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Parrot and Olivier in America
A dazzling comic masterpiece that reminds us why Peter Carey is Australia's most internationally acclaimed novelist.
Olivier is a young aristocrat, one of an endangered species born in France just after the Revolution. Parrot, the son of an itinerant English printer, wanted to be an artist but has ended up in middle age as a servant. When Olivier sets sail for the New World - ostensibly to study its prisons, but in reality to avoid yet another revolution - Parrot is sent with him, as spy, protector, foe and foil. Through their adventures with women and money, incarceration and democracy, writing and painting, they make an unlikely pair. But where better for unlikely things to flourish than in the glorious, brand-new experiment, America? A dazzlingly inventive reimagining of Alexis de Tocqueville's famous journey, Parrot and Olivier in America brilliantly evokes the Old World colliding with the New. Above all, it is a wildly funny, tender portrait of two men who come to form an almost impossible friendship, and a completely improbable work of art.
Olivier is a young aristocrat, one of an endangered species born in France just after the Revolution. Parrot, the son of an itinerant English printer, wanted to be an artist but has ended up in middle age as a servant. When Olivier sets sail for the New World - ostensibly to study its prisons, but in reality to avoid yet another revolution - Parrot is sent with him, as spy, protector, foe and foil. Through their adventures with women and money, incarceration and democracy, writing and painting, they make an unlikely pair. But where better for unlikely things to flourish than in the glorious, brand-new experiment, America? A dazzlingly inventive reimagining of Alexis de Tocqueville's famous journey, Parrot and Olivier in America brilliantly evokes the Old World colliding with the New. Above all, it is a wildly funny, tender portrait of two men who come to form an almost impossible friendship, and a completely improbable work of art.
464 pages, Hardcover
First published October 26, 2009
About the author
Peter Carey
98 books992 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
Peter Carey was born in Australia in 1943.
He was educated at the local state school until the age of eleven and then became a boarder at Geelong Grammar School. He was a student there between 1954 and 1960 — after Rupert Murdoch had graduated and before Prince Charles arrived.
In 1961 he studied science for a single unsuccessful year at Monash University. He was then employed by an advertising agency where he began to receive his literary education, meeting Faulkner, Joyce, Kerouac and other writers he had previously been unaware of. He was nineteen.
For the next thirteen years he wrote fiction at night and weekends, working in many advertising agencies in Melbourne, London and Sydney.
After four novels had been written and rejected The Fat Man in History — a short story collection — was published in 1974. This slim book made him an overnight success.
From 1976 Carey worked one week a month for Grey Advertising, then, in 1981 he established a small business where his generous partner required him to work only two afternoons a week. Thus between 1976 and 1990, he was able to pursue literature obsessively. It was during this period that he wrote War Crimes, Bliss, Illywhacker, Oscar and Lucinda. Illywhacker was short listed for the Booker Prize. Oscar and Lucinda won it. Uncomfortable with this success he began work on The Tax Inspector.
In 1990 he moved to New York where he completed The Tax Inspector. He taught at NYU one night a week. Later he would have similar jobs at Princeton, The New School and Barnard College. During these years he wrote The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith, Jack Maggs, and True History of the Kelly Gang for which he won his second Booker Prize.
He collaborated on the screenplay of the film Until the End of the World with Wim Wenders.
In 2003 he joined Hunter College as the Director of the MFA Program in Creative Writing. In the years since he has written My Life as a Fake, Theft, His Illegal Self and Parrot and Oliver in America (shortlisted for 2010 Man Booker Prize).
Peter Carey was born in Australia in 1943.
He was educated at the local state school until the age of eleven and then became a boarder at Geelong Grammar School. He was a student there between 1954 and 1960 — after Rupert Murdoch had graduated and before Prince Charles arrived.
In 1961 he studied science for a single unsuccessful year at Monash University. He was then employed by an advertising agency where he began to receive his literary education, meeting Faulkner, Joyce, Kerouac and other writers he had previously been unaware of. He was nineteen.
For the next thirteen years he wrote fiction at night and weekends, working in many advertising agencies in Melbourne, London and Sydney.
After four novels had been written and rejected The Fat Man in History — a short story collection — was published in 1974. This slim book made him an overnight success.
From 1976 Carey worked one week a month for Grey Advertising, then, in 1981 he established a small business where his generous partner required him to work only two afternoons a week. Thus between 1976 and 1990, he was able to pursue literature obsessively. It was during this period that he wrote War Crimes, Bliss, Illywhacker, Oscar and Lucinda. Illywhacker was short listed for the Booker Prize. Oscar and Lucinda won it. Uncomfortable with this success he began work on The Tax Inspector.
In 1990 he moved to New York where he completed The Tax Inspector. He taught at NYU one night a week. Later he would have similar jobs at Princeton, The New School and Barnard College. During these years he wrote The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith, Jack Maggs, and True History of the Kelly Gang for which he won his second Booker Prize.
He collaborated on the screenplay of the film Until the End of the World with Wim Wenders.
In 2003 he joined Hunter College as the Director of the MFA Program in Creative Writing. In the years since he has written My Life as a Fake, Theft, His Illegal Self and Parrot and Oliver in America (shortlisted for 2010 Man Booker Prize).
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January 26, 2023
Usually I connect with a book easily, even with the complex one, but somehow I couldn’t connect with Parrot and Olivier in America almost till the end so it was going rather slowly for me.
There are two main characters – two absolute opposites – a French idealistic aristocrat and an English declassed pessimist playing a role of the nobleman’s servant. And they find themselves in exile in New York:
And an American democracy caused the aristocrat to feel something like a mental indigestion:
And a level of culture shocked them both:
On the whole Parrot and Olivier in America is a good satire but in some way the general atmosphere of the novel is a bit too synthetic.
Strangers always see everything in a strange light.
There are two main characters – two absolute opposites – a French idealistic aristocrat and an English declassed pessimist playing a role of the nobleman’s servant. And they find themselves in exile in New York:
On board the ship there had been much talk about the healthy breezes on Manhattan. They must have meant the winds blowing from the arses of the New York pigs. Beekman Street stank like a shit heap, worse than the faubourg Saint-Antoine. We headed south, past Theater Alley, into a smudgy charcoal sort of maze in which the high-haunched New York pigs mingled with New York clerks, their collars all turned down and a great deal of vanity showing on their wispy chins. I mean the clerks.
And an American democracy caused the aristocrat to feel something like a mental indigestion:
On the starboard side, as it drifted silently toward the dock, stood what might have been the emblem of America: frock-coated, very tall and straight, with a high stovepipe hat tilted back from his high forehead. I thought this is the worst vision of democracy – illiterate, hard as wood, overdressed, uncultured, with that physiognomy I had earlier observed in the portrait of the awful Andrew Jackson – a face divided proudly in three equal parts: hairline to eyebrows, eyebrows to nose, lips to chin. In other words, the face of one who will never give any weight to the wisdom of his betters. To see the visage of their president is to understand that the farmer and the mechanic are the lords of the New World. Public opinion is their opinion; the public will is their will. This was on no account what I hoped to find.
And a level of culture shocked them both:
And Tartuffe you would have had, but there was not a bloody crumb of him. The old Yankee said he had no call for Tartuffe. I did not believe him until he showed me he had almost nothing in the language. It was English floor to ceiling, books of the very worst kind. How to do this. How to do that. And Bibles. And arguments about the soul. Shelves of them, and not a word you'd take some pleasure in.
On the whole Parrot and Olivier in America is a good satire but in some way the general atmosphere of the novel is a bit too synthetic.
Strangers always see everything in a strange light.
August 31, 2011
Chairman: This meeting is now called to order. We are here to vote on the resolution: That Parrot and Olivier in America by Peter Carey be given 5 stars. Will the representative who proposed the motion please explain why.
Tocqueville: Well, it is because this book is actually about me, and my travels in America. Peter, my good friend, thought it would be a good idea to write a fictional account of how I came to write Democracy in America. The aristocrat in the book, Olivier, is based on me. Parrot, the servant to Olivier, is a wholly fictional creation, but this allows my ambivalent views on democracy to be aired. While the two men start-off hating each other, they gradually build a relationship in the novel…
Moralistic Judgement: Sir, this is a book that promotes homosexual relationships! It’s a sinful piece of smut! Smut! Think of teh children!
Tocqueville: No, no, I mean that they become friends.
Moralistic Judgement: Smut, smut, smut! Why, and there are even lewd descriptions of physical congress between an unmarried man and woman in the book, not just once but many times. The servant of Olivier has sex with his mistress in the book, and they were never married. Instead of voting to give this book five stars, I propose that we ban it.
