This is the story of Parrot and Olivier, a British servant and a French aristocrat, and their travels in America in about 1830 - the relatively early days of democracy. It's funny, in a heavily ironic way, and well-written, and clever, with some interesting observations on the Nature of Democracy as...
Narrated by Humphrey Bower Alexis de TocquevilleI fell in love with this in a Mason & Dixon way and waited for it to transform into masterpiece, yet ultimately it never got to fly. Still enjoyed it to a high 3*, however I still feel Carey missed an oppurtunity to enthrall.
Well, this book had some serious ups and downs. On the negative, the book is frequently dull, and somewhat plodding, making meaningless and drab descriptions of early American life, amongst other things. It's hard to imagine how the author accomplished this considering how colorful the time is (I ha...
I actually would give this book a 3.5 rating if Goodreads had that rating available.This is "an improvisation on the life of Alexis de Tocqueville" as the book cover states. Olivier is a French aristocrat born right after the French Revolution. He travels to America with Parrot as his servant as w...
There is not a page from which I could not provide a delightful turn of phrase or description or conversation or all three. Every page was a delight to read, so much so that this is going on my brilliant-voices-and-language shelf. It is my idea of ideal historical fiction: an imaginative and digress...
There is not a page from which I could not provide a delightful turn of phrase or description or conversation or all three. Every page was a delight to read, so much so that this is going on my brilliant-voices-and-language shelf. It is my idea of ideal historical fiction: an imaginative and digress...
4.25 stars. Parrot and Olivier was a nominee for the Man Booker 2010 award. This was the reason I picked it up. The book begins in the late 1700s both simultaneously in both England and then years later during the French Revolution in France. In England we are first introduced to “Parrot”, he...
First sentence: “I had no doubt that something cruel and catastrophic had happened before I was even born, yet the comte and comtesse, my parents, would not tell me what it was.”P. 99: “He was slight but as hard and stitched together as the leather casing of a ball, and though I kicked and spat and ...
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