-
Seasonal Offer:
This title is part of our Seasonal Offers promotion.
Parrot and Olivier in America
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £0.25
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in Parrot and Olivier in America for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £0.25, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Special Offers and Product Promotions
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
`[An] exhilarating tour de force ... Fizzing with the fictional panache that has twice won him the Booker prize.' --Peter Kemp, Sunday Times
`One hell of a ride ... there are scenes here as dramatic and as poignant as any Carey has ever written ... At the same time, Parrot and Olivier contains some wonderfully funny moments.' --John Preston, Sunday Telegraph
`Carey is a wily and supremely confident storyteller on a grand scale ... Within the covers is a complex discussion of the philosophy of democracy, and yet Parrot and Olivier is most strikingly beautiful at its most elemental.' --Russell Celyn Jones, The Times
`A brilliantly written ripsnorter of a yarn ... Carey doesn't so much reanimate history by back-projecting modern-day concerns on to the past as make it come alive in lurid living colour.'
--Peter Murphy, Irish Times
`One hell of a ride ... there are scenes here as dramatic and as poignant as any Carey has ever written ... At the same time, Parrot and Olivier contains some wonderfully funny moments.' --John Preston, Sunday Telegraph
`Carey is a wily and supremely confident storyteller on a grand scale ... Within the covers is a complex discussion of the philosophy of democracy, and yet Parrot and Olivier is most strikingly beautiful at its most elemental.' --Russell Celyn Jones, The Times
`A brilliantly written ripsnorter of a yarn ... Carey doesn't so much reanimate history by back-projecting modern-day concerns on to the past as make it come alive in lurid living colour.'
--Peter Murphy, Irish Times
Book Description
Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, the story of an extraordinary friendship across two continents.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
86 of 89 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Peter Carey has always been a master at the unreliable narrator and in Parrot and Olivier we are treated to two of the them, alternating chapters and versions of the truth. Olivier is a spoilt young French aristocrat who is sent abroad to save his skin at the time of the 1830 revolution. His unwilling servant is Parrot who has far more practical commonsense than his master but has been sorely abused by dubious French aristocrats before. Both of the damaged heroes are searching for love and respect and to varying degrees they find it, though in both cases their long term happiness is in doubt. At least one of our narrators has a genuine historical counterpart, and other characters we meet have a passing resemblance to real people. However, Carey, as usual, has his way of subverting history, while at the same time he raises issues about the relationship between the New and Old Worlds, and the ways that they are governed . Don't expect Henry James, do expect Peter Carey on top form.
38 of 39 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
The novel opens in France where sickly, sensitive Olivier de Garmont and the remnants of his aristocratic family have survived the Revolution and the Terror of 1793, and are surviving the Bonaparte regime in their chateau in Normandy. The restoration of the monarchy brings no joy to Olivier's family, and his family decides to send him to America - ostensibly to study prison reform.
Parrot, considerably older than Olivier, is the son of an itinerant English printer. Olivier and Parrot are brought together by the mysterious one-armed Marquis de Tilbot whose presence looms large across the novel. When Olivier sets sail for America, Parrot accompanies him as both protector and spy.
The narrative shifts between the perspectives of Parrot and Olivier, covering both their adventures together and their separate lives. This enables the introduction and exploration of a number of different themes in the novel: including love, politics and ambition. I especially enjoyed the differing views of democracy:
`In a democracy, it seemed, one could not go against a servant's will.' (Olivier)
`I read Tom Paine by candlelight, but for 18 hours a day I was a vassal.' (Parrot)
Olivier is trapped by his past, caught between his aristocratic past and a brash new world where equality means dealing with people of different classes and station in life as though they are equals. Olivier is never really comfortable in America, although when he falls in love with an American heiress he sees some possibilities. Parrot, on the other hand, has already experienced much in his life and is more flexible in his approach to opportunities. It is Parrot's narrative that particularly enriches the story because it enlarges the world beyond that of the myopic Olivier.
The novel may have been inspired by Alexis de Tocqueville's travels through America, but there is more than one story in this novel. Parrot's life has been far more varied and he is, it seems, far better equipped to survive in the New World.
I am tempted to write more about this novel: it's vibrant, energetic and vastly entertaining. But for me, a lot of the pleasure was derived from reading the novel without knowing what was likely to happen next, and I don't wish to spoil this for others. Read it for pleasure, dissect it for significant themes if you so choose. But if you do choose to explore those themes then you may need to reread the novel - or read it at a far more leisurely pace than I did.
`Who would have imagined such an extraordinary world?'
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
Parrot, considerably older than Olivier, is the son of an itinerant English printer. Olivier and Parrot are brought together by the mysterious one-armed Marquis de Tilbot whose presence looms large across the novel. When Olivier sets sail for America, Parrot accompanies him as both protector and spy.