Tocqueville: Well, the book was written about a period where there was the notion of a common law wife, and…
Moralistic Judgement: You lie! I propose an amendment to the resolution. I propose that we add, “and that Twilight by Stephanie Meyer rawks!”
Chairman: Is there a seconder?
Edward Cullen: I second the motion.
Chairman: Passed. The motion now reads, “That Parrot and Olivier in America by Peter Carey be given 5 stars and that Twilight by Stephanie Meyer rawks!”
Goodreader: No, I can’t vote for this resolution now. I want to give Parrot and Olivier in America five stars, but I’m not going to say that Twilight rawks.
Edward Cullen: First of all, let me say that Twilight is the best book ever, and that everyone should buy it and read it. Second of all, the fact that I get an ounce of gold for every purchase of the book does not in ANY way impact on my views. Third of all, it would be unpatriotic to vote for Parrot and Olivier in America because it’s written by an Australian, a citizen of a socialist, anti-capitalist country.
Moralistic Judgement: Hear, hear!
Edward Cullen: Fourth of all, Twilight has more pages than Parrot and Olivier and is therefore the better book. And there are no sex scenes in it.
Tocqueville: Well, what about the fact that Parrot and Olivier has more rounded, three-dimensional characters and better prose?
Moralistic Judgement: Talk to the hand, the face don’t wanna hear you no more.
Tocqueville: And there is a very chaste relationship between Olivier and a well-bred American woman.
Edward Cullen: Would the representative Tocqueville like to declare his affiliation with that supine country of frogs? I charge him with sedition and… and… being a lover of latte.
Goodreader: What does this have to do with the merit of the book?
Moralistic Judgement: {sticks fingers in his ears} La la la la la la la! I CAN’T HEAR YOU!
Chairman: Order, order! I propose that we adjourn this meeting so that we can go on summer vacation.
All: Aye!
Tocqueville: Well, it is because this book is actually about me, and my travels in America. Peter, my good friend, thought it would be a good idea to write a fictional account of how I came to write Democracy in America. The aristocrat in the book, Olivier, is based on me. Parrot, the servant to Olivier, is a wholly fictional creation, but this allows my ambivalent views on democracy to be aired. While the two men start-off hating each other, they gradually build a relationship in the novel…
Moralistic Judgement: Sir, this is a book that promotes homosexual relationships! It’s a sinful piece of smut! Smut! Think of teh children!
Tocqueville: No, no, I mean that they become friends.
Moralistic Judgement: Smut, smut, smut! Why, and there are even lewd descriptions of physical congress between an unmarried man and woman in the book, not just once but many times. The servant of Olivier has sex with his mistress in the book, and they were never married. Instead of voting to give this book five stars, I propose that we ban it.
Tocqueville: Well, the book was written about a period where there was the notion of a common law wife, and…
Moralistic Judgement: You lie! I propose an amendment to the resolution. I propose that we add, “and that Twilight by Stephanie Meyer rawks!”
Chairman: Is there a seconder?
Edward Cullen: I second the motion.
Chairman: Passed. The motion now reads, “That Parrot and Olivier in America by Peter Carey be given 5 stars and that Twilight by Stephanie Meyer rawks!”
Goodreader: No, I can’t vote for this resolution now. I want to give Parrot and Olivier in America five stars, but I’m not going to say that Twilight rawks.
Edward Cullen: First of all, let me say that Twilight is the best book ever, and that everyone should buy it and read it. Second of all, the fact that I get an ounce of gold for every purchase of the book does not in ANY way impact on my views. Third of all, it would be unpatriotic to vote for Parrot and Olivier in America because it’s written by an Australian, a citizen of a socialist, anti-capitalist country.
Moralistic Judgement: Hear, hear!
Edward Cullen: Fourth of all, Twilight has more pages than Parrot and Olivier and is therefore the better book. And there are no sex scenes in it.
Tocqueville: Well, what about the fact that Parrot and Olivier has more rounded, three-dimensional characters and better prose?
Moralistic Judgement: Talk to the hand, the face don’t wanna hear you no more.
Tocqueville: And there is a very chaste relationship between Olivier and a well-bred American woman.
Edward Cullen: Would the representative Tocqueville like to declare his affiliation with that supine country of frogs? I charge him with sedition and… and… being a lover of latte.
Goodreader: What does this have to do with the merit of the book?
Moralistic Judgement: {sticks fingers in his ears} La la la la la la la! I CAN’T HEAR YOU!
Chairman: Order, order! I propose that we adjourn this meeting so that we can go on summer vacation.
All: Aye!
December 18, 2018
Whimsical & epic, occurring in a place so magical but which really truly existed. There are forgeries & revolutions, dynamics of brotherhood which bring to mind Chabon's "Kavalier and Clay", and a style and tone which reminds me, at its zenith, of Ackroyd's "Hawksmoor."
But it truly is demanding upon the reader-- this is NO SUMMER BOOK-- like an even more labyrinthine work by Saramago. The title is misleading (a crime for which an artist, I truly believe, should suffer dearly) for "America" apparently stands for "the voyage to" (with ships grand and not) and very few of the adventures being kept land-locked. I mean, wtf. Yep, it's also symbolic-- it's a European foreigner's unique take on the Land of the Free. (Olivier surveys various prisons of the New World... Egads!) It is optimistic & alive, but sorta like the two or three movies that escape your attention each year now that more categories have been added to the Best Picture race. "Parrot and Olivier" stands to be the perpetual Oscar movie novel you never will bother with, won't bother to even sit down & watch.
Let me go further, making an additional analogy (I know, I know). The novel, a contender for the Booker, is like a mountain of rocks... somewhat like one of the fantastic hiking trails found in Las Cruces, NM. Rocky and uphill, it's a total workout in nature for the city-locked individual. Carey's words are the crazy rocks... polished, harsh, resolute. Are there any tarantulas? No. (Because for that kind of experience, one must travel to the amphitheater at McKelligon canyon... there are huge ones with hairy legs aplenty.) It's all struggle & the landscape is beautiful, but it sucks when you figure that there were like six other trails you could have chosen and instead stuck to the most difficult one. And there are no tarantulas to grab at you, to make it risky enough.
"You are an American now, and you must take the rough with the smooth," says Olivier's brother-in-law. It's pretty lame the writer did not play with this idea more-- making it for us readers a more enjoyable journey and less harsh terrain.
But it truly is demanding upon the reader-- this is NO SUMMER BOOK-- like an even more labyrinthine work by Saramago. The title is misleading (a crime for which an artist, I truly believe, should suffer dearly) for "America" apparently stands for "the voyage to" (with ships grand and not) and very few of the adventures being kept land-locked. I mean, wtf. Yep, it's also symbolic-- it's a European foreigner's unique take on the Land of the Free. (Olivier surveys various prisons of the New World... Egads!) It is optimistic & alive, but sorta like the two or three movies that escape your attention each year now that more categories have been added to the Best Picture race. "Parrot and Olivier" stands to be the perpetual Oscar movie novel you never will bother with, won't bother to even sit down & watch.
Let me go further, making an additional analogy (I know, I know). The novel, a contender for the Booker, is like a mountain of rocks... somewhat like one of the fantastic hiking trails found in Las Cruces, NM. Rocky and uphill, it's a total workout in nature for the city-locked individual. Carey's words are the crazy rocks... polished, harsh, resolute. Are there any tarantulas? No. (Because for that kind of experience, one must travel to the amphitheater at McKelligon canyon... there are huge ones with hairy legs aplenty.) It's all struggle & the landscape is beautiful, but it sucks when you figure that there were like six other trails you could have chosen and instead stuck to the most difficult one. And there are no tarantulas to grab at you, to make it risky enough.
"You are an American now, and you must take the rough with the smooth," says Olivier's brother-in-law. It's pretty lame the writer did not play with this idea more-- making it for us readers a more enjoyable journey and less harsh terrain.
May 10, 2011
It's hard to imagine that you could have more fun with a novel than with this one. Exhilarating, astonishing, informative, imaginative, intriguing and funny, what else could you ask for? Over at Mr. Carey's website
http://petercareybooks.com/
there is a comment from a critic at the Guardian: "Too emotionally dangerous to be fully embraced by doe-eyed lovers of The Time Traveler's Wife, too much fun to be taken entirely seriously by the dour acolytes of JM Coetzee (the contemporary whose career his most resembles), Carey ploughs his own dogged, compelling, fantastical furrow. For these reasons alone - that he frightens those who want their fiction easy and annoys those who want theirs portentous - a new Peter Carey novel is cause for joy."
