by Daniel Pennac
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by Daniel Pennac
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by Daniel Pennac
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![Little Dorrit [1987] [DVD]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51x7EAMRrqL._SL500_SS90_.jpg)
DVD ~ Derek Jacobi
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Product Description
Review
Benjamin Malaussene is the saint who solves the crime and confounds the wicked ogres in an exuberant crime story set in the Belleville district of Paris. Employed in a large department store, his job description is a joke: when enraged customers make a complaint to the manager, he must accept all the blame, plead guilty and feign such abject contrition that they forget their wrath and end up sympathizing with him. It's not an appealing way to earn a living but he needs the work, for Malaussene takes care of all his brothers and sisters, from little Half Pint to Therese who claims to have second sight. When a series of explosions in the store finds Malaussene suspiciously near the scene of the crimes he is grilled by the police. But this is the least of his worries; his dog has an epileptic fit, another sister becomes pregnant and he is mugged by his workmates. There is only one thing to do - he must investigate and solve the mystery himself. Extraordinary scenes, hilarious dialogue and sympathetic characters keep the reader turning the pages. A great read. (Kirkus UK)
Benjamin Malaussene's official job title is Quality Controller, but since nobody could possibly control the quality of all the goods in his Parisian department store, his real vocation is to serve as a scapegoat who can absorb outraged customers' abuse in a manner so pathetically affecting that the customers withdraw their complaints. It looks as if Ben's met his match, though, in the latest round of outrages at the store: a series of bombings that claim the lives of a garage mechanic, a pair of smooching senior citizens, a rabid pro-life lecturer, a sanitary-equipment representative. Not only is Ben unable to mollify the shoppers who survived the blasts; he's become the number-one police suspect. After all, he was on the scene of every explosion (except for one witnessed by his half-sister Therese on his day off); his half-brother Jeremy sets fire to his school with a similar explosive; even his dog seems mysteriously implicated. In a more straightforward telling, Ben's new lover, the ravishing shoplifter he insists on calling Aunt Julia, would help him unravel the mystery and clear himself, But that's not exactly what Pennac (Better Than Life, 1994) has in mind. The first of Ben's four adventures to be published in the US is very French and more than a little precious, with clownish Ben, like Jacques Tati's M. Hulot, a charmingly jittery guide to the mercantile postmodern. (Kirkus Reviews)
Product Description
Benjamin Malaussene is a scapegoat. He works for the complaints department of large Parisian department store. One day, when the first of a series of bombs explodes in the toy department, he decides to resist the call of duty and by doing so becomes the prime suspect.
Benjamin Malaussene is the saint who solves the crime and confounds the wicked ogres in an exuberant crime story set in the Belleville district of Paris. Employed in a large department store, his job description is a joke: when enraged customers make a complaint to the manager, he must accept all the blame, plead guilty and feign such abject contrition that they forget their wrath and end up sympathizing with him. It's not an appealing way to earn a living but he needs the work, for Malaussene takes care of all his brothers and sisters, from little Half Pint to Therese who claims to have second sight. When a series of explosions in the store finds Malaussene suspiciously near the scene of the crimes he is grilled by the police. But this is the least of his worries; his dog has an epileptic fit, another sister becomes pregnant and he is mugged by his workmates. There is only one thing to do - he must investigate and solve the mystery himself. Extraordinary scenes, hilarious dialogue and sympathetic characters keep the reader turning the pages. A great read. (Kirkus UK)
Benjamin Malaussene's official job title is Quality Controller, but since nobody could possibly control the quality of all the goods in his Parisian department store, his real vocation is to serve as a scapegoat who can absorb outraged customers' abuse in a manner so pathetically affecting that the customers withdraw their complaints. It looks as if Ben's met his match, though, in the latest round of outrages at the store: a series of bombings that claim the lives of a garage mechanic, a pair of smooching senior citizens, a rabid pro-life lecturer, a sanitary-equipment representative. Not only is Ben unable to mollify the shoppers who survived the blasts; he's become the number-one police suspect. After all, he was on the scene of every explosion (except for one witnessed by his half-sister Therese on his day off); his half-brother Jeremy sets fire to his school with a similar explosive; even his dog seems mysteriously implicated. In a more straightforward telling, Ben's new lover, the ravishing shoplifter he insists on calling Aunt Julia, would help him unravel the mystery and clear himself, But that's not exactly what Pennac (Better Than Life, 1994) has in mind. The first of Ben's four adventures to be published in the US is very French and more than a little precious, with clownish Ben, like Jacques Tati's M. Hulot, a charmingly jittery guide to the mercantile postmodern. (Kirkus Reviews)
Product Description
Benjamin Malaussene is a scapegoat. He works for the complaints department of large Parisian department store. One day, when the first of a series of bombs explodes in the toy department, he decides to resist the call of duty and by doing so becomes the prime suspect.
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