Parrot & Olivier in America
Olivier, an improvisation on the life of Alexis de Tocqueville, is the traumatized child of aristocratic survivors of the French Revolution. Parrot is the motherless son of an itinerant English printer. Born on different sides of history, their lives will be joined by an enigmatic one-armed...
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Olivier, an improvisation on the life of Alexis de Tocqueville, is the traumatized child of aristocratic survivors of the French Revolution. Parrot is the motherless son of an itinerant English printer. Born on different sides of history, their lives will be joined by an enigmatic one-armed marquis. When Olivier sets sail for the nascent United States, ostensibly to make a study of the penal system but more precisely to save his neck from one more revolution, Parrot will be there, too, as spy for the marquis and as protector, foe, and foil for Olivier. As the narrative shifts between Parrot and Oliviertheir adventures in love and politics, prisons and finance, homelands and brave new landsa most unlikely friendship begins to take hold. And with their story, Peter Carey explores the adventure of American democracy with dazzling inventiveness.
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Format: audiobook
ISBN:
9781441729774 (1441729771)
Publish date: April 1st 2010
Publisher: Blackstone Audiobooks
Minutes: 11
Edition language: English
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...