I can only say that I agree entirely. The other reason why he might frighten those who want their fiction easy is that he does have a slightly oblique way of narrating sometimes, which demands a little concentration on the reader's part, a certain intellectual engagement. Thank you, Mr. Carey, for trusting us.
http://petercareybooks.com/
there is a comment from a critic at the Guardian: "Too emotionally dangerous to be fully embraced by doe-eyed lovers of The Time Traveler's Wife, too much fun to be taken entirely seriously by the dour acolytes of JM Coetzee (the contemporary whose career his most resembles), Carey ploughs his own dogged, compelling, fantastical furrow. For these reasons alone - that he frightens those who want their fiction easy and annoys those who want theirs portentous - a new Peter Carey novel is cause for joy."
I can only say that I agree entirely. The other reason why he might frighten those who want their fiction easy is that he does have a slightly oblique way of narrating sometimes, which demands a little concentration on the reader's part, a certain intellectual engagement. Thank you, Mr. Carey, for trusting us.
September 2, 2019
This book is a creative reimagining of Alexis de Tocqueville's tour of America in the early 1830's during the presidency of Andrew Jackson. The story's time and place parallels much of history. However the choice of characters has been fictionalized and scrambled in order to heighten the contrast of personalities while also commenting of class, politics and the prospects of democracy.
This book's placement of the French aristocrat Olivier in an unlikely match with traveling companion Mr. Parrot of English lower class origins, and with both of them judging the new experiment of democracy in the United States, sets up numerous conversations, observations, misunderstandings, and predictions for the future — often done with a touch of ironic humor. The writing skillfully depicts a time a place in history, however its strongest characteristic is the development of dynamic tensions between divergent social classes and wealth.
Anybody with some knowledge of history will know that the character of Olivier is patterned after the historical Tocqueville. However, Tocqueville's historical traveling companion was Gustave de Beaumont, an aristocratic social equal to Tocqueville, totally different from Parrot of this book. With such dramatic changes to the characters the author apparently decided it was best to give his characters different names.
The author works a romance into the plot which in the end fails due to the impossibility of introducing an American princess to the French aristocracy. I doubt this romance has any basis in actual history. The author also works a character into the story that reminds me of John James Audubon. Audubon and Tocqueville were contemporaries, but I have no knowledge of the their paths actually crossing.
Toward the end of the book, the working class Parrot and aristocrat Olivier have a conversation regarding the likely future of the United States. In the following excerpt I have edited out the conversational interjections by Parrot to more quickly summarize Olivier's low opinion of democracy. When this book was published in 2009 the author had Parrot's optimism finish the book. However, since 2009 some of Olivier's fears expressed below have become more real.
This book's placement of the French aristocrat Olivier in an unlikely match with traveling companion Mr. Parrot of English lower class origins, and with both of them judging the new experiment of democracy in the United States, sets up numerous conversations, observations, misunderstandings, and predictions for the future — often done with a touch of ironic humor. The writing skillfully depicts a time a place in history, however its strongest characteristic is the development of dynamic tensions between divergent social classes and wealth.
Anybody with some knowledge of history will know that the character of Olivier is patterned after the historical Tocqueville. However, Tocqueville's historical traveling companion was Gustave de Beaumont, an aristocratic social equal to Tocqueville, totally different from Parrot of this book. With such dramatic changes to the characters the author apparently decided it was best to give his characters different names.
The author works a romance into the plot which in the end fails due to the impossibility of introducing an American princess to the French aristocracy. I doubt this romance has any basis in actual history. The author also works a character into the story that reminds me of John James Audubon. Audubon and Tocqueville were contemporaries, but I have no knowledge of the their paths actually crossing.
Toward the end of the book, the working class Parrot and aristocrat Olivier have a conversation regarding the likely future of the United States. In the following excerpt I have edited out the conversational interjections by Parrot to more quickly summarize Olivier's low opinion of democracy. When this book was published in 2009 the author had Parrot's optimism finish the book. However, since 2009 some of Olivier's fears expressed below have become more real.
“It will not ripen well.”This book was on the shortlist of six books for the 2010 Man Booker Prize. It was also a finalist for the 2010 National Book Award.
…
“… I mean this, democracy. It is a truly lovely flower, a tiny tender fruit, but it will not ripen well. You will see.”
…
“I tried to love it,” he said. “I could not.”
…
“I saw the awful tyranny of the majority,” he said.
…
“… Listen to me well. In a democracy there is not that class with the leisure to acquire discernment and taste in all the arts. Without that class, art is produced to suit the tastes of the market, which is filled with its own doubt and self-importance and ignorance, its own ability to be tricked and titillated by every bauble. If you are to make a business from catering to these people, the whole of your life will be spent in corrupting whatever public taste might struggle toward the light, tarnishing the virtues and confusing the manners of your country. …
…
“From what will they get their culture?” He cried, “the newspapers? God help you all.”
…
“Have you met Andrew Jackson? I have. He is a woodsman, an orphan. Mercy on you all.”
…
“Yes, and you will follow fur traders and woodsmen as your presidents, and they will be as barbarians at the head of armies, ignorant of geography and science, the leaders of mob daily educated by a perfidious press which will make them so confident and ignorant that the only books on their shelves will be instruction manuals, and only theater gaudy spectacles, and the paintings made to please that vulgar class of bankers, men of no moral character, half-bourgeois and half-criminal, who will affect the tastes of an aristocracy but will compete with each other like wrestlers at a fair, wishing only to pay the highest price for the most fashionable artist. Do not laugh, sir. Listen. I have traveled widely. I have seen this country in its infancy. I tell you what it will become. The public squares will be occupied by an uneducated class who will not be able to quote a line of Shakespeare.”
October 2, 2011
Great idea, poorly executed.
This is a fictionalized version of Alexis de Tocqueville's journey to America. Alexis is now "Olivier." His (not really) loyal manservant is Parrot. These two very different Old Worlders (Olivier a rich French aristocrat, Parrot a poor but scrappy Brit) encounter the New World and see how very different life is across the pond.
My big problems with this book were: (1) it was very longwinded and (2) I hated everyone. These are big problems.
Was Alexis de Tocqueville really such a complete twat? Because Olivier certainly was! I kept hoping Parrot would go all The Talented Mr. Ripley on Olivier by killing him and taking his identity. I really thought that's where the book was going and was very disappointed when it never went there (I think it's a bad sign when the reader is rooting for one protagonist to kill off the other).
I really though this book would be bromantic. When the description states that this is a "funny tender portrait of two men who come to form an almost impossible friendship,” that is a promise of bromance, my friends! Sadly, this is not even close to X-Men: First Class or the new Star Trek on the bromance scale. I mean, I did talk about how I wanted Olivier to be killed off, right? The fact is, this could've been bromantic. You start off with the clashing personalities and you end up with blood brothers. But, really, Olivier was pretty douchey to Parrot the entire time. They start off hating each other (Parrot for good reason, Olivier because he’s a prig) and then suddenly there are some (drunken?) confessions and they are besties. Except Parrot still kind of hates Olivier (still for good reason). I think this is a sign of poor writing.
I could've liked Olivier and Parrot. Olivier started out as a douchey aristocrat, but he had the potential to evolve into a more enlightened, likable human being. My favorite scene (frankly, the only part of the book I liked) was the one where Olivier has to explain to the American girl he loves and her father why it's impossible for him to marry the girl in France. Which is: in the eyes of the French aristocracy, she is not good enough. It doesn't matter how great she is or how much money her father has. She's not nobility and never will be. His family are snobs and Olivier finally realizes this. Obviously, the girl and her father do not take this news well. (Personally, I think the girl was mostly pursuing Olivier because he was a French aristocrat and she very much wanted to be a French noblewoman, in large part to tweak her nose at her mother, but this is never fully explored). This was the most human Olivier ever is, but by that time I was so aggravated by him and the way he treated Parrot (and never really redeemed himself in this regard) that I never could get over my ill feelings toward Olivier.
Parrot I also could've liked. He is a survivor and I have a special place in my heart for this type of literary character. There's a certain dark humor and ruthlessness about them that I appreciate. The thing is, Parrot could frankly be aggravating, too, and his "romance" was so frustrating because the girl was SO unworthy and SO annoying I wanted to throttle Parrot for his obtuseness. And also for spending so much time on this lame storyline.
Carey had a good idea here and the outline of good characters but fumbled.
This is a fictionalized version of Alexis de Tocqueville's journey to America. Alexis is now "Olivier." His (not really) loyal manservant is Parrot. These two very different Old Worlders (Olivier a rich French aristocrat, Parrot a poor but scrappy Brit) encounter the New World and see how very different life is across the pond.
