute. Are there any tarantulas? No. (Because for that kind of experience, one must travel to the amphitheater at McKelligon canyon... there are huge ones with hairy legs aplenty.) It's all struggle and the landscape is beautiful, but it sucks when you figure that there were like six other trails you could have chosen and intead stuck to the most difficult one. And there are no tarantulas to grab at you, to make it risky enough."You are an American now, and you must take the rough with the smooth," says Olivier's brother-in-law. It's pretty lame the writer did not play with this idea more-- making it for us readers a more enjoyable journey and less harsh terrain. less

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