Book Review
Sep. 23rd, 2011 03:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kenjariParrot and Olivier in America
by Peter Carey
At this point, having read four of Carey's novels, I'm not sure he's capable of writing a bad book. Each one has been very enjoyable, and I would happily recommend any of them.
Parrot and Olivier in America is inspired by Alexis de Tocqueville's travels in early 19th century America and the resulting book, Democracy in America - it's not a fictionalization of those events, though. Carey is just using that bit of history as the basis for his own imaginative and witty look at the Old World meeting the New.
Parrot and Olivier in America is told from the perspectives of its two main characters, with chapters alternating between them. Parrot is the nickname of John Larrit, who began life traveling around England with his father, an itinerant printer. They inadvertently fall in with a counterfeiting establishment, which leads to Parrot being rescued by and then entering the service of M. de Tilbot, a French nobleman and spy. Olivier de Garmont is a very refined, spoiled French aristocrat and scion of a family terrorized by the French Revolution. When the political situation in France again becomes dangerous, Olivier's family and M. de Tilbot dispatch him to America to keep him safe, giving him the task of examining America's prison systems. Tilbot sends Parrot along to serve Olivier and also to keep Olivier's family informed of his activities.
Parrot and Olivier start out disliking and failing to understand each other, but they grow into a unique and solid friendship over the course of their adventures in America. Seeing that relationship unfold is one of the great pleasures of the book. The other is seeing how each character reacts to America and the ways in which they are changed (or not) by it. Olivier has to confront the lack of inherited and rigid class distinctions and come to terms with how that changes the workings of society. Carey plays this for both comic and poignant effect, sometimes nearly simultaneously. Parrot must determine a place and a path for himself and his unorthodox family in the freedom and mercantilism of America.
Carey skillfully weaves several thematic threads through this book, all the while continuing to deliver a compelling, witty, and entertaining narrative. There are musings on the nature of America and its democracy, parallels drawn between the nation of the early 19th century and that of the early 21st, an examination of the way class affects relationships, and a look at how art and artists make their way in American society.
by Peter Carey
At this point, having read four of Carey's novels, I'm not sure he's capable of writing a bad book. Each one has been very enjoyable, and I would happily recommend any of them.
Parrot and Olivier in America is inspired by Alexis de Tocqueville's travels in early 19th century America and the resulting book, Democracy in America - it's not a fictionalization of those events, though. Carey is just using that bit of history as the basis for his own imaginative and witty look at the Old World meeting the New.
Parrot and Olivier in America is told from the perspectives of its two main characters, with chapters alternating between them. Parrot is the nickname of John Larrit, who began life traveling around England with his father, an itinerant printer. They inadvertently fall in with a counterfeiting establishment, which leads to Parrot being rescued by and then entering the service of M. de Tilbot, a French nobleman and spy. Olivier de Garmont is a very refined, spoiled French aristocrat and scion of a family terrorized by the French Revolution. When the political situation in France again becomes dangerous, Olivier's family and M. de Tilbot dispatch him to America to keep him safe, giving him the task of examining America's prison systems. Tilbot sends Parrot along to serve Olivier and also to keep Olivier's family informed of his activities.
Parrot and Olivier start out disliking and failing to understand each other, but they grow into a unique and solid friendship over the course of their adventures in America. Seeing that relationship unfold is one of the great pleasures of the book. The other is seeing how each character reacts to America and the ways in which they are changed (or not) by it. Olivier has to confront the lack of inherited and rigid class distinctions and come to terms with how that changes the workings of society. Carey plays this for both comic and poignant effect, sometimes nearly simultaneously. Parrot must determine a place and a path for himself and his unorthodox family in the freedom and mercantilism of America.
Carey skillfully weaves several thematic threads through this book, all the while continuing to deliver a compelling, witty, and entertaining narrative. There are musings on the nature of America and its democracy, parallels drawn between the nation of the early 19th century and that of the early 21st, an examination of the way class affects relationships, and a look at how art and artists make their way in American society.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-23 08:08 pm (UTC)That sounds marvelous. I'll have to look it up!