My big problems with this book were: (1) it was very longwinded and (2) I hated everyone. These are big problems.
Was Alexis de Tocqueville really such a complete twat? Because Olivier certainly was! I kept hoping Parrot would go all The Talented Mr. Ripley on Olivier by killing him and taking his identity. I really thought that's where the book was going and was very disappointed when it never went there (I think it's a bad sign when the reader is rooting for one protagonist to kill off the other).
I really though this book would be bromantic. When the description states that this is a "funny tender portrait of two men who come to form an almost impossible friendship,” that is a promise of bromance, my friends! Sadly, this is not even close to X-Men: First Class or the new Star Trek on the bromance scale. I mean, I did talk about how I wanted Olivier to be killed off, right? The fact is, this could've been bromantic. You start off with the clashing personalities and you end up with blood brothers. But, really, Olivier was pretty douchey to Parrot the entire time. They start off hating each other (Parrot for good reason, Olivier because he’s a prig) and then suddenly there are some (drunken?) confessions and they are besties. Except Parrot still kind of hates Olivier (still for good reason). I think this is a sign of poor writing.
I could've liked Olivier and Parrot. Olivier started out as a douchey aristocrat, but he had the potential to evolve into a more enlightened, likable human being. My favorite scene (frankly, the only part of the book I liked) was the one where Olivier has to explain to the American girl he loves and her father why it's impossible for him to marry the girl in France. Which is: in the eyes of the French aristocracy, she is not good enough. It doesn't matter how great she is or how much money her father has. She's not nobility and never will be. His family are snobs and Olivier finally realizes this. Obviously, the girl and her father do not take this news well. (Personally, I think the girl was mostly pursuing Olivier because he was a French aristocrat and she very much wanted to be a French noblewoman, in large part to tweak her nose at her mother, but this is never fully explored). This was the most human Olivier ever is, but by that time I was so aggravated by him and the way he treated Parrot (and never really redeemed himself in this regard) that I never could get over my ill feelings toward Olivier.
Parrot I also could've liked. He is a survivor and I have a special place in my heart for this type of literary character. There's a certain dark humor and ruthlessness about them that I appreciate. The thing is, Parrot could frankly be aggravating, too, and his "romance" was so frustrating because the girl was SO unworthy and SO annoying I wanted to throttle Parrot for his obtuseness. And also for spending so much time on this lame storyline.
Carey had a good idea here and the outline of good characters but fumbled.
August 11, 2023
The travelogue of Alexis de Tocqueville is delightfully mocked by two dysfunctional and unwilling companions in this comedic tale of redemption and enlightenment. Each chapter follows either the past or present life of the down and out Englishman John Larrit (nom de guerre Parrot), or the aristocratic and gullible French nobleman Olivier. As Parrot is hired on and used as a mix between a footman and bodyguard to Olivier, we see two characters who couldn’t be more apart in their perspective upbringings, as well as their outlook on society.
Carey has solidly researched the Reign of Terror and the French Revolution to which he drafts young Olivier’s boyhood from, and we begin to see whom of his family and friends have survived the guillotine and prejudices of the mob. Parrot on the other hand grew up with his father, where the duo were constantly on the run, in which they finally settle down at a printer’s shop—only to find that the income and lodging are more trouble than their actual worth. Olivier continuously tests the patience of Parrot, where he uses his privileged status to abuse his “servant” during their shipbound journey to the United States—where they both desire and compete for a young damsel painter. About midway through their embarkation, we see Parrot’s hilarious wit as secretary to the little “master” Olivier, as he changes the text of certain letters drafted for the Frenchman’s aristocratic mother:
…I wrote, for how can a son tell his dearest sweet most upright mother that he has, with no spoken invitation, removed the most intimate garments of a young woman who has run her sable brush across his very manhood and thus produced the ancients, I believe, called “pearls of joy.” Dear Mamma, I wrote, I rogered her. I looked up to find Lord Migraine staring at me. To hell with you, I thought. I laid her on the floor, I wrote, and when the gift was all unwrapped, found a willing partner, a Marseille animal, who refused to be contained by the narrow space between the bunks.
They eventually both settle in New York, and it is here that Carey excels with well-written dialogue and humorous banter between two men whom hold such a deep loathing and antipathy for one another. There are traces of history found throughout, though the novel as a whole is more of an outlook on what democracy and the “American Dream” meant for people coming from different backgrounds and cultures in the early-nineteenth century. The reader can easily find present day similarities and comparisons to both Olivier and Parrot, and it’s because of this that Carey has succeeded in a fun tale that is full of twists and strong character development.
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Carey has solidly researched the Reign of Terror and the French Revolution to which he drafts young Olivier’s boyhood from, and we begin to see whom of his family and friends have survived the guillotine and prejudices of the mob. Parrot on the other hand grew up with his father, where the duo were constantly on the run, in which they finally settle down at a printer’s shop—only to find that the income and lodging are more trouble than their actual worth. Olivier continuously tests the patience of Parrot, where he uses his privileged status to abuse his “servant” during their shipbound journey to the United States—where they both desire and compete for a young damsel painter. About midway through their embarkation, we see Parrot’s hilarious wit as secretary to the little “master” Olivier, as he changes the text of certain letters drafted for the Frenchman’s aristocratic mother:
…I wrote, for how can a son tell his dearest sweet most upright mother that he has, with no spoken invitation, removed the most intimate garments of a young woman who has run her sable brush across his very manhood and thus produced the ancients, I believe, called “pearls of joy.” Dear Mamma, I wrote, I rogered her. I looked up to find Lord Migraine staring at me. To hell with you, I thought. I laid her on the floor, I wrote, and when the gift was all unwrapped, found a willing partner, a Marseille animal, who refused to be contained by the narrow space between the bunks.
They eventually both settle in New York, and it is here that Carey excels with well-written dialogue and humorous banter between two men whom hold such a deep loathing and antipathy for one another. There are traces of history found throughout, though the novel as a whole is more of an outlook on what democracy and the “American Dream” meant for people coming from different backgrounds and cultures in the early-nineteenth century. The reader can easily find present day similarities and comparisons to both Olivier and Parrot, and it’s because of this that Carey has succeeded in a fun tale that is full of twists and strong character development.
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May 16, 2021
The river of aristocracy meets the ocean of the masses in this picaresque novel about Olivier, the French aristocrat being packed off to America during the unsettled times of post-Napoleonic tug-of-war between the monarchy and the republic, and his English servant, Parrot, who is a talented engraver who has never got a break in his homeland.
The French aristocrat relies totally on his servant to organize him, write his letters and generally look after him, but does not treat the man as a human being. The servant on the other hand despises the master but is unable to shake off the yoke of servitude hoisted upon him from birth.
This traditional relationship inverts when the duo arrive in America. The archetypal hero in the new world is the smart business person who can make a buck by hook or by crook, not the aristocratic fop. Therefore Parrot and his band of fellow artists soon start building the publishing business that was to follow in the land of the free, while Olivier studies the prison system in America with intent to report back to France on how the American system is supposed to rehabilitiate and not punish indefinitely. He also falls in love with the daughter of an American industrialist whose sole ambition is to marry into the aristocracy in France. Opposites attract!
Carey's mastery of language is evident as he alternates writing from the first person viewpoints of Olivier and Parrot and really gets us into the heads of these characters, replete with prejudices, experiences, education and station in life. Olivier's narration is stylized and stilted, while Parrot is down to earth. Sights, smells, and the grunge of early 19th century life is vividly brought to life. In fact, the veracity of the prose also slows it down for there is a lot of telling going on which goes against the grain of our 21st century sensibilities.
Of course, the French and the Americans will always remain different. A disappointed Olivier, who will never assimilate into the New World, ruminates to his former servant, "In a democracy,there is not the class with the leisure to acquire discernment and taste of the arts," while Parrot, who has taken to the new continent like a duck to water, looks around at his farm, his family and his growing art business in America, and wonders what he has done wrong.
The French aristocrat relies totally on his servant to organize him, write his letters and generally look after him, but does not treat the man as a human being. The servant on the other hand despises the master but is unable to shake off the yoke of servitude hoisted upon him from birth.
This traditional relationship inverts when the duo arrive in America. The archetypal hero in the new world is the smart business person who can make a buck by hook or by crook, not the aristocratic fop. Therefore Parrot and his band of fellow artists soon start building the publishing business that was to follow in the land of the free, while Olivier studies the prison system in America with intent to report back to France on how the American system is supposed to rehabilitiate and not punish indefinitely. He also falls in love with the daughter of an American industrialist whose sole ambition is to marry into the aristocracy in France. Opposites attract!