The narrative shifts between the perspectives of Parrot and Olivier, covering both their adventures together and their separate lives. This enables the introduction and exploration of a number of different themes in the novel: including love, politics and ambition. I especially enjoyed the differing views of democracy:
`In a democracy, it seemed, one could not go against a servant's will.' (Olivier)
`I read Tom Paine by candlelight, but for 18 hours a day I was a vassal.' (Parrot)
Olivier is trapped by his past, caught between his aristocratic past and a brash new world where equality means dealing with people of different classes and station in life as though they are equals. Olivier is never really comfortable in America, although when he falls in love with an American heiress he sees some possibilities. Parrot, on the other hand, has already experienced much in his life and is more flexible in his approach to opportunities. It is Parrot's narrative that particularly enriches the story because it enlarges the world beyond that of the myopic Olivier.
The novel may have been inspired by Alexis de Tocqueville's travels through America, but there is more than one story in this novel. Parrot's life has been far more varied and he is, it seems, far better equipped to survive in the New World.
I am tempted to write more about this novel: it's vibrant, energetic and vastly entertaining. But for me, a lot of the pleasure was derived from reading the novel without knowing what was likely to happen next, and I don't wish to spoil this for others. Read it for pleasure, dissect it for significant themes if you so choose. But if you do choose to explore those themes then you may need to reread the novel - or read it at a far more leisurely pace than I did.
`Who would have imagined such an extraordinary world?'
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Peter Carey has not written an "un-put-downable" book - the plot lines just aren't tight and sustaining enough - and the reader is left primarily to enjoy a slowly developing respect, almost friendship, between a master and a servant in the mid-nineteenth century. When Parrot, the servant, narrates there is much meandering and musing and I often longed for a crisper pace. There are extraordinary coincidences and some oddities that grate - Parrot, writing in the nineteenth century, would not have referred to "Elizabeth 1" anymore as, today, we would refer to Queen Anne 1. He is 49 years old and yet, in an age of shorter life-expectancy, two people who were adults when he was a child are still around, despite both having physical impairments. Finally, for me, Parrot seems weakly resigned to never seeing his wife and child in Australia again - surely his every action should be vigorously directed toward a reunion.
The above noted, there remains considerable charm and sharp observation of time and place that ultimately makes this a delightful read - if one that you do have to work at. The younger aristocratic Olivier is a good balance to Parrot and his blossoming in America is well developed. He also has some brilliantly written "laugh out loud" lines that are a nice foil to Parrot's more plodding narrative. Despite frustrations, I'm glad I stayed the course.
The above noted, there remains considerable charm and sharp observation of time and place that ultimately makes this a delightful read - if one that you do have to work at. The younger aristocratic Olivier is a good balance to Parrot and his blossoming in America is well developed. He also has some brilliantly written "laugh out loud" lines that are a nice foil to Parrot's more plodding narrative. Despite frustrations, I'm glad I stayed the course.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
It is so good
This is my latest Carey read, having read Oscar and Lucinda, The Real History of the Kelly Gang, and the relatively new The Chemistry of Tears all in the last few months. Read more
Published 29 days ago by James C
A disappointment after a promising opening
Parrot and Olivier In America was a nominee for The 2010 Booker Prize alongside Room, The Long Song, In A Strange Room, C, and winner The Finkler Question. Read more
Published 4 months ago by R. A. Davison
Unusual tale
Enjoyable read about the coming together of two rather different characters, both of whom are well formed in this novel. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Cool Hand
Wonderful!
Olivier is the thoroughly spoilt offspring of French aristrocrats. Parrot is his servant, but is much more a man of the world than the naive Olivier, and is frequently getting him... Read more
Published 9 months ago by SusieH
Elegant Prose
The way Peter Carey writes is reminiscent of Michael Cunningham in as much as he writes prose to be savoured. Prose that is art in itself. Read more
Published 11 months ago by Sarah-Louise J
I vote for this book!
Circumstances have conspired to thrust Parrot and Olivier together and dump them in the recently free America. Read more
Published 12 months ago by mogwins
Don't believe the hype!
Living in a city in a country where English books are not easy to come by, when I was in the WHSmiths in Heathrow airport I saw this, flipped it over and perused the back cover. Read more
Published 13 months ago by Where Is Belgium?
Dire
Absolutely rubbish. Never got off the ground, Characters are cardboard with zero versimiltude and meander aimlessly throughout the book. Peter Carey ? Quoth the raven...........
Published 13 months ago by Tpaul
A colourful adventure.
A big fan of Peter Carey since I read Oscar & Lucinda many years ago, I was therefore very pleased to get my hands on a early copy of this. Read more
Published 14 months ago by Elka
Disappointing
I keep hoping that Peter Carey will entrance me again as he did with 'Illywhacker' and 'Oscar and Lucinda'. Read more
Published 15 months ago by A. P. Langmead
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
![[Start the discussion]](http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/02/x-locale/communities/discussion_boards/start-new-discussion-sec._V192198663_.gif){kind=small}
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
