Parrot and Olivier in America

by Peter Carey

Paperback, 2011

Status

Available

Call number

PR9619.C36 P37

Genres

Publication

Vintage (2011), Edition: Reprint, 400 pages

Description

Fiction. Literature. Historical Fiction. HTML:Parrot and Olivier in America has been shortlisted for the 2010 Man Booker Prize. From the two-time Booker Prize�??winning author comes an irrepressibly funny new novel set in early nineteenth-century America. Olivier�??an improvisation on the life of Alexis de Tocqueville�??is the traumatized child of aristocratic survivors of the French Revolution. Parrot is the motherless son of an itinerant English printer. They are born on different sides of history, but their lives will be connected by an enigmatic one-armed marquis. When Olivier sets sail for the nascent United States�??ostensibly to make a study of the penal system, but more precisely to save his neck from one more revolution�??Parrot will be there, too: as spy for the marquis, and as protector, foe, and foil for Olivier. As the narrative shifts between the perspectives of Parrot and Olivier, between their picaresque adventures apart and together�??in love and politics, prisons and finance, homelands and brave new lands�??a most unlikely friendship begins to take hold. And with their story, Peter Carey explores the experiment of American democracy with dazzling inventiveness and with all the richness and surprise of characterization, imagery, and language that we have come to expect from thi… (more)

Media reviews

Washington Post

"There are engaging, funny scenes throughout this picaresque tale, but the travelogue grows rickety and stalls too often."

— 4 more

Kirkus Reviews

"Quirky and erudite, but the payoff in human-interest terms is meager."

The Independent

"But this conclusion in no way dampens this dashing novel – for it is in the testing of assumptions, in Garmont and Parrot's challenging of each other, that its beauty and intelligence lies."

The Guardian

The narrative proceeds in leaps and bounds, sometimes with a hop backwards, omitting connections, giving an impression above all, perhaps, of confusion – confusion of event and motive, incomprehension, a vast drama without structure. The language is vivid, forceful and poetic (though I wish

Olivier's aristocratic locution was free of grammatical blunders such as "of she toward whom", "of she who I affected to be unaware of", "to he who I intended to make my father-in-law"). There are terrific set pieces, such as the burning of the forgers' house – moments Dickensian in their vividness. Themes of fire and burning run through the story. An early kind of bicycle appears, with much discussion and even an illustration, and later on an American bicycle enters the tale. Are there hidden significances? I don't know. It's a dazzling, entertaining novel. Should one ask for more?

Show Less

The Telegraph

"In the end, the novel’s richness can’t disguise the fact that the plot rather lags behind the ideas driving it. That said, it’s still one hell of a ride."