Carey's mastery of language is evident as he alternates writing from the first person viewpoints of Olivier and Parrot and really gets us into the heads of these characters, replete with prejudices, experiences, education and station in life. Olivier's narration is stylized and stilted, while Parrot is down to earth. Sights, smells, and the grunge of early 19th century life is vividly brought to life. In fact, the veracity of the prose also slows it down for there is a lot of telling going on which goes against the grain of our 21st century sensibilities.
Of course, the French and the Americans will always remain different. A disappointed Olivier, who will never assimilate into the New World, ruminates to his former servant, "In a democracy,there is not the class with the leisure to acquire discernment and taste of the arts," while Parrot, who has taken to the new continent like a duck to water, looks around at his farm, his family and his growing art business in America, and wonders what he has done wrong.
November 29, 2010
There were times that I absolutely loved this book and there were times when I wondered why I was reading it. The book was sort of a see saw for me as it follows the travels and lives of the two characters, M Parroquet (a jack of all trades) and Olivier de Garmont ( a royal) as they befriend one another and learn what it is that makes American democracy a force to be reckoned with. Since Olivier's grandparents have lost their heads to the guillotine, and although his parents have been spared, Olivier's mother feels it wise to send her son off on a trek to America in the company of Parrot who serves as his servant, confidante and spy. Olivier considers himself a liberal and sets out to discover and explore the prison system in America. While on his journey he discovers his one true love as well as the friendship of a man he treated as a servant.
Parrot finds the shores of America to be welcoming and eventually learns to love this country of opportunity. He becomes the man who is able to adapt while poor Olivier seems to be lost in the relevance of this freedom that Parrot finds so dear.
Based liberally on a person named Tocqueville, Peter Cary follows many directions that the real Tocqueville traveled and adapts much of his background into both of his two characters. Particularly enjoyable to me, was the banter between the two men. Such words as Lord Migraine and other witticisms kept the text lively and made the characters endearing.
It was a good read, but one in which the reader needed patience to go through.
Parrot finds the shores of America to be welcoming and eventually learns to love this country of opportunity. He becomes the man who is able to adapt while poor Olivier seems to be lost in the relevance of this freedom that Parrot finds so dear.
Based liberally on a person named Tocqueville, Peter Cary follows many directions that the real Tocqueville traveled and adapts much of his background into both of his two characters. Particularly enjoyable to me, was the banter between the two men. Such words as Lord Migraine and other witticisms kept the text lively and made the characters endearing.
It was a good read, but one in which the reader needed patience to go through.
March 11, 2019
Revisited for the 2019 Mookse Madness tournament.
Novel set around 1830 and narrated alternately by Parrot (the son of an English engraver killed for unwittingly participating in a Dartmoor counterfeiting ring) and Olivier (the grandson of a Nobel guillotined in the revolution and whose family cautiously support restoration).
The two are linked by an eccentric one armed French aristocrat – lover of Olivier’s wife and who rescued Parrot from the police raid on the Dartmoor ring (before strangely leaving him to be transported to Australia and returning for him years later to act as his art dealer selling off his family inheritance).
Sprawling Pynchonesque type book – interesting reflections on French and particularly US society but the book always feels slightly pretentious and contrived and the reader always slightly one step removed from comprehending the narrative.
Novel set around 1830 and narrated alternately by Parrot (the son of an English engraver killed for unwittingly participating in a Dartmoor counterfeiting ring) and Olivier (the grandson of a Nobel guillotined in the revolution and whose family cautiously support restoration).
The two are linked by an eccentric one armed French aristocrat – lover of Olivier’s wife and who rescued Parrot from the police raid on the Dartmoor ring (before strangely leaving him to be transported to Australia and returning for him years later to act as his art dealer selling off his family inheritance).
Sprawling Pynchonesque type book – interesting reflections on French and particularly US society but the book always feels slightly pretentious and contrived and the reader always slightly one step removed from comprehending the narrative.
July 20, 2011
This was an enjoyable read from a perspective I've never encountered before. Modeled, apparently, on Alexis de Toqueville's writings of his travels in the young nation of the United States, Carey's novel also follows the journey of a young French nobleman who is "banished" abroad for his own well=being during the unrest in France. He is Olivier. Parrot is his sometime servant othertime scribe, traveling companion, fool, etc.
I heartily recommend this novel with one caution....do NOT despair if you find yourself feeling put off while reading the first chapter. Keep reading. Once you arrive at the story of young Parrot and move on from there I think your feelings will change as mine did. Remember, all novels must set up characters initially.
I heartily recommend this novel with one caution....do NOT despair if you find yourself feeling put off while reading the first chapter. Keep reading. Once you arrive at the story of young Parrot and move on from there I think your feelings will change as mine did. Remember, all novels must set up characters initially.
March 6, 2014
Narrated by Humphrey Bower
Alexis de Tocqueville
I 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.
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.
October 22, 2018
When Peter Carey sets a novel in a historical period (as in Jack Maggs, for example) he immerses himself in a scholarship to match his literary brilliance. The result is a transportation in time where language, detail, undercurrents, landscape and nuance all ring perfectly true. In Parrot and Olivier in America we are in the early 19th century. Carey, one of the greatest living writers, captures it perfectly.
This book is more than that. The two eponymous characters are really wonderfully drawn and their intertwining lives drive this story.
Yet, the best thing about the book is the surprise waiting on virtually every page: great sentences. They explode in the reader's mind, like fireworks, like music, like memory.
Parrot (the chapters alternate) thinks this about his 'wife' after a spat and forced abstinence:
Her cheek raised and branded with her mother's slap, Mathilde rushed into my arms, a steam engine, her tears as warm as tea. She was my thumbscrew and rack, I needed no reminding, but I was over four weeks bottled, stoppered, closed, and in our fifth-floor room, the industrious river in full view, the ships' rigging canvas slapping at their masts, I sued for peace.
And this, describing how Mathilde's father was an unwilling victim of Napoleon's lust for dominance:
Within a year, he gave La Patrie the drink she craved, his hot garlic soup of blood which froze into the churned-up snow. He bequeated his daughter a burning rage.
Damn, he's good.
The ending (the summing up), perhaps, could only be written by a foreigner who chose to make America his home and can remind us so eloquently of what a wonderful experiment we really are.
This book is more than that. The two eponymous characters are really wonderfully drawn and their intertwining lives drive this story.
Yet, the best thing about the book is the surprise waiting on virtually every page: great sentences. They explode in the reader's mind, like fireworks, like music, like memory.
Parrot (the chapters alternate) thinks this about his 'wife' after a spat and forced abstinence:
Her cheek raised and branded with her mother's slap, Mathilde rushed into my arms, a steam engine, her tears as warm as tea. She was my thumbscrew and rack, I needed no reminding, but I was over four weeks bottled, stoppered, closed, and in our fifth-floor room, the industrious river in full view, the ships' rigging canvas slapping at their masts, I sued for peace.
And this, describing how Mathilde's father was an unwilling victim of Napoleon's lust for dominance:
Within a year, he gave La Patrie the drink she craved, his hot garlic soup of blood which froze into the churned-up snow. He bequeated his daughter a burning rage.
Damn, he's good.
The ending (the summing up), perhaps, could only be written by a foreigner who chose to make America his home and can remind us so eloquently of what a wonderful experiment we really are.
November 3, 2010
This book was laborious, but I enjoyed the last third of it much more than the beginning so that is freshest in my mind. The characters are pretty unlikable, particularly Olivier, but the whole point seems to be the contrast between the fading French aristocracy and the juvenile democratic nation of America, right on the brink of its own civil war. Carey seems to have a lot to say toward the end about the failings of democracy, and it almost feels like he wrote the book around that concept. But as today is the day after a disappointing election in the states (from my perspective), I am not feeling far from these sentiments.
Parrot and Olivier in America was shortlisted for the Booker in 2010, but did not win, and was also listed as a finalist for the National Book Award in the U.S. Definitely not my favorite from the Bookers, and I haven't read any of the other novels nominated for the National Book Award yet. From a historical novel perspective, I think it has an interesting viewpoint.
"...Democracy. It is a truly lovely flower, a tiny tender fruit, but it will not ripen well."
Parrot and Olivier in America was shortlisted for the Booker in 2010, but did not win, and was also listed as a finalist for the National Book Award in the U.S. Definitely not my favorite from the Bookers, and I haven't read any of the other novels nominated for the National Book Award yet. From a historical novel perspective, I think it has an interesting viewpoint.
"...Democracy. It is a truly lovely flower, a tiny tender fruit, but it will not ripen well."
