Police and soldiers across Tamaulipas, Mexico's north-eastern state are hunting Chano Salgado. A reclusive young widower and political apostate, Salgado is forced to go on the run after he is persuaded to blow up the pipelines of Ethylclad, a sluicing operation sucking the local groundwater dry.
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Amazon Review
Robert Newman is turning out to be a very interesting novelist, and The Fountain at the Centre of the World an interesting novel. Unlike many of his fellow writer-comedians, he appears to be genuinely interested in his craft, regarding his novels not just as vehicles for gags or smart observations, but as structurally and emotionally satisfying objects. But then he always was the cerebral one. The Fountain at the Centre of the World is certainly worth reading for its qualities as a novel; but it is also worth paying attention to because, in addition to being ambitious and intelligent, it is that rather rare thing, a genuinely political novel. This is not, however, the politics of Westminster or Washington, though it does embody analogous clashes between personal ambitions and ideologies. The politics are those of globalisation and world trade, and it is greatly to Newman's credit that he has ventured as a novelist into an area hitherto mostly the prerogative of polemicists such as Naomi Klein and George Monbiot.
Reduced to its essentials, the plot may seem a little schematic, but this is not such a bad thing when the moral and political issues engendered are so powerful. Chano Salgado, resting Mexican political dissident, whose wife has been murdered by the militia and whose young son Daniel has disappeared, is persuaded by old comrades to come to life and destroy the pipelines through which a (bad) Global Corporation is sucking up a community's groundwater. From his acceptance of the job flow enormous consequences. Meanwhile, in London, Chano's brother, adopted by a British couple and known to himself as Evan Hatch, is a PR executive working to promote the interests of precisely the corporate entities opposed by Chano and his cohort. The formal structure of the book entails a double curve as these two main characters converge inexorably on the World Trade Organisation talks in Seattle in 1999. Besides these two protagonists, Newman peoples his novel with a richly variegated cast of capitalists and anticapitalists whose combined purpose is to propel the brothers on the way to their fateful meeting but who also manage to maintain their own vigorous and independent life in the margins. Like the fountain of the title, an ordinary Mexican village fountain which is at the same time a seismograph, symbolically "responding minutely to everything that's going on everywhere on earth", they determine the moral compass of this remarkable story. --Robin Davidson
Review
"... a sublimely frisky novel ... it reads like what you'd get if Tom Wolfe climbed inside the head of Noam Chomsky." -- New York Times "...the talismanic Catch-22 of the antiglobalization protest movement, the fictional complement to Naomi Klein's influential treatise No Logo. Expect to see copies of it peeking out of battered rucksacks from Berkeley to Burlington... startlingly vivid... who is this guy?" - The New York Times "makes a lot of British fiction seem rather tender-minded in comparison." -Guardian "[A] wonderful, big-hearted, textured, funny, moral and deeply unfashionable book." - Guardian Weekend "[An] epic novel... full of incedent, emotion and polemic... an expansive, fluid and moving story." - Independent on Sunday "A] testimonial to Newman's formidable range, intelligence and talent." - Publishers' Weekly "Could this herald the resuscitation of the English 'literary political novel', almost dead in the water since the best work of Malcolm Lowry and Graham Greene"... [Newman] has... taken a rare risk... to remind us how the personal is political and vice versa." - Independent
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
30 of 32 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
In a world where the laundered corporate media presents the viewing public with fiction as if it were 'news' fact, Robert Newman's third book 'The Fountain at the Centre of the World' highlights the facts and realities of life in the globalised 21st century through a fictitious narrative.
'The Fountain at the Centre of the World' focuses on the way that international institutions influence the lives of people around the globe through neoliberal policies favouring large multinational companies hell-bent on privatising every resource on the planet for private profit over the rights and lives of people and planet. Evan Hatch is a PR executive who'se expertise is that of spinning news to favour his Trans-national corporate clients. As he is gearing up for the WTO meeting in Seattle 1999 he finds himself unwell with a parasitical disease picked up as a child in Mexico and is in need of his estranged brother's help. Cue Chano Salgado, Evan's brother who lives in Tonalagapan, Mexico. Chano's life has been one of constant fighting for his rights in his town and a country whose rights are being eroded through the international policies supported through the PR of Evan Hatch. Chano blows up a privatized water pipeline that is taking the local town's water supply and then goes on the run just as his long lost son Daniel comes to Mexico to find his long lost father ...
