Andrey
Kurkov
Rather
a strange book (which is fitting, considering the rather strange
circumstances in which i acquired it ~ a birthday
gift from Lynne, fully six months after she had made it clear she
wanted nothing more to do with us); i think this is part of what is
called the post-modernist style, though i am uncertain exactly what
that means (i can throw around terms that make me sound educated with
the best of them). In this case, i am understanding it to mean a
book with plot, thought he plot is reduced in importance, and
characters perhaps truer to life than are sometimes found; to tell
the truth, the events are rather strange, but seem to develop from
the odd situation we are presented with at the beginning of the book:
An unsuccessful writer lives with a penguin in Kiev (i think),
trying to cope with the random oddities of life in the post-Soviet
era. Odd, very odd, as a whole (and in the individual parts, too);
but, taken as a whole, i generally enjoyed it. I’m not certain i’d
read another ~ at least, i wouldn’t go out and seek another by
Kurkov ~ but if it fell into my lap as this one did, i’d probably
give it the time necessary; a qualified, then, success, by my
criterion.
2 comments:
Death and the Penguin? Excellent title no matter what is inside. Too bad that title is taken, I'd rename my latest WIP.
Yeah, i have to admit, the title was part of the reason i read it (the other part, of course, being that it's a book). If you can find a picture of the cover, it's lovely because the penguin is merged with a gun ~ a very clever illustration.
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