March 20, 2011
Oh, Peter Carey is a hooligan, a rough lad, a clever boy. He takes the opportunity this novel provides to lampoon the national character of France and America, though he went rather easier on the British and Australians. But what a send-up it is! Glorious with imagined scenes of snobbery and pomp in royalist France, and rife with grim scenes of those money-making (literally: counterfeiting) British printers, he moves a youngish Olivier, French aristocrat and lawyer, and his secrétaire, the former counterfeiter John Larrit (nicknamed Parrot), to America, ostensibly to investigate the state of American prisons. In America, Olivier had heard, prison management was trying something completely unprecedented: rehabilitation as opposed to life-long penitance.
Modelled on Alexis de Tocqueville’s (short for Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville) chatty travelogue Democracy in America, Olivier de Garmont’s (full name Olivier-Jean-Baptiste de Clarel de Garmont) book of the same name will surely be “the greatest book on the habits of new country” yet written. Narrated in amusing voice by Humphrey Bower, Parrot and Olivier in America illustrates with broad swathes of the pen-as-sword, the industrious and plebian democratists making a country they can live in. The young women of this new country are deliciously uninhibited, and the young men have a romantic notion they can aspire to greatness. The aristocrat and his secretary are both irrevocably changed by their term in America, become friends, and learn to live as equals. It is a journey both instructive and humorous, and we thank Peter Carey for turning his gimlet eye on our specificities.
Modelled on Alexis de Tocqueville’s (short for Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville) chatty travelogue Democracy in America, Olivier de Garmont’s (full name Olivier-Jean-Baptiste de Clarel de Garmont) book of the same name will surely be “the greatest book on the habits of new country” yet written. Narrated in amusing voice by Humphrey Bower, Parrot and Olivier in America illustrates with broad swathes of the pen-as-sword, the industrious and plebian democratists making a country they can live in. The young women of this new country are deliciously uninhibited, and the young men have a romantic notion they can aspire to greatness. The aristocrat and his secretary are both irrevocably changed by their term in America, become friends, and learn to live as equals. It is a journey both instructive and humorous, and we thank Peter Carey for turning his gimlet eye on our specificities.
September 3, 2014
A romp through 1830’s America in the company of two Europeans who serve as alternate narrators. Parrot, the elder, is the son of an English printer of great skill and dubious connections. His younger companion is Olivier, a French aristocrat whose character and background are based on Alexis de Toqueville, author of Democracy in America. The alleged purpose of their visit to America is Olivier’s “plan” to write a book about American prisons, much as Toqueville and his traveling companion planned. But the reality is somewhat different. The voices are perfection; the book is worth reading just to eavesdrop. The entire adventure is good fun (very similar to the fun in Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones); most interesting is everyone’s views of society, culture, art in Europe and America both from the French Revolution until the mid-nineteenth century. Enjoy.
February 12, 2019
If nothing else, Peter Carey varies his subject matter and the ambition in his writing style. Parrot and Olivier ... is a fictionalised account of Alexis de Tocqueville’s response to the newly independent America of the early c19th.
Carey imbues his leading characters with, alternately, old world manners (in both the French and American passages), and new world ambition “from rags to riches”. Parrot (Perroquet/John Larritt) (b.1781) finishes the book as the embodiment of personal re-invention and self advancement.
The book is written in an unusual, and sometimes challenging style. Olivier and Parrot have alternate chapters where each is the primary narrator. Each comment on the other, so it creates alternate, parallel accounts of events. The back story (of Parrot particularly) emerges gradually, often seemingly at random in the middle of a chapter.
I enjoyed the book, and it was a return to Carey many years after my first awareness of him. As a reader I am conscious of a writer at ease with his craft, writing fluently and easily. a bloated horse whose shiny green bowels rose like an awful luminous bubble from the chiaroscuro night (26)
Something though was missing and whole is greater than the sum of the parts. The central relationship, between Parrot and Olivier didn’t engage sufficiently. The alternative narrator , and jumpy timeline writing style didn’t help in this respect, but it was more than that. The interaction between the two protagonists felt rather forced and convoluted. I think it’s that the character Olivier (modeled on de Tocqueville) is not especially engaging. This is particularly in evidence on arrival in America and the on/off engagement to Amelia Godefroy.
By contrast, Parrot’s love interest, Mathilda, is altogether a more mercurial, even raunchy personality. More of her and less of Amelia would have been welcome.
Carey imbues his leading characters with, alternately, old world manners (in both the French and American passages), and new world ambition “from rags to riches”. Parrot (Perroquet/John Larritt) (b.1781) finishes the book as the embodiment of personal re-invention and self advancement.
The book is written in an unusual, and sometimes challenging style. Olivier and Parrot have alternate chapters where each is the primary narrator. Each comment on the other, so it creates alternate, parallel accounts of events. The back story (of Parrot particularly) emerges gradually, often seemingly at random in the middle of a chapter.
I enjoyed the book, and it was a return to Carey many years after my first awareness of him. As a reader I am conscious of a writer at ease with his craft, writing fluently and easily. a bloated horse whose shiny green bowels rose like an awful luminous bubble from the chiaroscuro night (26)
Something though was missing and whole is greater than the sum of the parts. The central relationship, between Parrot and Olivier didn’t engage sufficiently. The alternative narrator , and jumpy timeline writing style didn’t help in this respect, but it was more than that. The interaction between the two protagonists felt rather forced and convoluted. I think it’s that the character Olivier (modeled on de Tocqueville) is not especially engaging. This is particularly in evidence on arrival in America and the on/off engagement to Amelia Godefroy.
By contrast, Parrot’s love interest, Mathilda, is altogether a more mercurial, even raunchy personality. More of her and less of Amelia would have been welcome.
March 6, 2016
I really dragged my feet about reading this. I needed a really good book after my 2 previous disappointments, and I also just purchased a used copy of Wild Sheep Chase. A Murakami I've been wanting to read! However I felt I owed it to Carey to at least try this, since it's a library book and I was on hold for quite awhile. So I'm especially pleased to find this is delightful so far!
Finished! The writing is exquisite, the story delightful. I wanted to wring Olivier's neck the first half, he's such a snob! But amazingly I come to understand him, a child of the guillotine, an aristocrat who no longer has any place in the world. He tries his best to make his way but ultimately the world is no longer his and he knows it. Very thought provoking to see his take on a young America, the world of democracy. Can art and culture survive as there is no more leisure class who can profoundly attend to it? He thinks it's doomed as the masses take over with the newspapers leading them around telling them what to think, and ultimately political tyrants will rise in the future. But at this time townships are truly democractic, with everything discussed and worked out at a local level.
Loved Parrot, and as book proceeds we learn more and more about him
Carey manages to make us feel for all his characters.
Finished! The writing is exquisite, the story delightful. I wanted to wring Olivier's neck the first half, he's such a snob! But amazingly I come to understand him, a child of the guillotine, an aristocrat who no longer has any place in the world. He tries his best to make his way but ultimately the world is no longer his and he knows it. Very thought provoking to see his take on a young America, the world of democracy. Can art and culture survive as there is no more leisure class who can profoundly attend to it? He thinks it's doomed as the masses take over with the newspapers leading them around telling them what to think, and ultimately political tyrants will rise in the future. But at this time townships are truly democractic, with everything discussed and worked out at a local level.
Loved Parrot, and as book proceeds we learn more and more about him
Carey manages to make us feel for all his characters.
July 26, 2020
Whew, that’s done. A tedious, irregular read that was occasionally amusing and not quite interesting enough to draw the reading through.
May 4, 2010
A good book needs to be more than a good story. It needs to have language that entices. Add a dash of history and I'm hooked. Parrot & Olivier in America gave me everything I love in a book, but that's becoming increasingly hard to find. Action, adventure, conflict, elegant prose (but not so much as to be distracting). It's a story of two men from vastly different backgrounds, one a noble of France, the other a printing engraver/almost artist. They tell the same story in their own words. We learn about their backgrounds first. Then we read their points of view of the same encounters. This is a young America. Olivier is sent here by parents afraid for his safety (think French revolution) and Parrot is sent along to act as scribe for Olivier's supposed treatise on prisons in the new America. Olivier is astounded by this fledgling republic, as well as his new secretary. Parrot discovers the man he can become...as does Olivier. Loved this book!
March 31, 2011
If you’ve heard anything at all about this book, you know that it’s inspired by Alexis de Tocqueville, the French aristocrat who in the early 1800’s wrote what was considered an influential and insightful portrait of young America. Olivier was Alexis in roughly the same way that Cate Blanchett was Bob Dylan. Historical fiction that’s inspired by real people, and that doesn’t even use real names, is free to make up relationships, back stories, dialogue, and events to make the narrative more interesting. In this case, that proved a somewhat elusive goal. It tended to drag at times.
