12 used & new from £6.40
See All Buying Options
Have one to sell? Sell yours here
 
 
Cockroach
 
 
Share your own customer images
Search inside another edition of this book

Cockroach (Hardcover)

by Rawi Hage (Author)
1.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)

Available from these sellers.


8 new from £19.54 4 used from £6.40
Other Editions: RRP: Our Price: Other Offers:
Hardcover (UK First Edition; 1st printing.) £14.99 £9.87 26 used & new from £6.95
Paperback £12.99 £10.19 12 used & new from £8.23

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

De Niro's Game

De Niro's Game

by Rawi Hage
4.4 out of 5 stars (7)  £4.98
Peace

Peace

by Richard Bausch
5.0 out of 5 stars (5)  £7.76
The Truth Commissioner

The Truth Commissioner

by David Park
4.4 out of 5 stars (5)  £5.99
The Book of Negroes

The Book of Negroes

by Lawrence Hill
4.7 out of 5 stars (9)  £5.59
The End of Spring (Interlink World Fiction)

The End of Spring (Interlink World Fiction)

by Sahar Khalifeh
£9.21
› Explore similar items

Product details

  • Hardcover: 312 pages
  • Publisher: House of Anansi Press (30 July 2008)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0887842097
  • ISBN-13: 978-0887842092
  • Product Dimensions: 20.6 x 14.2 x 3 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 1.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 1,351,756 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    •  Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
Inside This Book (Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
Search inside this book:

Suggested Tags from Similar Products

 (What's this?)
Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
 
(12)
(9)
(14)
(8)
(7)
(11)
(11)
(6)
(10)
(9)

Your tags: Add your first tag
 
See most popular tags

What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

Cockroach
56% buy the item featured on this page:
Cockroach 1.7 out of 5 stars (3)
De Niro's Game
16% buy
De Niro's Game 4.4 out of 5 stars (7)
£4.98
Brooklyn
10% buy
Brooklyn 4.0 out of 5 stars (40)
£9.57
Peace
10% buy
Peace 5.0 out of 5 stars (5)
£7.76
Explore similar items
 

Customer Reviews

3 Reviews
5 star:    (0)
4 star:    (0)
3 star:
 (1)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:
 (2)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
1.7 out of 5 stars (3 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars It Gives Us a Cockroach's View of the World, 24 Oct 2009
By Stephanie DePue (Carolina Beach, NC USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Cockroach (Hardcover)
"Cockroach," is the second novel from Rawi Hage, a 1992 Lebanese immigrant who now lives in the frozen, francophone wastes of Montreal, Canada. His first novel, De Niro's Game, won numerous awards, including the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. "Cockroach" looks likely to win some awards itself; it's been lauded by reviewers in some of the most prestigious journals of the land; though it hasn't been nearly so universally praised by Amazon reviewers. I guess it is more likely to achieve what the French would call a success "d'estime, (of esteem, i.e., of the critics)" than "fou (mad)."

The book which, it appears, might be semi-autobiographical, as they say, concerns an unnamed, unreliable, unskilled and unlikeable narrator who has emigrated from Lebanon, fleeing the violence there, and immigrated to Montreal, about which city's legendarily cold winter he complains endlessly. He lives buried deep within that city's midEastern immigrant community, collects welfare while washing dishes off the books, and doing the odd spot of thievery. He is apparently under the influence of Franz Kafka's famous novelThe Metamorphosis , in which the protagonist, Gregor Samsa, awakens one morning turned into a giant cockroach. (Our narrator's sister used to call him a cockroach back in their childhood games in Lebanon.) And, in the current day, our narrator has many cockroaches in his squalid apartment; thinks a lot about them, kills them with the sole of his slipper, and occasionally imagines himself in conversation with, or turning into, one of them. Only cockroaches, the Jehovah's Witnesses have explained to him, will survive the end of the world as we know it.

Well, it's certainly a shocking, dark novel, with all the creepy, hallucinatory intensity of a bad dream. Although, mind you, it is shot through with a suitably dark, sometimes playful, sometimes poetic, humor. Its language is unapologetically raw; it gives us a worm's -- or cockroach's-- eye view of the world, and it delves into downright disgusting - or, as the French would say, "degoutant" material at times. There's no question but that Hage is a skilled and flexible writer, who delivers his most unpleasant material with immediacy; but be warned, he never uses one word when fifteen will do.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No


 
2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars Pretentiousness masquerading as an immigrant experience, 20 Oct 2009
By hogsbackreader (hogsback, surrey, england) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Cockroach (Hardcover)
To compare this to Kafka is like comparing the launch of a satellite rocket to a cheap firework! Many attempts of critics to find symbolism in this disjointed and immature depiction of relationships between a self-loathing asylum seeker and other recent immigrants is an amusing case of "The Emperor's New Clothes". Not one member of our book discussion group found anything to recommend it. Do not let this book intrude on your life.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No


 
2 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars Get Rentokill in, 8 Sep 2009
By Strong Cheddar (Barnes, London) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Cockroach (Hardcover)
Gave up after 25 pages. Characters, dialogue and plot etc not remotely credible. Pretentious rubbish. It won awards in Quebec. Books are in limited supply out there apparently.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
 
 
 
Only search this product's reviews


Customer Discussions

This product's forum
Discussion Replies Latest Post
No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
 


Active discussions in related forums
   
Related forums

Listmania!

Create a Listmania! list

Look for similar items by category

Look for similar items by subject









i.e., each product must be in subject 1 AND subject 2 AND ...

Feedback


Your Recent History

 (What's this?)

After viewing product detail pages or search results, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in.