Fiction 23 Oct 2005 12:04 pm
Death and the Penguin
Death and the Penguin
Andrey Kurkov
I was attracted to this books because of an interview with the author in Radio National’s Books and Writing. It’s such an absurd type of humour that you almost expect to see “Douglas Adams” in the cover, but no: it is, apparently, a fine example of modern Russian (well, Ukrainian) humour.
The main character is a frustrated and depressed writer who lives with a similarly depressed imperial penguin, which he adopted from Kiev’s zoo because they couldn’t maintain it. The penguin is depressed because he’s lonely, and the weather in Kiev doesn’t really suit him, especially in the summer. The writer, because he can’t find a way to write the Great Ukrainian Novel (or even a novella).
The situation changes when he’s hired by the local newspaper to write obituaries; he is tasked with writing literary pieces about important people who are still alive, to be published when they die. All goes well until they do start dying and the penguin gets invited to the funerals.
It starts a little slow, but it escalates very quickly and very absurdly, and it’s amazingly funny. The ending is excelent, and I’ll certainly be looking for more books by this author.