The premise was a good one. It began in post-Revolutionary France where young Olivier, his family, and their fortunes were on a roller coaster headed primarily down. His blood remained bleu, though. Parrot was a different story – literally. He and Olivier traded first person accounts throughout the book, and spent a fair amount of it without overlap. In contrast to his noble counterpart, Parrot was not to the manor born. Along with his itinerant father he ended up working for a printer that they later learned ran a side operation making “legal” tender. This was frowned upon in certain circles and poor Master Parrot found himself separated and made the servant of a shady one-armed Frenchman. The scene was set for adventure.
After a series of filler stories (less adventurous than you might hope), the two finally joined on a boat ride to America. Parrot acted as Olivier’s secretary, scribe, and de facto servant. In the beginning they shared a mutual distrust for each other. Of course, it was easy to predict that this would not last. That said, they took their sweet time about it. And the rapprochement was never fully intact, it seemed. Maybe part of the reason for this was that neither was altogether deserving of respect; Olivier especially, I’d say. It was like the whole of their time in the states they alternated between good traits and bad ones. Tick-tock, to and fro, back and forth – it got so I didn’t care anymore how they might end up on my ledger of likability.
I’ve probably made this sound too negative. There were two aspects of the book that I did like. One was seeing how, or whether, Parrot would reinvent himself in the Land of Opportunity. The rags to riches theme was a big one. The other thing I liked was Olivier’s reaction to the unadulterated democracy (and meritocracy) that he witnessed. He was astute enough to recognize the vast differences compared to the status-conscious European way of things, but was also reluctant to cede his class prerogative. He thought it was notable how everybody in America works, how land was up for grabs (even for the common folks), how a simple woodsman (Andrew Jackson) could become President, and how it was that a farmer’s youngest son could possibly hope to rise above his station. His snobbery was on full display when he talked about how provincial this new world seemed and how dangerous it was for the “tyranny of the majority” to trump those who were born to make more informed decisions in matters of style and state. Those parts of the book made me curious enough about the real de Tocqueville to read the wiki entry. Let’s give credit to Carey for that, at least.
The premise was a good one. It began in post-Revolutionary France where young Olivier, his family, and their fortunes were on a roller coaster headed primarily down. His blood remained bleu, though. Parrot was a different story – literally. He and Olivier traded first person accounts throughout the book, and spent a fair amount of it without overlap. In contrast to his noble counterpart, Parrot was not to the manor born. Along with his itinerant father he ended up working for a printer that they later learned ran a side operation making “legal” tender. This was frowned upon in certain circles and poor Master Parrot found himself separated and made the servant of a shady one-armed Frenchman. The scene was set for adventure.
After a series of filler stories (less adventurous than you might hope), the two finally joined on a boat ride to America. Parrot acted as Olivier’s secretary, scribe, and de facto servant. In the beginning they shared a mutual distrust for each other. Of course, it was easy to predict that this would not last. That said, they took their sweet time about it. And the rapprochement was never fully intact, it seemed. Maybe part of the reason for this was that neither was altogether deserving of respect; Olivier especially, I’d say. It was like the whole of their time in the states they alternated between good traits and bad ones. Tick-tock, to and fro, back and forth – it got so I didn’t care anymore how they might end up on my ledger of likability.
I’ve probably made this sound too negative. There were two aspects of the book that I did like. One was seeing how, or whether, Parrot would reinvent himself in the Land of Opportunity. The rags to riches theme was a big one. The other thing I liked was Olivier’s reaction to the unadulterated democracy (and meritocracy) that he witnessed. He was astute enough to recognize the vast differences compared to the status-conscious European way of things, but was also reluctant to cede his class prerogative. He thought it was notable how everybody in America works, how land was up for grabs (even for the common folks), how a simple woodsman (Andrew Jackson) could become President, and how it was that a farmer’s youngest son could possibly hope to rise above his station. His snobbery was on full display when he talked about how provincial this new world seemed and how dangerous it was for the “tyranny of the majority” to trump those who were born to make more informed decisions in matters of style and state. Those parts of the book made me curious enough about the real de Tocqueville to read the wiki entry. Let’s give credit to Carey for that, at least.
May 26, 2013
Ugh! Finally finished! I don't understand why this book was on the best sellers list. The writing was awful, to start. So many times I thought Character A was in place X only to read on and find out he was in actually place Y. I would re-read the section and sometimes it was because I misunderstood the author and sometimes it was because the writing was confusing. It was difficult to discern when characters were angry and when they were not. Their inner monolog was not but when they spoke to someone they were. Ahhh! The author used terms that I was not familiar with -- a lot! That's not to say I am beyond picking up a dictionary to look up a word. Many of the terms were related to items of the era (I have wiped them all from my mind so I don't have any examples to share); there were too many and I didn't deem them central to the story to bother to stop my reading and look them up. But they were a distraction. And speaking of distractions, what is with all of the italicized words? At first I thought it was because he was using French words. Ok, I get that. But the more I read, the less French they became. Was it for emphasis? Not always. I could find no consistent rhyme or reason for the italicization.
The characters were a little flat, if not a tad whiny. The background of the two main characters did not seem to tie in to the current-day story. And I really could have cared less if either of them continued to be in the story or not.
So the real question is WHY did I continue to read it? The only reasons I can give for not dropping this book are: (1) there was just enough of a story line to keep me interested -- I wanted to see how it unfolded and had hopes it might right itself and (2) there is something in me that finds it hard to not complete a book that is not completely and utterly bad, so the challenge was to slog through to the end.
I guess I'll stick to the non-mainstream fiction.
The characters were a little flat, if not a tad whiny. The background of the two main characters did not seem to tie in to the current-day story. And I really could have cared less if either of them continued to be in the story or not.
So the real question is WHY did I continue to read it? The only reasons I can give for not dropping this book are: (1) there was just enough of a story line to keep me interested -- I wanted to see how it unfolded and had hopes it might right itself and (2) there is something in me that finds it hard to not complete a book that is not completely and utterly bad, so the challenge was to slog through to the end.
I guess I'll stick to the non-mainstream fiction.
March 5, 2019
Interesting historical fiction about early 19th century French and American history... some of the plot lines were a bit vague but overall an interesting read...if you don't know much about the 1790-1835 period in US and France you should try this book.
May 10, 2020
A fantastical, epic, Dickensian romp with more than a grain of truth about class and culture. This was wonderful to listen to as an audio book as the narration was lively and the humour well executed.
February 19, 2011
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 is a young boy, who wonders with his father and together they look for work. In France, we meet the son of nobles (“Oliver) who both fear the revolution and embrace the ideals that spur it. The stories of both boys/men develop until years later in the 1800s, when Olivier’s parents decide to send him to America to escape the guillotine that has killed so many members of their family and social circle. The author reinvents and imagines Alexis de Toqueville’s trip through America in Parrot and Olivier, Toqueville is represented by Olivier and through both Parrot’s (a servant) and Oliver’s (a noble) travel to America and first experiences of the democracy experiment. Through Parrot, we see a servant with a heartbreaking background, and enthusiasm for the idea that he can remake himself and create industry. Through Olivier we see an initial positive reaction of a noble who is enthused over the ideals of democracy that he has studied, but then a fear of the majority and the masses. Both Parrot and Olivier reinvent themselves and then, revert back to what they were raised to be. For Parrot, this is going back to when he was a child with incredible artistic skill, before the was forced to be a servant of the nobility by circumstance. And for Olivier, it is a reversion back to his noble roots as he fears a nation that will be ruled by whimsy, current desire, uneducated masses and leaders who are not smarter than their citizens. Clearly, the author is making a comment about American politics at this point, but it was an interesting read. Inspiring me to go back and re-read Democracy in America, which I haven’t looked at since undergrad. There is such hope in this book, hope to create something new, to be something beyond what we were given to start with.
July 30, 2012
I was delighted to experience this novel in audiobook form, which made the diction and language of the two main characters come alive, one a French artistocrat, Olivier, and another his English secretary, Larrit from the working class (called �Parrot� because of his red hair). This old fashioned novel that brings together these two very different Europeans for a sojourn in America in the 1830�s, ostensibly for Olivier to report on the U.S. penal system, but really as a means for his parents to keep him, a royalist, safe from the purges after the French Revolution. Parrot most easily engages our sympathies because of his tough pathway to survival as a printer and engraver and his satirical humor, but Olivier�s snobbery softens over time as he comes to appreciate the American social experiment, gets humbled by the love of a particular young Connecticut woman in particular, and comes to respect the resourcefulness and artistic ambitions of his secretary/servant. The story illustrates the vitality and precariousness both of the new democracy and of a deep friendship that cuts across class.