The book weaves its way around the globe through geographical interconnections and processes culminating at the WTO demonstrations in Seattle. The book deftly illustrates the complex and intricate way that lives on the planet are interwoven and illuminates the awsome power of people and individuals to reclaim themselves and their communities from the lies of the global media loudspeakers. It is also informative about people and places and contemporary life experiences (with a lovely recipe of organo-ingredients). It is a thoroughly researched and very positive book; it makes you think and feel,is uplifting and inspiring . The writing is tight, powerful, amusing; the author talented and insightful. Get reading, get happy and get active ...
'The Fountain at the Centre of the World' focuses on the way that international institutions influence the lives of people around the globe through neoliberal policies favouring large multinational companies hell-bent on privatising every resource on the planet for private profit over the rights and lives of people and planet. Evan Hatch is a PR executive who'se expertise is that of spinning news to favour his Trans-national corporate clients. As he is gearing up for the WTO meeting in Seattle 1999 he finds himself unwell with a parasitical disease picked up as a child in Mexico and is in need of his estranged brother's help. Cue Chano Salgado, Evan's brother who lives in Tonalagapan, Mexico. Chano's life has been one of constant fighting for his rights in his town and a country whose rights are being eroded through the international policies supported through the PR of Evan Hatch. Chano blows up a privatized water pipeline that is taking the local town's water supply and then goes on the run just as his long lost son Daniel comes to Mexico to find his long lost father ...
The book weaves its way around the globe through geographical interconnections and processes culminating at the WTO demonstrations in Seattle. The book deftly illustrates the complex and intricate way that lives on the planet are interwoven and illuminates the awsome power of people and individuals to reclaim themselves and their communities from the lies of the global media loudspeakers. It is also informative about people and places and contemporary life experiences (with a lovely recipe of organo-ingredients). It is a thoroughly researched and very positive book; it makes you think and feel,is uplifting and inspiring . The writing is tight, powerful, amusing; the author talented and insightful. Get reading, get happy and get active ...
15 of 16 people found the following review helpful
By abigail
Format:Paperback
This is a fantastic novel from the comedian Rob Newman, it is much more mature than his previous books, with much more depth to it. Try it if you liked No Logo or anything of that genre, or if you have any interest in Mexico or world politics. Try it also if you just enjoy quality fiction with well written characters and a great plot. David Baddiel could never write like this!
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I first looked at this with trepidation thinking that it was probably a bit too high brow for my liking. I was actually pleasantly surprised by the readability, it has a good timbre and flows really melodiously (the beautiful bit of pathos about the marmoset comes across as pure Newman)
very enjoyable and highly thought provoking, yes it probably is a bit far fetched in places, but this just adds to the book, and makes it more accessible to rookie anti-capitalist environmentalists like myself. I would lend my copy to everyone I know, but alas it's been signed by the author so is a bit too precious to let it out of my hands. Beg, borrow or steal a copy!
very enjoyable and highly thought provoking, yes it probably is a bit far fetched in places, but this just adds to the book, and makes it more accessible to rookie anti-capitalist environmentalists like myself. I would lend my copy to everyone I know, but alas it's been signed by the author so is a bit too precious to let it out of my hands. Beg, borrow or steal a copy!
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4.7 out of 5 stars
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
1.0 out of 5 stars
political diatribe,not literature
The author may have been a good comedian but he ain't no writer - tedious,cliched characters,plodding,didactic and almost a physical effort to read it despite the plot actually... Read more
Published on 10 Sep 2009 by tubby barton
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent
Want to hear about what it's like inside a global protest? Want a great story about families? Wasn't as funny as I expected given the author's pedigree, but a fascinating and... Read more
Published on 1 April 2009 by Mad Goldfish
5.0 out of 5 stars
Startlingly good
The first big surprise is the quality of Newman's stiletto-sharp prose. Then there's the dazzling range of settings and issues woven into the narrative, bespeaking an immense... Read more
Published on 8 Oct 2008 by Jason Mills
5.0 out of 5 stars
Yes! More like this, please.
A novel that feels like it's set in the world we actually inhabit. Full of the shifty dislocations and distortions of a world in which capital can cross all borders but people... Read more
Published on 11 Nov 2007 by secretwings
5.0 out of 5 stars
Unmissable
Excellent book! Newman has written an engrossing and intelligent novel following Chano Salgado, his son Daniel and his brother Evan Hatch, as they meet each other after years... Read more
Published on 26 Sep 2006 by Green Pixie
5.0 out of 5 stars
Readable, Informatative, Provocative
When I read this book I felt like I was reading a science fiction novel set in some terrible future world. Read more
Published on 3 May 2004
4.0 out of 5 stars
Intriguing story set in the globalization debate
The basic plot: Chano is looking for his 14 year old soon who, as a baby, was adopted out of Mexico when Chano was (wrongfully) taken to jail. Read more
Published on 7 Feb 2004 by "gt35m"
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