January 15, 2013
Is there a shelf for "tried to read"? I'm not a huge Peter Carey fan, but I did read and enjoy Oscar and Lucinda, and the premise of this sounded intriguing. I got exactly 5 pages in before feeling an almost irresistible urge to hurl this book across the room. Now, it may very well be that Carey, in presenting us with Olivier as narrator, surely one of the most pretentious, self-obsessed, pseudo-literary characters to ever appear within the pages of a novel, was trying to poke fun at said character, and we're meant to get the joke and tag along. But I did not get that impression at all, nor did I get any hope that said character would markedly, or rapidly, change over the course of the novel. Olivier is a spoiled young nobleman who in the first two pages attempts to make an epic metaphor out of an old wooden bicycle found in his attic and whines self-importantly about his mother's overprotectiveness. Worse, what I heard in that voice was Carey, not Olivier himself. COY is the ultimate word to describe the tone of this novel - I can't stomach any more after the first 5 pages. Goodbye Parrot and Olivier. It was short and unpleasant.
February 22, 2010
Carey has twice won the award that most often co-insides with my own perfect taste, the Man Booker. I'm sure we both remember my rants on that prize so I won't go there again. Anyway, Carey has won the Booker for Oscar and Lucinda (1988) and The True History of the Kelly Gang (2001) and he was on the short list for Illywhacker (1984). Impressive. There have been many other awards and nominations along the way for Carey but for now I'm going to ignore those. Just know they are numerous.
So? Parrot and Olivier in America? Despite my deep love for the collected works of Peter Carey I had one concern prior to beginning this novel. I knew from reading the book jacket that this book was inspired by the life of Alexis de Tocqueville and 'in America' is right there in the title. So... That has got to mean that the novel will be examining the U.S. and frankly I was not interested in reading a new and improved Democracy In America bashing novel. I get enough of that in my newspapers, in line at the Post Office and my brother-in-law to get me through my day. As it turned out my worries were for naught. I should have known. This is Peter Carey! Parrot and Olivier is not a retelling of Democracy In America so much as it's the you cannot turn away banjo playing cousin.
The narrative alternates between Olivier a priggish, indulged son of French nobles who were traumatized by the terrors of the Revolution and the very downtrodden and mysterious Parrot. When Papa and Mama discovery little Olivier's involvement with Napoleon supporters they are scandalized. They send him away to America for his own protection. Not trusting Olivier to be able to take care of himself and stay out of trouble in the wilderness they hire John Larrit (a.k.a. Parrot because of his ability to mimic)) to be their spy and Olivier's servant, secretary and protector. Olivier and Parrot take an instant hatred to each other. Olivier's blue blood wants nothing to do with the bastard son of an engraver, a survivor of the Australian penal system. Parrot's artistic soul and outlaw ways dismiss Olivier as an inbred fop.
Once in America Olivier and Parrot's points of view are even wider apart. Olivier's snobbish disdain for the New World only slackens when he falls in love with a Connecticut woman. Otherwise all of America is big rude, dirty, money grubbing wasteland to him. Parrot's opinions are a bit more varied, but this isn't a paradise for him either. As the novel progresses and each of our narrators have more adventures and we see America through two very different sets of eyes and experiences the novel gets more fun. The numerous walk ons add to the deceptively haphazard events. Our guides are far too self centered to see what lies beyond their current situation. Parrot and Olivier's relationship does change over the course of the novel. They gradually and grudgingly go from servant and master to...ummmm... friends.
Peter Carey is an amazing writer. A writer who takes chances with each new novel and gets better with each novel. In Olivier and Parrot in America his glorious characters ramble through a confused, vaudevillian America. Carey keeps them oblivious to much but their situations and attitudes illuminate the ideals and failures of the young democracy. Carey's language is rich and powerful. A delectable treat! Parrot and Olivier in America is joy ride through through the preciousness of history.
December 21, 2014
Parrot and Olivier are a bit like The Prince and The Pauper: one born into crippling poverty and the other surrounded by more money than he can possibly imagine.
I did say " a bit", so the similarity between the two stories ends here.
The reader meets both when they are children, living very different lives. Parrot is English and Olivier de Garmont is French aristocracy (though deposed for the moment). The story then stops abruptly and we rejoin both when they are adults.
They are thrown together by those who surround them and come together with no liking or sympathy for each other. Parrot's story is revealed to us in interrupted chunks and we fill in the gaps of his turbulent life. We also quickly catch up with Olivier's life, which is not free of adventures.
I really enjoyed Peter Carey's description of an early America, the early years of that country with their republican and democratic zeal. I loved the vivid descriptions of the people and their behaviour, as well as, the soul he breathed into both Parrot and Olivier. As someone else said in their review on Goodreads, if you can get beyond the first chapter, the story becomes a fascinating tale.
I've had de Tocqueville's Democracy in America on my shelf for 3 years now and have wanted to read it for probably 10 more years. The study of America in its infancy is one that keeps me fascinated, but I haven't yet made a dent in the rather large tome which sits in the non-fiction section of my shelves. Peter Carey lists a few more books on the life of Alexis de Tocqueville in the back of Parrot and Olivier, which means that I've now added those to my wishlist.
Parrot and Olivier teased me from the library bookshelves for weeks before I finally borrowed it. Faced with a mountain of books to read in my house, but curious and always willing to explore and borrow more, I took the plunge for Kimbofo's Australian Literature Month (http://kimbofo.typepad.com/readingmat...). I'm glad I did.
My only complaint comes from the interrupted nature of this book. Carey skips years ahead (which is ok) and then presents each man's viewpoint in alternating chapters (which is also ok). The stories had me so gripped, though, that I would often get to the end of Parrot's chapter and want to know what happened next, so I'd skip Olivier's chapter to find out. I'd then go back to Olivier, skip Parrot's chapter and then move onto the next Olivier chapter. It was a confusing way to read, but Carey's suspense at the end of many chapters tested my patience. In the end, I raced through the last 100 pages in one day, staying up way past my bedtime to finish this marvelous story.
I did say " a bit", so the similarity between the two stories ends here.
The reader meets both when they are children, living very different lives. Parrot is English and Olivier de Garmont is French aristocracy (though deposed for the moment). The story then stops abruptly and we rejoin both when they are adults.
They are thrown together by those who surround them and come together with no liking or sympathy for each other. Parrot's story is revealed to us in interrupted chunks and we fill in the gaps of his turbulent life. We also quickly catch up with Olivier's life, which is not free of adventures.
I really enjoyed Peter Carey's description of an early America, the early years of that country with their republican and democratic zeal. I loved the vivid descriptions of the people and their behaviour, as well as, the soul he breathed into both Parrot and Olivier. As someone else said in their review on Goodreads, if you can get beyond the first chapter, the story becomes a fascinating tale.
I've had de Tocqueville's Democracy in America on my shelf for 3 years now and have wanted to read it for probably 10 more years. The study of America in its infancy is one that keeps me fascinated, but I haven't yet made a dent in the rather large tome which sits in the non-fiction section of my shelves. Peter Carey lists a few more books on the life of Alexis de Tocqueville in the back of Parrot and Olivier, which means that I've now added those to my wishlist.
Parrot and Olivier teased me from the library bookshelves for weeks before I finally borrowed it. Faced with a mountain of books to read in my house, but curious and always willing to explore and borrow more, I took the plunge for Kimbofo's Australian Literature Month (http://kimbofo.typepad.com/readingmat...). I'm glad I did.
My only complaint comes from the interrupted nature of this book. Carey skips years ahead (which is ok) and then presents each man's viewpoint in alternating chapters (which is also ok). The stories had me so gripped, though, that I would often get to the end of Parrot's chapter and want to know what happened next, so I'd skip Olivier's chapter to find out. I'd then go back to Olivier, skip Parrot's chapter and then move onto the next Olivier chapter. It was a confusing way to read, but Carey's suspense at the end of many chapters tested my patience. In the end, I raced through the last 100 pages in one day, staying up way past my bedtime to finish this marvelous story.
July 20, 2020
Much of the novel was a four star read, but there was enough about it that I didn't appreciate to downgrade it to three. ie those sections that seemed like the author was being too self indulgent. Where the author had done all his research and character building, and therefore had to include everything, even though it made the story dip into the mundane at times (mostly in the last 150 pages). So, I give it 3 1/2 stars. Peter Carey is still my favourite author. And I still liked this read, I just didn't love it like those Carey books I read before it.
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